Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-12-24

ing interest on public indebtedness.
Land currency would abolish this in.
debtedness and deduct its interest from
the sum OF taxation. And when Ma.
tional, State and municipal indebted
ness become abolished by the receipts
OF land currency, and the tax reduced
to actual cost devoid of money tribute.
the income Of public mortgages at two
per cent would far exceed Government
cost for the Government cost would
be gradually reduced to its minimum,
while the valuation of land would rise
to Its maximum, and when expense re-
d pes and income expands, the balance
OF all Indebtedness quickly vanishea
But we tan not expect to base our
estimates Of the virtues of land
currency on the figures given us
by the evils Of individual banking; we
must resort to common sense and
automatic fact We know that private
banking, through interest, absorbs the
product Of labor, and we know that
when the people become the banker
they will absorb, as a whole, their
product; that when they absorb their
whole product it will flow to them de-
void OF the subtraction of tax, and that
land currency is therefore no tax and
must result in no tax. When the people
become the banker and interesteo.
s<-e-aA--zaARz1Ea
ceiver, the whole relation of statistics
will change; the sums now low will be
high, and the sums now high will be
low; money that is now more valuable
than man will be inferior to him, and
man will expand in value, and every
actual natural resource, including land,
will approximate to his value, and the
interest on land loans will rapidly in
crease proportionally until it reaches
community costs
All wealth is the result of labor
Land is but natural factor The land
produces nothing much without labor,
for the landowner, to avail himself of
land product he must get money to ON
ploy labor. Here the whole people
hold the advantage over the land
holder, for only the whole people (the
Nation) can make money Here the
whole people can say to the land
holder: PAY us for the use of
our money" Interest absorbs profit,
and as certainly as wealth fol-
lows money, 30 certainly would
the people receive the full profits Of
land holding, who held its mortgages
and received its tribute. To-day land
lOrdism and Shylockism are the twin
serpents taxing humanity. Land cur
rency cuts their net AS for profit or in
diVidual competition, land currency
strikes at Its very root for when the
Nation nationalizes money, the tribute
OF all private enterprise flows to it and
this tribute so flowing, continually
builds up public institutions of every
species and casts private interests into
disadvantage, for the public institu.
tions are drawing tribute from private
institutions under land currency, and
this sustenance Of public institutions,
continually at the expense of private,
would soon make the former distance
the latter and evolve the people into
nationalsm.
The entire and complete reversal Of
our present financial system is present.
ed in land currency. Let US examine
Land currency is not a mediary or tenn
porary or palliative, as l will try to
show. 1t is not for the relief of the
many impoverished farmers alone, not
for the many small land owners alone,
not for the many large land owners
alone, but for the landless poor as we'll
as all. 1t Is no tax. but to see it you
must reverse your ideas about per capita
and all such notions pertaining to and
deducted fom our present system.
Land currency reverses the present
system; so reverse your preconceived
ideas; we now have debts where we
should have dollars Land currency
turns our debts into dollars Where we
now have debts, land currency gives us
dollars equal to our debts. Apply this
to any one individual and watch the re-
suit to yourself, to myself, to the Nation.
The fact is almost binding when
looked into. just as the light is binding
when we emerge from darkness
But the idea of per capita has nothing
to do with land currency; its idea is an
automatic suff1ciency. as seek to show
in several chapters regarding interest
and profit or the movements of the Co
operation, called society. Whatever
that sufficiency would amount to, it will
take care Of itself
Land currency would establish a cash
basis in place of this 500 per capita, OF
where now a man hath 81 ZOO, 1000 hath
not cent
Why9 Because land currency would
not be money to lend. but money to
employ, and so would flow into the
pockets of the employed until the toll.
ers would each have thousands instead
of, as now, many having but so cent:
and rare one here and there possess
ing $1,000.
Under land currency many deserving
toilers would hold thousands, or the
exact amount Of their labor plus thai
expenses. This coald not be under any
system restricting volume to the mig
gard amount of 500, leaving nine meI
penniless where one possessed 81, 900.
No, no, my dear friendsl Reverse al
your ideas of per capita when you reach
an automatic system; the automatic
system will give you the right per cap
tia accurately, whatever 1t be.
1t won't harm this Nation II we have
as many rich men and women as we nov
have poor ones-if we had many thou
sands per capita instead of 81 per capita
Money can harm no one when they pos
sess 1t; it is when they do not possess
that it harms The only thing that cal
result from the large possession o
money Is inability to invest with profit
and surely q person is not in much dis
tress who has more money than he cal
invest He won't starve, as he nigh
without enough, as many do now
But under land CURRENCY there wouiC
neither be too much nor too little
there would be exactly the volume
emitted from the treasury or borrowed
from the Government which would paJ
profit on two per cent mo more, NJ
less-and whatever that per capitt
would be. it would be. for, ia word
the per capita OF our money would b
the per capita of our debtA And tina
this is sound and automatic politica
economy-a self-evident truthful DO