The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-01-06

4 4uu4G 0AN 4AAALOS@4J IA
State in centers of trade outside. The
misfortune of which is that when the
credit of a people declines the rate OF
exchange always increases against
them
7. 1t tends to bring into being a
class of non productive spectators
who ultimately become professional
wreckers of industry, with the con
Ccience of a devil.
8. It leads honest and successful
business men to extravaganza expend1-
ture in the building of residences.
The upshot of it usually is that the
man who waits and saves his money
lives in them at the expense of the
original owner.
Even successful booms must stop
some where. They reach their limit
when the value of the property is so
high that it no longer yields the ordl.
nary rate of iacome. Values of real
estate in the Federal Capitol are rapid
ly reaching this point. That is the
case, in a measure, in many other
cities. The suburban movement OF
population has effected very unfavor-
ably the rents of much real estate in
the center of large cities. To this
may be added the constant tendency
of municipalities to increase the tax
on real understanding that cannot
we'll be helped of cities are bent on
having the best of everything for
their general convenience, comfort and
safety.
The successful boom is apt to raise
values of real estate too high for
manufacturing concerns to seek sites
in that locality, especially when other
places offer sites free.
The sa ne imitation of values makes
it impossible for people of small in,
| comes to build and own houses-the
lots are too high. The rate at which
some North Carolina dirt is selling
forbids purchase by workingmen and
many others.
A boom by increasing the cost of
living, is apt for that reason to pre-
vent the accession of the most indus
5rious and economic class of labor to
a booming place. On the social side
of life it is to be noticed that booms
are characterized by the large increase
in youthful marriages.
Yet there is a wide margin between
industrial lethargy and the limits of
an unhealthy boom. A better fortune
than booms is the steady addition of
industries selected with reference to
the already incipient demand for
products. This allows the gradual
building up of an industrial structure
to which booms will be intrusive and
I'm welcome strangers. Such a growth
inevitably makes the interests of cap
italist and laborer one. Without both
classes no place can stand the strain
of a boom and escape the exhaustion
which follows its decline. With them
there is no need of ballooning the
values of a place that has not the
stuff in it to endure a six months
boom.
Booming is abnor nal in its methods.
1t causes many to v e reach their
real credit and thus prepares the way
for financial crisis. Men lose their
common sense in boons. Think of q
brass Oand as a means of sending up
prices for vacant lots in old 6eldsl
The free lunch business in a real
estate dicker smacks of a class of per
som who could be mentioned as no.
having passports to polite society.
Lastly, the whole tendency of
boOms is to over stimulat the move
ment of population from country to
the city. This must result eventually
in disturbing the social balance to the
extent of the abandonment of the less
productive lands by the cultivators
and the withdrawal of capital from
rural i'm improvements. AS a consequence
of the increasing consumptive capacity
OF the cities along with the decreas
ing productive capacity of the country
from decline of population, the price
of agricultural produ cts must rise and
the cost of living be increased in gen
eral.
All the results of booms can be
reached by normal methods of busi.
ness and with a far less wasteful ex-
penditure of capital. For they of en-,
like a maelstrom, suck in men con
spicuous for their want OIL business
sense. One bad link in an otherwise
good chain is enough to precipitate a
whole community into commercial
disaster, the social and moral effects
of which last painfully far into the
sloW years of recovery.
JOHN FRANKLIN CROwELL.
" Trinity College, N. G..
Mr.. EDIToR:-We realize the i'm
portance of electing a speaker in the
next General Assembly thoroughly in
Identified with the people and free