Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1885-06-06
The Agricultural Interest and Public Pros
Nashville American.


Nashville American.
1 Prosperity is OF two kinds, govern
mental and individual A country.
State, IL city, may have its treasury fill
ed To repletion, and yet individuall
the people may be poor and hard
pressed This has occurred severa
times since 1874 In 1873, for instanc
the cotfers OF the Government wer
iilled with money, and in subsequen
/ wears this money accumulated NOR
rapidly than was necessary to meet til
maturity of the public debt, aud we
for tive or six years after the financia
1 panic of 1873 trade was greatly de
! pressed. and stagnation reigned il
almost all classes Of business. TIL,
financial standing of the country ha
been so good that interest on the pub
lie debt has gone down until 3 pei
cent bonds are quoted at 103, anc
sometimes even higher. The Govern
| ment, with all its Indebtedness, j.
stronger financially than ever before
and is in more healthy and prosper
ons condition. A large indebtedness
is not only not incompatible with d
healthy financial condition, but in
many cases seems to improve it
During Buchanan's administration the
Government paid as high as IL per
cent. for money, with an Indebtedness
OF IA little over $50,O00O00. In 1885
the Government, with an indebtedness
forty times as great, gets all the money
it wants at per cent
The financial status OF country,
however, is no index to the financial
condition of the people. The very fact
that the Government levies, either
directly or indirectly, large amounts
for taxes, may burden private business
so heavily as to seriously injure it.
The wasteful extravaganza in pub
lie matters, the result OF large accu-
mutations in the national, State or
city treasury, is one of the great evils
of our day. Millions are wasted away
without proper consideration, and the
expenses of the civil list is yearly in
creasing. All this initiates against
private prosperity. The great army
of officeholders have to be paid out of
the scanty earnings of the misses.
No class of people feel these burdens
as much as the farmer. His business
is ultimate. The merchants, the
manufacturers, the railroads, the
professional man, all other classes in
deed may throw the bulk oi their
burdens back upon the farmer. His
class constitutes the great body OF
consumers in this country. Whatever
tax the merchant pays Is added to the
price OF his goods; whatever tax the
manufacturer paw is added To the cost
of his wares, az s.h it goes all along
the line. Bu the farmer when he
purchases the goods must pay for all
this increased taxation. He does not
iix the price upon the goods he buys,
nor upon the produce which he sells.
If prosperity reaches him it is an acci-
dent, for he is virtually reduced by
all other classes to the narrowest mar
gin OF profit sgsf4 E.s-
Wise legislators, therefore, and pa
triotic political leaders, will, in shaping
their laws and p'llcies, look primarily
to the interest OF the agricultural
classes. This is not demagogy, as
some of the political leaders OF our
own day would have us think; it is
craftsmanship 1t is recognized
in all forms of civil govern
ment : 1t is so in England, where the
landed interest furnishes the prepon-
derant influence in the government,
despite the admirable and successful
Industrial progress of the English
people during the past fifty years, 1t
is SO in France, where the rural peas
antry forms the life and backbone OF
the nation. 1t is so in Germany,
where the protection of he agricul-
tural classes has been pushed even to
the cruel expedient of a tariff tax ON
1t is so in Russia, the
mighty empire which has spent mil
lions of money and thousands of lives
in her South Asian conquests during
the past twenty years, and is now pre-
pairing to make war upon Great Britain,
SIMPLY to gain an outlet for her south
ern wheat belt. 1t is pre-eminently SO
in America, possessing within her bor-
ders the most complete and diversified
agricultural territory on the face of the |
globe. And it is well for this country |
that she has still left some public men |
who are old fashioned enough to be- /
ieve that the agricultural interest is
,he life, blood OF national prosperity, |
md who study the economies of public
inance primarily with reference to the |
welfare OF the tiller of the soil.