The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-06-29
Friday, June 20, 1894.
Unwarrented Claims,

they advance them with tnat asSuIahSc
and positiveness which is characteristic
One of their writers who by his
articles assumes TO be an advanced
teacher makes the following statement i'll
the Courier. He is attempting to show
the cause of present depression. He says
"rhis stringency is due partially to a
fear among those who have mony that If
they lend, it will never come back, and
partly to the fact that the banks-the
usual lenders-have their funds tied up so
they cannot reach them.
'iThere is no scarcity of money but
those who have it won't lend it. They
prefer to put it away i'll bureau drawer,
an old stocking, hole i'll the ground or
other safe place"
The object of all this strange assump-
ton and assertion, appears i'll the next
paragraph of the article from which we
have quoted.
1.-The real" the writer continues, ''the
fundamental cause of the industrial de-
preston as before stated, is 10 be found i'll
land monopoly"
Now there is no truth whatever in the
two preceding paragraphs we have quot
ed. 1.-The money stringency" is owing to
the scarcity of money i'll proportion to
population and the volume of business to
be moved, and i'll 10 conceivable way can
be traced to "land monopoly" as bad
and Objectionable as that class of monop-
oily is. The people who have money do
not put it i'll ''old stockings" or i'll
''bureau drawers or any such place for
safe keeping. The money hiders of this
class have but precious little to secrete,
and money is not boarded by individuals
except i'll very short periods at the COM
mencement of panic, which is always
caused by the cornerers of money for an
infamous purpose, or of overlooking of
bank credits, which is truly wind money,
partaking of the nature of watered stocks.
No persons who are professional money
loaners are ever afraid to lend it lest it
never come back. If the security is
offered they will always loan their money.
This writer's theory that the banks
have their funds tied up SO they cannot
reach thein," will cause the bankers to
smile. The banks have no funds to tie
up These institutions loan their deposit
tors funds, and they loan seventv-fve to
eighty-fve per cent of the money which
is deposited with them for safe keeping.
When banks refuse to loan it is when they
dare not stretch this credit loaning any
further and the volume of business has
increased to such an extent that there is
not enough of money, both real and
credit money combined, to float it. This
condition is liable to create panic, when
depositors become frightened and draw
on the banks for their deposits beyond
their business needs, fearing the banks
may fail This condition causes the banks
to refuse loans and urge those persons
who have borrowed their depositors'
money to return it. 1t is readily seen
that all of these causes leading up to
money stringency," have their source
in the lack of a sufficient volume of real
money. And it is apparent that not a
single statement made by this writer is
true, who is attempting to teach an eco,
nomic lesson by giving it false con,
struction i'll an effort to advance the
single tax theory. The single tax is
strong enough to stand OH its own merits,
and ignorant writers injure the cause by
assuming and asserting that land monop-
oily is the cause of the financial depres-
sion which is running business and filling
the country with bankrupts and idle
men seeking employment 1t is the
scarcity of money and nothing else which
is the cause of the widespread distress,
and the single tax put i'll operation to-
morrow would not add on cent to the
volume of money that every day is dimin-
financial stringency, or give employment
to n single additional laborer. The loose
screw i'll our single tax propagandists,
whose zeal outruns their Judgment and
information. is that they advance nothing
like logical argument for their claim
that there is plenty of money and that
land monopoly is the only cause of our
financial troubles.
The single tax is system of taxation
and it is impossible that it can have any
influence on financial systems. The
writer's who claim this never attempt to
advance a single argument TO sustain
their barren claim, and do violence to
their cause by claiming for it that which
lies entirely outside of its sphere of
influence.
The single tax and financial systems in
their functions are as distinctly different
as the oceans and the continents. Each
has its sphere into which the other can
not enter.
When any one crosses the single takers
path and questions their dogma, their
stereotyped disposition of him is: "Oh
YOU don't understand the single tax.
Read Progress and Poverty and be wise"
That settles it to the mind of a single tax
propaganda. Our advice to all such is
10 stop coming over their single tax
maxims and epigrams, and study the laws
of finance then unite the two as their
political shibboleth and battle cry and
they will have a cause the gates OF Hell
cannot prevail against"
z II H.,