The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1888-08-21

drive out to other States a large
amount Of capital, and the remaining
capital would be taken up by wealthy
borrowers, leaving the masses without
any showing for borrowing money to
meet an emergency.
There is another feature of the Ma
tional Bank act that is a dangerous
power for a government to part with.
It is the power to contract the cur
rency at pleasure and without notice.
The law gives each bank having a
capital of over $15O,000 the privilege
to reduce it's circulation to $4,000,
and banks having under $3.50, 0O0, to
one-fourth their capital. This is done
by placing legal tender notes in the
United States Treasury and withdraw
ing the bonds on which the circulation
was based. The Comptroller Of the
Currency reports October 31st, 1887,
the National Bank capital at $685.
462, 1855, and the National Bank notes
outstanding at $167,283,343 This
statement indicates that the National
Bank circulation is contracted over
S35O,000, 900; add to it the surplus OF
$3.50, 0O0, 900, in United States Treas
ury, and we have a currency con-
tracted by over $500, 900, 600, a sum
sufficient to add materially to the
purchasing power of the dollar and
depreciate labor and property.
With such a money system, with
syndicates controlling the transporta-
ton of the people with power to tax
"all the traffic will bear, with trusts,
combines and %monopolies controlling
not only the Injuries, but the neces-
saries of life, where shall we look for
relief? 1t will thus appear that the
merchants are their unappointed and
unwilling tax gatherers whose environ
ments COMPEL them to act as they do;
and yet with all their labor, how few
of them have accumulated a respect
able fortune !? Steam and electricity
have centralized our government.
The National Government alone has
power to correct these evils, and to it
and not elsewhere must we look.
In our State the burden of taxation
falls most heavily upon our country
people, They are required to pay all
the tax for opening and keeping in
repair public roads and highways.
This tax amounts to more than all the
other taxes levied for State purposes.
It is the system originated by the
Feudal Barons in the dark ages, and
introduced here by the slave owners,
and ought to have died with slavery,
for next to slavery the condition of
our public roads has retarded the
development of our State. Those
who uphold this law, assign as their
reason that the poor white man and
the negro pay but little of the other
tax, and it is the only way to get any
thing from them. If this be true,
why tax the poor white man and
negro of the country and exempt the
poor white man and negro of the
towns? Why tax the rich man of
the country and exempt the rich man
of the towns ? AS we'll might the
country people demand that the town
people pay all the court and jail ex.
penses because the court houses: and
jails are located in the towns. Good
roads to towns increase trade and re-
duce the cost of living to the people
and are as essential to them as to
country people, for a town blockaded
every winter with mud is as helpless
as a wagon without wheels.
While we learn from week to week,
through a superb agricultural press,
the improvements and ~advancements
in agriculture, we should not forget
that it is our duty to demand of the
State and National Governments to
give us that protection that will insure
us the just benefits of our labor and
to remove from us burdens that we
ought not to bear. With the control
OF railroads, t~elegraphs and the money
system, it is possible for syndicates,
trust, combines and monopolies to rob
a people without owning the land as
completely as the Barons of old, who
owned the land and claimed the peo-
pie as vassals.o ?; Our danger is in being
reduced to poverty and rendered help
less, and the danger Of the great army
of railroad and telegraph employers is
in being dependent; they may become
servile. The great number of strikes
made by them show they possess an
uncommon manhood, but as the syn
dicates, trusts, combines and monopo-
lies increase in power the struggle is