Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1896-04-29
Making Money and Getting Money.
resource of Credit i. what !. Needed.


AS the New York Journal Of Com
MERGE = says, 1.-THE making of more
money and the getting of more money
are two widely different things which
are not apt to go together. The
money can only be got in exchange
for products; and what these people
really need is resource which will
serve them when they have nothing
that they can exchange for money.
In palmer words, what these classes
really need is RESOURCE OF CREDIT.
When the prices of produce were high
er, they could save q surplus that serv-
ed them during the interval of spend
ing between the selling of one crop
and the harvesting of the next. Now,
they largely lack that working capital;
and therein lies the chief cause of their
trouble-a trouble so serious that the
grave discontents it is breeding are no
matter of surprise. The manufacturer
and the merchant, notwithstanding
their ample capital, find it necessary
to borrow largely in order to provide
raw material, wages and goods, and to
carry them until they can convert the
products into money or its equivalents.
The banks supply such wants through
loans and DISCOUNTS; without which,
industrialists and merchants would
soon become as badly pinched as are
the farmers and the rural tradesmen
to- day. True. the classes thus cramp-
ed can get a certain amount OF credit
from those of whom they buy their
supplies; but that kind of credit carries
with it subsection to the creditor
that is in various ways very costly ana
often very embarrassing, and which
rarely fits the necessities of the bOr-
rover.
What this condition of things calls
for is a systematized form of credit
which will serve the agriculturist and
the small trader in lieu of working
capital; really REPRODUCTIVE FORM
OF CREDIT, which will enable the farm
er and the planter to buy their seed
and to provide the manure, labor and
implements needful to get out of the
land all that it is capable of yielding;
to recover waste places and to drain or
irrigate lands which are now nom
productive. Such uses of credit en-
able him who gets it to realize prOnt
ample to cover his obligations and IN
that unQuestionable fact lies an amply
secure basis for the founding OF a credit
system for this special object. Such
credits lie quite outside the scope OF
the business done by our National or
State banks, or by the savings banks.
The grantors of such credits should
consist OF institutions having ramlfi-
cation of branches. which would make
the business a speciality, and by care
full plans would render the credits as
safe to the lenders as they would be
beneficent to the borrowers.
There is nothing fanciful or utopian
in this suggestion. Such an employ
ment of credit is as legitimate and as
safe as the larger operations of lending
on which commerce is now dependent;
and there IS really no reason why the
principle which is now applied on a
large scale by existing banks should
not be adapted under special organlza-
tions to this smaller class of transac-
tions. There is already, in other
countries, a wide range OF experience
which demonstrates the great public
advantage of this kind of credit and its
entire safety to the institutions engag-
ing in it. Scotland owes her redemp
tion from sterility and much of her
present great wealth to the system OF
leash credit" so freely extended to her
farmers On the Continent of Europe,
! large banks and associations have been
formed for these purposes, and they
are rapidly extending the area of their
operations, with profitable returns to
shareholders.
We repeat, therefore, the real want
of the followers of the silver kings il
not more silver or any other kind Of
money, but a resource of credit OF
which they may avail themselves
when they have no means for getting
money. The men who provide this
will supply the most effective cure fol
the silver MANIA"