The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-06-09
SOME SUGGESTIONS CONCERNING
FINANCIAL MATTERS.

Recent financial events have brought
one more repetition of q familiar howl
from Vermont "Invest
your money at home" 1t is heard all
down the line, and in unusual force.
Now, the howl is in way all right,
but there never could be any real need of
such expressions and if the newspapers
exerted themselves as much to make
home investment possible as they do in
making silly noise about it the money,
or great deal of it, would surely stay
here. Everybody prefers to invest
money at home. Other things being
equal, no Vermonter would send sim
gle dollar out of the State. And if our
laws were made with even tOlerable in
telligence relatively few of them would
at hOme," by all means, but so long as
men are human and the present order of
things on this earthly ball continues the
home investment will have to be as good
and pay as much as those in other To-
calities or the money will go elsewhere.
Because some people lost money in the
Orwell failure the neighbors are urged to
invest in Touring mill on Killington
peak, instead of making even the best of
loans on property outside of the State,
''or words to that effect" with never a
word about the relative income from
money in the two cases. The fact is
that the West has been very largely
built up with Eastern money. almost the
whole of which has been returned in
safety and in most cases with large in
terest. In the immense volume of loans
and investments the total losses of east
ern capitalist, are but a drop in the
bucket. This fact has its weight, prop
erly, and with it comes the fact that Yer
mont laws are calculated of all things to
drive money out of the State, and still
there comes, from sources which ought
to be more intelligent, the perpetual
howl, Invest your money at home"
The man of moderate means, owning a
home with stock and other personal
property that cannot be concealed, of
course pays full taxes and feels ag-
grieved because his richer neighbor who
has "money at interest," does not pay
upon everything. Hence comes lot of
laws intended to tax money-the pos
session of wealth represented in most
cases by securities of one sort and an
ether. The theory of the thing is Dlausi-
BILE enough, but in cold fact money can
not be taxed. 1t is elusive. There are
a thousand ways in which its owner can
fefOll pay lll1 lttACo Oll IL uuucI any law
that can he devised, and everybody
knows that the great volume of it does
and always has avoided taxation. 1t is
only when mortgages are given, or with
this or that bit of money, that the law
can get any hold. And the result is that
the man of moderate means is burdened
heavier than ever from the very attempt
to tax the possessions of his rich neigh
Dor. This burden comes in part from
the higher interest he is compelled to
pay when he borrows-money, for he not
only pays the interest but the tax itself
but chiefly from the fact that invest
ment in his vicinity is discouraged and
the grand list thereby kept so small that
taxes are always high. Money can be
had in any sums for per cent; in large
sums and with long time it can be had
away below that. Still, the Vermont
farmer who borrows $500 has to pay
per cent, and the man who is asked to
invest in factory that would help the
whole community looks for per cent.
and will not move for less. But if the
tax on money were abolished the farmer
would pay but per cent. and factory
promising the same would find plenty of
investors. All this is plain without be-
ing newt is not newly stated in these
columns-but somehow people do not
give it attention and the newspapers
well-Rutland Herald.