The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-01-23

this change
This gentleman and his class then
have everything to gain and nothing
to lose, by controlling the volume of
money in their own interest. The in
terests of our larger banking houses
are identical with and controlled by
this class.
When they have had large sums
from their interest incomes to reinvest
they have employed their leisure time
in working through schemes to incur
new bonded debts by States, cities and
corporations, and the constant increase
of debts in this form has gone steadily
on and in some degree kept labor en-
ployed and business moving. But this
only increases the hold the organized
money power has upon the country
and whets its appetite for more trans
fer OF value from commodities to
money. This process of transferring
value has gone steadily on also, until
our Hebrew friend referred to, should
his bond be paid to-day, could with each
dollar buy twice the amount of goods of
almost any manufacturer or merchant
that the dollar would have bought
when he purchased the bond. IF this
class of financiers are allowed to con
tinue in control ten years longer the
commercial value of the dollar will no
doubt increase one-third more. The
bond holding class runs no risk. The
more business failures that occur the
more they gain, because every business
failure forces a lot of goods on the
| moneylees market and drives prices of
goods still lower and the price of money
still higher They have no great ex
pense in collecting during dull times
as has the business men. for they have
80 arranged matters that the States do
their collecting, and if the business
man because of hard times Is unable to
pay his share, which is collected in the
by the sheriff, and the expense of the
sale charged up against the proceeds.
SO the merry money lender assumes a
| sympathetic smile and will lend him
money to start business again if one of
his solvent friends will mortgage his
estate as security.
The manufacturer and employer Of
of labor have in some degree protected
themselves in years past by cutting
down the wages Of their employees
But in doing this they have only been
pulling the foundation from under
their own structure
AS wages we're cut down just in that
degree the ability of the great mass Of
workers to purchase the products of
labor was taken away, and just in that
degree the chance of both the merchant
and manufacturer to gain profit on
their goods was diminished.
Some of the greater industries of the
country undertook to protect them
selves against less by forming trusts.
Here again they but SOW to the wind
and must reap the whirlwind unless
the whirlwind is headed off. Every
industrial trust is the legitimate child
of the money trust and was born of
necessity. They are all formed on the
principle of a reduction in operating
expenses.
THIS necessarily throws more men
out of employment and cuts down their
capacity as consumers. All these in
dustrial trusts are founded upon large
issues of bonds or stocks on which
they are expected to pay interest or
dividends to the holders. But unlike
government, Sba2e or city bonds, their
ability to do this depends on the ability
of the great mass of the workers of the
world to buy the products of these in
dustrial enterprises. The masses of the
old world are SO pauperized that they
can buy only the meanest necessaries
of life 80 that what should be limit
less market there is virtually destroyed,
and foreign manufacturers are frantic
ally knocking for free entrance to
what little remains of this country's
market. If they get it values of man
ufactured goods will drop here quickly.
If they do not, a continuation of En-
glands single gold standard policy In
this country will soon force values here
down to the European level anyway,
and by that time our home market will
be SO completely destroyed as to make
it scarcely worth the effort of our for
eign competitors to strive for it, and
of little value to home producers. In
either case the bondholders, both in
this country and abroad are benefited
by the increased purchasing power Of
money which the business men and