The morning call., 1890-05-04
BUTLER ON FARM MORTGAGES.

Ben Butler of Massachusetts adopted as
his motto early in life the sentence, Parlez
de moi. His one idea has been to get him
self talked Otto make a sensation which
shall startle the people and set their
tongues wagging. His latest effort in the
sensational line is to brighten the people
who have loaned money on Western land
by telling them that the mortgages will
never be paid nor even the interest they
bear. The reason is that farmers cannot
afford to pay them.
We suspect that the keen capitalists of
Boston who have put out money on agricul-
tural land in the grain States know about
as much on the subject of investments as
MIR. Butler. They are not in the habit of
buying pigs in poke When a New En-
glander lends money on security the securi-
ty is generally good, though, of course,
there may be times when it may appear to
be doubtful The doubts ard dangers which
General Butler has just discovered have
never been a secret to the average money
lender on farm mortgage. They were long
ago reckoned up and estimated at their true
value. They have never availed to check
the flow of capital from Eastern cities to
Western lands
There is no better security in the world
provided the amount advanced does not re-
Quire an interest charge heavier than half
or two thirds the average annual net prod
net of the land Such security is better
than stocks. for it is not liable to be leopard
lied by imbecile or knavish management;
better than evidences of municipal, or State
or national Indebtedness, for it is not sub
ject to depreciation through tricks OF poll
ticians; better than merchandise, for it
cannot perish, nor rot, nor rust nor decay.
1t never disappears. 1t is always there to
be seized and possessed by the unsatisfied
creditor. Whatever else may or may not be
property nothing but the final cataclysm
can destroy the property of the man who
owns, in his own right, given number of
square feet or acres on the face of the earth.
There always have been, there always
will be times when the farmer finds it Diff
cult or even impossible to pay the interest
on the mortgage on his farms. Crops fail,
prices of produce fall, labor is unattainable
droughts and floods destroy harvests. When
these calamities befall, the farmer will be
delinquent as the solvent merchant is
delinquent in a financial crisis when he has
note to meet and can neither sell his
goods nor borrow money. But as it would
be absurd to denounce merchant as in
solvent because he has to lean on his bank
till the hurricane is over, so is it ridiculous
in General Butler to say that the farm
mortgages in the grain States will never be
lifted. because the present price of cereals
leaves the farmer nothing over the bare
cost of living. Time is long, men must eat;
when staple article of food sells for less
than the cost of production, it ceases to be
produced; then scarcity occurs, the
markets react anu the producer finds him.
self making money once more and abund-
antly able to meet his obligations.
The embarrassment which just now ap-
pears for the first time to have attracted the
attention Of the Essex philosopher is really
a very old story. Almost every one Of the
grain States has passed through the same
crisis and emerged from it triumphant
Where the people have been wisely advised,
as in Illinois and Iowa, and their creditors
have been reasonable, no losses have &C.
Cured, and farmers Who w0uld-have gOfre
to the wall ten or fifteen years ago if they
had been pressed are now themselves lend
ing money on farm mortgage; where they
have been ill-advised, as in Missouri, and
the Legislature has passed laws invalidat-
ing farm mortgages, general decay has
fallen upon the State, and people have
emigrated in consequence. But there is no
instance in our history where a community
of farmers, imbued with honest purposes,
and rightly minded, have failed to pay
their debts in full after little forbearance
NV