The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1889-10-17
For the Inte9ligeneer.
WORDS OF WISDOM.
Some of the Principles of Political Econo.
my Applied to Agriculture:
No, 8.

No. 8.
AS previously intinated, it is part of
our purpose TO show that 1t ls our true
interest to invest a large portion of this
capital in building up manufactures,
aud that we should become manufacture
ers as we'll as farmers, if re would
accomplish the full measure of our indie.
pendence. By embarking in the bust
ness of manufacturing, we would increase
the value of our farm lands and farm
products, and likewise enhance the
wages of labor. This subject is illus
trated in recent number of the Phila.
delphia Press, BY comparison between
some Of the manufacturing States North,
and South Carolina, which depends
almost wholly on agriculture. It says,
in substance, that according to the Ag-
ricultural Department report the average
value of farm lands in this State is from
S. to $40 per acre, but in Massachusetts
the average value is 1882, in Rhode
Island S50.37, in Connecticut s4934,
with a corresponding difference in other
manufacturing States. There is the
same contrast in the wages paid agricul.
tural laborers. In New York the aver
age,. with board, last year (1S88) was
S16.90 per month, in Massachusetts S18,
in Pennsylvania SIG, and in Ohio SIS.
But in South Carolina it was So, which
is said to be an advance of the wages
previously paid, attributable to the
increased value of products, the result of
the growth of manufactures. In North
Carolina wages we're SO, and in Georgia
1881, and in other Southern States in
proportion. This, it says, was for farm
labor alone, and shows incontestibly that
the farmer in the manufacturing States
not only gets great deal more for the
produce of his soil, but that the laborer
also gets twice as much as in purely
agricultural communities.
These facts and figures furnish strong.
proof of the Importance of our engaging
in the business of manufacturing.
Welded to the notion that we are purely
agricultural people, we have left this
important business to the enterprise and
industry of Others, when there is no rea.
son whatever Why it should not be as
successfully and pro6tably prosecuted by
our own people as by any other, except
it be lack of enterprise and want of
knowledge of the business, but this
should be no obstacle, when the great
end to be attained is the diffusion of
wealth, intelligence and the comforts of
life among our people. The greater the
variety of our industries the greater the
extent ard variety of our products.
What we need is this increased produc.
tion, for it is production that opens
demand for products. There is nothing
in Says political economy that he makes
palmer than the error of aupposipg that
when trade is dull it is because money is
scarce. He maintains that it is the
scarcity Of products, and not the scarcity
of money that produces this effect. That
q product is no sooner created than it
affords market for other products to the
full extent of its own value. That the
seller of a product cannot find a pur.
chaser, unless that purchaser, by the sale
of product of his own industry: has
acquired the means OF purchasing. That
there is always money enough to effect
this interchange of values where they
really exist, and that although money is
the medium through which this inter-
change has been effected, it will be found
when the transaction is closed that one
kind of product has at last been only
exchanged for another. His conclusion
is that the more numerous the producers
and the more varied their productions,
the more numerous and extensive the
markets for those productions. That the
true policy is to stimulate production, for
the demand for products is iu proportion
to the activity of production, and that in
every community which is constantly
adding to the sum OF its products, every
other branch of industry yields hand.
some profits. If it be true that increased
production opens demand for products,
and that there is always money enough
to effect the exchange of one product for
another, where those products really
exist, there can be no greater error than
to suppose that the dullness of sales is
attributable to the scarcity of money.
This wag the error of the Greenback
party, and the remedy they proposed was
an increase of the money in circulation,
in the ratio of say $50 per head. Butt
that exact sum had been allotted by the
Government to each individual in the
State, he would have been without the
means of further purchases after that
sum had been spent, unless he was in
position to acquire such means by the
sale of product of his own industry, so
that it is true at last that all exchanges
are of product for product, and the
greater the extent and variety of our pro-
.ductions the more numerous the markets
and the greater the activity of business.
An illustration of the readiness with
which money is to be had where the pro
duct exists, is afforded in the sale of the
cotton crop. 1t has been our experience
for years past that when that product has
been made ready for the market in the
fall of the year that money is abundant,
aud we know quite as we'll that at all other
times it has been correspondingly scarce.
Why? Not because money is scarce, but
because products are so. With an abun.
dant and varied production, it would at