The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-02-03

getting to be considered the worst use
you can put him tor in higher form it
is the murder of a man by society-two
crimes instead of one. But aside from
this it is a survival Of the cd governing
idea-that tie governed are the mere
tools, property or pc sse ssion of the gov
erning power It is not in harmony with
the higher ideals of life, and cannot sur
vive the educating forces of coming
thought.
The postal telegraph is not objected to
by the writer refe red to, bu. he asks the
question why the Alliance should de-
mand IT'D Take the postcffce service,
and strike the difference between stamps
used by the farming class and the appro-
priations made to supply the deficit be-
tween the postal revenues an expenses.
and the farmer will ind that he pays more
than his share. Some firms in a CITY write
more letters IN a day than a whole county
of farmers. And so it would be were the
postal telegraph estsolished-the CITY or
com nercis, world would get the benefit.
bat the cost between revenues ard tx-
penses would show everybody but him
beneftted-for how many messages does
the average farmer send over the wires in
a season?
+ These two illustrations tell the story as
to heir whole modern movement-thatit
IS the city, the town, the village, the
commercial, the mid lie man " interes s
that get the benefit of all these economic
'reform8," and that to the farmer is at the
minimum, or if at all is incidental. The
farming, or the Interests growing out Of
the cultivation OF the soil, are always hurt
hu 60 rOUay y90onp-r - 90 fha ;I,o - 49,
stood, and this fact has been demonstrated
since the history Of man has been written.
Why? Becau e it j is the ultimate object
Of all government" and our idea of gov
erning is by coercion" Farmers don't
want to De g~overned-but to be let alone.
The more government the more expenses
-taXes-and the ulti nate of .sxatiol is
the land. There is absolutely only one
relief to the farmer-to be let alone. And
as at present that let alone policy can only
find practi al q rection by the reduction
of the rate of interest-the abolition of
usury. All that is neededis the experience
of the next two years to demonstrate that
the farming interest can never find relief
by employing the ideas of government
that in all ages have made it Dear the
burden.
1t may seem a wild declaration to make,
but no man ever knew the value or the
Importance of a dollar who dld not earn
it by labor TAKE the farmer, for ex-
ample, as the primal laborer. The return
for his labor is limited by an iuhexible
law-the capacity Of the soil to produce.
Every coin is the result of so much toll,
controlled by conditions that are plane
tary. At the end Of the year he has so
much. Now, every dollar Of that so much
has a value that the man who buys and
sells cannot realize, cannot feel and does
not sense. To take one cf these dollars
merely to pay the cost of being "gov-
erned," when government is in his case
useless and, as felt, oppressive, is some
thing the farmer feels as no other man
cal feel-save the man who works f ?
daily wages-another form Of fixed in
come. This is why the question Of taxa
ton has always been 81 sensitive an issue
with men who work. They are after all
the only men who know what a dollar
really means in the economy of life. Let
a farmer go to town, see a big court house,
FL ed with bailiffs, officers and all the ma
chinery of governing" and which he
never uses, never needs, but which he
pays for, and you may have some idea of
what government means to him.
Here, then, are the conditions, but how
are they to be remedied? Put the ALI
ance in power to day, and with the old
idea of government the same dreary round
would be run. Yet the remedy lies all
around us, under our feet, and we have
been engaged in the usual blind work Of
Misunderstanding against the blessings
that the de yelopment Of the race has in
store for us. We think certain formulas
and certain definitions of freedom have
done the work so far, out these are only
effects. Invention and discovery have
been at work. Slavery was abolished
really by labor saving inventions, and as
sociated capital combined labor, and the
communal principle underlying both has
done the work, despite all the efforts
{ government" could make to render the
principle odious. And now the most in
famous of all devices to own and control
the masses for the benefit of the ''gover-
nors Sis forcing upon the thought
of the people the lesson, that only by
forming the "trust" of government for
themselves and by themselves is the only
practical remedy. Government in it's
modern is not control" but man
agement. To tax people is not a God
given right to anybody, but a voluntary
contribution for the handling of certain
extral conditions of social and individual
life that cannot be secured by individual
effort. The idea that men cannot and
will not live in order except from the
exercise of force is only a relic of barbar-
ism. The normal man will not do violence
to his neighbor or to himself unless there
is some wrong somewhere that has in
cited him to the action. If it is impossible
for a man to force his neighbours neces-
sites to pay him ten per cent. for the use
of m )ney, he will neve ask it. If a mans
smoke house is supplied with all the cured
meat needed, he need not buy a paddock
for his People are begin ling to realize
that if the oil crop, the sugar crop, the
grain cron the wool cron- the nork ard