The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-08-10

Spending Good Portion of Six Years
in the Land of Free Silver, Declares
That the Country is Enjoying Greater
Prosperity Than Ever BefOre--De-
monitization of Silver Elsewhere has
Sent Much Foreign Capital into the
Republic for Investment and an Era
of Prosperity Reigns Over the Land
OF the MOntezumas.
STAFF Correspondence News and Observer.
SALISBURY, N. c., Aug. 10,
Prof. J. NJ. Herman, of Salisbury,
has, during the past half dozen years,
spent most of his time in Mexico Mr..
Herman came to North Carolina several
years ago from New York as the accred-
tied representative of a wealthy syndi-
cate Of New Workers who were largely
interested in Southern railroad and
mining property. They invested largely
in gold mining property along the North
Carolina belt and subsequently extended
their Investigations and investments into
Mexico.
Mr.. Herman married one of North
Cardinals nobIest and brightest women,
Miss Francis Fisher C'Christian Ried'O,
of Salisbury, and has since made his
home here. He is man of marked in
telligence, of liberal views and extended
information. His large interests in
Mexico have kept him in that country
during the greater part of the past six
years and he has been a careful student
of the conditions there as they exist I'M
der the system of free silver coinage; his
views, therefore, are entitled to careful
consideration and at this time are espe
cially interesting.
| met Mr.. Herman just after he had
read letter recently published IN the
Statesville Landmark, and copied in the
Charlotte Observer, from an lredell
county man now living in Mexico.
When asked if he knew the writer of the
article, and if the statements correspon-
ded with his opinion with reference to
the condition of Mexican finances, Mr..
Herman said
eyes, have seen the article in the
Charlotte Observer which is headed
Where silver holds sway and which
contains an extract from the letter of a
North Carolinian, a native of Iredell
county, on the practical results, so far
as they appear to him, of free silver in
Mexico. We are informed by the
writer that under the conditions in
which this gentleman is placed he has
exceptional advantages for ascertaining
the actual condition of the country and
the merits or dement's of its financial
system. One would like to be informed
what these exceptional advantages are,
since the value of evidence depends en-
tirely upon the competence of the wit
ness offering 1t. ;"
"Have you any idea as to who is the
author of the article z"
''The only North Carolinian from Ire
dell county whom | have ever encount-
cred in rather wide knowledge of
Americans resident IN Mexico is quite an
estimable young man residing in the
capacity of agent for the Sonora News
Company at Torrein, the point where the
international and Central Mexican Rail-
roads make connection. 1t is desolate
place in the desert region Of the border
State of Coahulla, and this geRtleman's
position and isolation there, as we'll as
his lack of general knowledge Of the
country, units rather than fits him to
be quoted as an authority on the fnan-
cial system of Mexico.
Passing by the individual, however,
one may come to the assertions which he,
together with the gentleman from whom
the Observer also obtained cOrrOborative
opinion and who had travelled in Mex
ico,' alike make The chief of these is
one quite indisputable, that the wages of
labor are low "a fact, however, which is
no more to be attributed TO the position
of Mexico on silver than to the color Of the
peoples eyes or the shape of their noses.
It springs from conditions which neither
tourists nor dwellers in, railroad Offices
are likely to be able to grasp, and these
are first the manner in which land is
held in vast estates-principalitles IN eX
tent-by rich men who are enabled to
hold these immense territories because
the law leyies no tax on land but only on
the product of the land. Hence land
being only a source of income, never a
source of expense, the great estates are
never sold except in bulk and the poor
man rarely ever owns foot Of land.
Small proprietors, in an agricultural
sense, are unknown in Mexico. Hence
the wages of the agricultural laborer has
been miserably low, because he was
completely in the power OF the
haciendado, or great proprietor, and
since Mexico was almost entirely an agri-
cultural country, with the fewest possible
number of manufactures or any other
industry save mining, the wages of the
poor man remained low. That their pur-
chasing power was small, since their
amount was small, is fact which fol
lowed as a matter of course-but only
in regard to certain commodities Manu-
featured and imported commodities have
always been dear in Mexico, owing to the
oppressive duties levied upon them. But
and here is a great moral which the
inf0rmants Of the Observer are appa-
rently in ignorance of-the past three
years, which have been such terri lie
years of financial straitness and suffer
ing in the United States have been years
of steadily increasing prosperity in
Mexico. There has not only been no