Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-02-04

''Deducting the total interest paid out
each year for the loans made, from the
total income at six per cent, Mr.. Astor
would be left with an income of nearly
$4,000, 600 instead of 50, 600, 600 as now.
That Is to say the sub-treasury scheme
would put in his pocket sum of 3d.
100000 a year! But this is not all.
Suppose these loans ran period of ten
years? 1t is moderate to assume that
the property in that length of time
would increase in value 336 per cent.
When the loans expired Mr.. Astor
could sell out all the prom
erty except that which he had at the
start, pay all the loans, and have a clear
surplus of over S33, ,0OO, 900. This in adj
ditlon to the increase of 81, ZOO, 900 in
his yearly income! If the scheme should
be changed so that loans could be issued
on farms only, Mr.. Astor would, instead
OF buying city property, simply invest
In farm property, and become owner
within year or two of about all the
State! Really we doubt the expedieucv
of such a bill. But in the platform
adopted at the Ocala convention, and
according to the Kansas Farmer, tha
convention resolved that any member
OF the Alliance who refuses to accent
that platform and every thing in it, is
subject to immediate suspension. and
that the Alliance will refuse to support
any political candidate who will not
support the platform in full"
1t is hardly worth while to notice the
several amusing discrepancies In the
numerical table in above article. Such
as, for instance, leaving it uncertain
as to whether the land Mr.. Astor Is
supposed to buy is improved or unim-
proved. If improved, he could not bor-
row any portion of the cost of the inn
provements; if the land is unimproved,
there will not be six per cent. or anv
other per cent income from it. And IL
must be remembered that, as a rule.
the Buildings on land are worth as
much as the land. Again: 1t must not
be forgotten that if interest is reduced
from six per cent. to two, the price of
land will treble, because land is worth
that amount of money upon which it
viii pay the legal current rate of inter
est. Besides all this, the graduated
cumulative tax would be awfulfy severe
upon Mr.. Astor. But there Is simpler,
easier way to dispose of this matter.
IL loans are limited in amount to s5. 900
or $4,000 to any one person, we at once
make it impossible for Mr. Astor, or
any other man, to borrow himself rich,
as it were.
The Voice is eminently correct in its
surmises when it says: SIT is probably
the last thing designed by the originators
of that scheme to make the rich richer
and the poor poorer" and if the Voice
had only taken the trouble 10 read the
platform itself, such paper would have
seen that it was indeed greatly mis-
taken" when it concluded that ssitwould
be the most effective plan ever yet pro-
posed for doing that very thing The
plank relating to the sub-treasury
plan reads as follows:
!. We demand the abolition of National
banks; we demand that the Government
shall establ ish sub,treosuries or Repositories
in tho several States which shall loan money
direct to the people at low rate OF interest,
not to exceed two per cent. per annum on
non -perlshabIe farm products and also upon
real estate, sr5h proper Limitations upon fbe
Qas0Rsity Of land and amount Of MONEY! we de-
mand that the amount of the circulating me-
dunn be speedily increased to not less than
so per capita
Thus it will be seen that the yery
wording of the platform itself shows
the utter absurdity of any such chimer-
ical fears as those entertained by the
Voice GEORGE c. WARD.