Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1897-10-22
veRmoNr's BUSINESS INTERESTS.

VeRMoNT's BUSINESS INTERESTS.
Ex-Gov Carroll 5. Page of Hyde Park
has written an able letter urging invest
mcnt of home capital in state industries,
and also suggest that savings banks in
the state should furnish funds for such
enterprises at low rate of interest.
We have not room this week for the
full letter of Mr.. Page, but quote the fol-
lowing paragraphs:
our Vermont savings banks are today fun
to overlooking with the savings of our people
To fluid place for their investment is tn King
the best efforts of savings banks managers
from one end of the state to the other. The
trans.M Mississippi regions offer high rates of
interest. In the absence of II better opening,
our savings bank trustees, tired of seeing idle
money stacked away in their vaults, are
availing themselves of this Western outlet
with its questionable security.
what should be done; believe the State
should say to the managers of these banks
that on all moneys which they will loan at
~ per cent to be used in developing new in
dustries in our state, the seven-tenths of one
per cent tax. which they are now called upon
to pay, shall be abated.
our savings banks today pay to dcpositOrs
4 per cent II costs approximately one half
of per cent for their running expenses 1t
! will be urged that these institutions should
not be asked to do business upon II non.
profit paying basis. But is this tue? Let us
pursue the Investigation Il little further
There are very few savings banks in Vermont
that have not tens and many of them hun
DIRE of thousands of dollars, loaned upon
be devised to make the cultivation of these
farms profitable, the banks must eventually
take many of them on their motgages. The
prosperity of the farmer is so inextricably
interviewer with the prosperity of the sav
ings bank that it is impossible to draw a line
of separation between them. Their mutual
prosperity demands "A LIBERAL policy on the
part of our bank managers. They had much
better loan IA few thousand dollars without
profit in developing industries which shall
restore prosperity to the farmer, than to be
eventually compelled to own the farms.
The same general principle is involved in
low rate loans to our towns ana villages to
enable them to develop the power required
to turn the wheels of industry.
The time is fast passing away when steam
power developed from coal and wood. can he
produced as cheaply as electrical power gen
Grated by the waters which are now running
to waste in Vermo t. With this cheap power
we can combine cheaper meats. vegetables,
milk, butter, cheese, poultry, eggs and other
farm products, rs well as cheaper rents, than
it is possible for the manufacturing .tates OF
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connects
cut to offer to their operatives, Our higher
attitudes give us purer water, purer air, and
consequent, better health and greater vigoI
than can be enjoyed by operatives residing
in the lower lands of those states.
The development of electI ical power, now
only In its infancy, is certain 10 revolutionize
conditions that have heretofore existed. II
is more than probable that in the near future
water power now running to waste Will be
utilized to run cars into scores of Vermont
towns which today are des itute of railroad
facilities. The press of Vermont can engage
in no more glorious service than that of edu
eating our people, touching the "A lvantage
we possess. 1t is to the press that we mus
? look for the successful advocacy of sucl
changes in our laws As will enable us to keel
at home the millions of dollars which on
savings banks now loan in the far West
Today those banks are the ready aud con
, venient vehicle for transporting out of thu
state moneys Whlch ought 10 be used, an'
which, in my opinion, With liberal legislation
can be as prOfitably and more safely used, fl
, building up and developing home industries
? fully believe that we have only to adopt
liberal and broad gauged policy to brin
about the much desired combination O
p cheap money cheap power, and cheap tra
portation, and this combination will, | al
confident, be the open sesame to success tn
. haur mi nf "a ara n ba auI