The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-03-19

w here wealth acCumulateS ana men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade
A breath can make them, as breath has made;
But bold peasantry, their countrY's pride,
When once destro d can never be supplied"
The first indications of weakness
and decay in all of the powerful
nations of antiquity, whose history
comes to us we'll authenticated, were
those aptly exemplifed in the above
lines. The power and prestige of a
nation lies not in the great wealth of
a favored few of it's citizens money
lords-but in a "bold peasantry .
it's hardy, contented, patriotic toilers
in field, workshop anu factory, who
constitute a living wall of defense,
which is it's strongest bulwark. Such
being true, it would seem that if there
deserved to be a favored class or
classes of it's population, the pro-
ducers-the men who make the wealth
of country-ought to receive special
favors from the government. But it
has ever been otherwise. For, while
the yeomen and artisans are toiling,
there are always men plotting and
scheming to reap the profits of honest
industry, through unequal laws, trade
exactions, trusts or combinations.
''Purse-proud loiterers that never SOW,
Nor put plant in earth, nor use the ploW."
We propose to notice some of these
under the several heads above named
UNEQUAL LAWS.
The farmer suffers from unjust and
unequal taxation. The price of his
products is regulated by the export
demand, while the tax on imports
helps the favored money lords engaged
in manufacturing, and discriminates
against the agricultural consumer,
taxing the latter fer the benefit of the
former, for revenue at last is nothing
but tax.
The relief which our agricultural
industries most need and must have,
if they are ever made prosperous,
must come through low taxes, na-
tional and State, indirect as we'll as
direct, and reduced cost of produc-
ton. That a high tariff operates to
encourage manufacturing by increas-
ing it's profits as a favored industry,
while, at the same time, discrimi-
mating against agriculture, is exem-
plifed in New England, where agri-
culture is we'll nigh dead, and the
capital once largely invested therein
now diverted to more favored indus
tries protected by law, and the popu-
lation gone from the farms to herd in
the cities and towns.
AS further evidence of the unproft
ableness of agriculture, it is said that
more than one-fourth of the farms in
one great Western States, and one of
the most fertile-being new and
fresh-are covered over with mort
cages so inextricably deep that many
of the holders have abandoned them
to the mortgages, who look in vain
for purchasers.
But we need not go westward to
find evidence of the unproftableness of
agriculture. How many farmers here
in the State of North Carolina, or in
the States bordering thereon, have
made money farming during the past
decade? While few planters, pos
sessing or working lands specially
adapted to fine yellow tobacco, have
accumulated something above ex-
penses, hundred, aye thousands, have
barely made enough to live even fru-
gally, and very many have sunk
money and become hopefully insol-
vent.
While this deplorable state of things
exist all over this broad land, for agri-
culture really fourishes nowhere, in
dividuals in other pusuits in every
agricultural State might be named,
whose profits annually exceed the
aggregate profits on the whole agricul-
tural production of these States. GA
dozen men could be named, whose in
comes combined would rival the ma
tional revenue itself, if reduced, as it
should be and must be, to the actual
needs of an economical government.
1t is notorious, that Congress and
State Legislatures are constantly being
to enact laws which favor
the rich against the poor-capital
against honest industry-and too often
Doodle or some other stamulant is en-
ployed to influence such unequal and
legislation. In this way
''the rich are made rich beyond all pre-
cedent in the history of mankind,
while the poor are reduced to the
verge of bankruptcy and despair"
Unnecessary taxation, State or
Federal, is robbery. Federal taxation
On production has been tyrannous to
his generation. First, in changing
and debasing the currency, and after
ward raising its standard of value in