Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-04-08
FARMER FINANCIERS.

why They Want the Sub-Treasury System
What They Expect 1t Will Do and How
1t VIII Be DOne-Dr. Macune Claims That
the Currency Question Is at the Root of
the Depression Among the Farmers,
Leaders of the National Farmers, AL
lance claim that much of the advance
criticism on their sub-treasury scheme
is due to the fact that the principles I'M
DERIVING and the necessity for it are not
properly understood DIR. C. w. Macune,
chairman of the executive committee of
the alliance, in recently speaking of
the scheme to Washington corre-
spondent of the New York Herald, said:
"The necessity for something of this
kind has been developed by the onward
march of material progress. For the
last twenty-five years agriculture has,
as compared with the other two great
branches of production-manufa
and production-been rapidly becoming
depressed and improbable. This de-
preston during a period without par
allel of material progress in the worlds
history is Indicative of potent cause
and is worthy of the most careful analy-
SIS. For this purpose take two of the
leading products of agriculture-wheat
and cotton-and trace the changes made
In regard to them during that period.
twenty-five years ago wheat was
raised by farmers throughout the north
generally as one of their leading money
crops. Nearly all the work of gather
ing and marketing it was done by hand;
local mills, thickly scattered over the
country, ground the flour for local con-
sumption, and the balance was sold
when the price suited the farmer. All
OF this guaranteed moderately even
sale of wheat by the farmer from Au-
gust until the next June or July, and it
was, in fact, very common for farmer
to have his wheat on hand over a year.
Now the development of railway sys-
TENS has brought the great west su
close to market that wheat can no
longer be profitably grown in the east,
while in the west, the great wheat
growing district, the wheat Is cut and
bound by machinery, taken to immense
steam threshers and from the thresher
goes in hot haste into the elevator upon
the railway, always close at hand, and
the moment it strikes the elevator it is
on the markets of the world. The sea-
SON, therefore, in which the farmer re-
allies from his productive effort is re-
dueed from ten to twelve months to a
period that does not, in its utmost i:--o;t
exceed thraA --.,n.ns
For the same reasons the season for
marketing the cotton by the farmer has
shortened as much or more than that
of marketing the wheat.
''These changes, brought about by
the modern improvements that have
substituted the railway train for the
ox-cart and the telegraph for the cou-
rier, make some other changes neces-
sary, one of which, the one of all others
the most important, is modern instead
of an ox-cart system of finance
''Under the old system the demand
for money to handle the products of the
country being nearly the same through
out the year, the marketing of the
products of agriculture produced no
great effect upon the money market.
But under modem conditions it pro-.
duces most powerful effect.
''The volume of money in circulation
in the United States at this time is vari-
ously estimated at from 5000, 600, 600 to
81, 400, coo. 00o-say 1000, 000, 600 Rep
resent that sum by the figure 2. The
gross output of manufacturing of all
kinds is about $500, 900, 600. Suppose all
the manufactured commodities change
ownership between the manufacturer
and consumer three times. The demand
then. throughout the year, for the use
of money on account of manufactured
commodities, would be equal to 81, OOO,-
00o,0 600 Represent that sum by the fig
ure 4, and the relation of the volume of
money to the demand for its use would
be as 2 is to 4, and would only require
that every dollar in circulation be used
two times in each year to satisfy this
demand This relation is practically
uniform throughout the year.
1.-THE gross value of agricultural prod
ucts is about $500. 200, 900. Suppose
two=thirds of this product is used for
home consumption and seed and one
third is marketed during the last three
months of the year. and that this only
changes ownership twice, the demand
thus created would be for the use Of
s., 600, OO0, 600, which. upon the above
basis, should be represented By the