The herald., 1896-06-20

the West must be applied to produce
wealth, Is very largely owned in the
East or in Europe; and of the land Of
the East, very little Is owned in the
West. Thus the West Is increasingly
drained of the products of its labor to
meet what, economically speaking, is
not return or use of real capital, but
tribute to land owners from those who
use their land; and the West as whole
toward the East as a whole; and tho
country as a whole toward Europe as
whole, is tending to the relation Of Irish
tenants to English landlords.
The rich men Of the West constantly
move toward the East; the rich men OF
the East constantly move towards Eu-
rope, for an irresistible like seeks like.
This is the true explanation of what
the people of the West are first to COM
plain of. but what in reality concerns
the whole country. No mere change in
the medium of exchange and measures
of values will remedy the evil. Even
utter reputation of debts could affect
it only temporarily
The only real remedy lies In the talk
Ing of the unearned increment of wealth
or economic rent for public uses, in the
simplest measure of Justice, called the
single tax.
This is the reason why we single-tax
men would prefer, II we could to defer
any attempt to settle the money uues-
tion until the real relations Of land and
great struggle over what Is called the
money question seems to have begun.
Ultimately it must reach the land ques-
| ton, for the land question is but another
name for the labor question.
And. in the meanwhile, I do not see
| how the feelings, so strong in the West
can fail to find some response in the
| East. In reality. Free Silver" is blind
| expression of social discomfort. and So
cial discomfort is by no means bounded
! by sectional lines.
| The money reformers have exhausted
| FERTILE imaginations in the effort to show
! that the money question is the most i'm
! portant of social questions. According
| to them, the control of the money of the
country is the infallible means by which
the few can take to themselves the earn
| lngS or the many and to insure the is
suance of an abundance of cheap money
IS the only way in which wealth may be
| made plentiful and it's distribution fairly
| equaliZed, interest or, as they call it.
usury'D abolished, the dominance of
I the money kings" destroyed and the
| laboring masses emancipated
| But IN truth the sort of money used in
| any country, considered as a medium
| OF exchange or measure of value, is a
matter of relatively small Importance.
Money has served, and does serve, most
| important functions in exchange, but
| there were men before there was money
| and the further progress of our ciyili-
zation is steadily to lessen the use and
minimize the Importance of money
Money is really mere medium of ex-
| change-a mere counter of value-and
its kind or quality Is as little essential
to the performance of it's functions as
| the quality of poker chip is to the
game. We can exchange between our
selves in any medium that we agree
! upon, and all talk, whether on the side of
| "silver cranks" or of gold bugs about
the necessity or eXpediency of our use
of a certain kind of money in order to
| exchange or more adVantageously to
exchange with other nations is destitute
of any basis that can stand careful in
| vestigation.
The real thing that exchanges among
men, whether between men of the same
| country or different countries, Is labor
either rendered labor or in the form Of
| commodities or promised labor In the
form of obligations. Thus the only real
Importance of any change, such as is
now coming into issue, is as 1T would af-
feet the relations of debtor and CREDITOR
| This it Is which in reality lies at the
| bottom of the money question as it is
forcing itself into the Importance of a
political issue today. 1t Is indeed the
same bitter question that asserted it.
self in blood in ancient politics and is
one today capable of arousing the great
est bitterness.
But why is it coming upon us in Sec
tional guise? There are debtors and
creditors in the east as in the west and
whoever will try to acquaint himself
| with the yoluminous literature of the old
"Greenbackers" or present advocates
of silver will see that they do not pro-
pose their reform as more specially ap-
plicable to one section than to another,
or seem themselves to comprehend why
their doctrines should be accepted in the
west more quickly than in the east The
true reason is that the west as a whole
stands to the east as a whole in the po.
sition of debtor to creditor-Henry
George in San Francisco Examiner.