Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1897-12-03
NO BRIGHT OUTLOOK.
| MARKETS AGAIN NEAR THE
COLLAPSINC POINT.
Resumption of the Gold Standard
Tendency to Lower and Lower
Prices and Closing Factories Pre-
dicted.

The regular gold basis program OF
constantly reducing prices and harder
and harder times having been varied
by better prices for wheat, the i'm
provement, though slight, was at once
felt throughout the country, thus prov
ing the Populist proposition, that the
farmer is the basis of the market, and
that no class, except a small class OF
monopolists, can be prosperous unless
the farmer is prosperous. But the
wheat crop has been sold and the
money spent. What of the future?
Everything indicates another dlsas-
trous run OF gold standard low prices,
with closing factories and foreclosed
farms. Wharton Barker says: There
is no reason to look for an increased
demand or better prices for manufac-
tured goods in the immediate future.
On the contrary, there is reason to look
for lower with the approach of next
years harvests, for there is no reason
to suppose that the crops in Europe
next year will be below the normal,
there Is every reason to expect that the
crops in Argentine and Australia to
be garnered in the coming winter will
be bountiful and with such crops prices
for agricultural products will fall,
farmers will suffer in credit, will not
dare to increase purchases even If they
could; then will come lessened con-
sumption of manufactured products on
the farm and plantation and hence
lower prices for such products.
And in this connection let us say that
our farmers. even the most favored
with bountiful wheat crops, have not
had money to reduce their indebted
ness by the great sums of which we
are told. Thus we are told of the
farmers of Nebraska paying off mil
lions of mortgages. Millions of mort
cages have indeed been cancelled but
they have been cancelled by the mort
gage companies foreclosing the mort
cages. On investigation we find that
more new mortgages have been made
in Nebraska during the present year
than have been paid off. The mort
gage Indebtedness of Nebraska is $31S,-
600 greater today than it was year
ago. So we see there has been no re-
duction of farm Indebtedness in Ne
braska save by foreclosures. And re-
duction of Indebtedness in this way in
dicates anything but farming pros
perity. Farmers who have lost their
all by foreclosure sale are not promis-
ing purchasers for manufactured
goods. OF course these foreclosure
sales are the results of defaults not in
this year but during the last three or
four.
So, to recapitulate, the great rise in
agricultural prices during the past
quarter has resulted from crop failures
abroad, yet it is doubtful if our farm
ers will realize more money this year
than last, because of shortage in some
crops. And further, with the approach
of the new harvest year, agricultural
prices are likely to fall. This is a
plain, unvarnished fact, as concerning
the probability of a general and sus-
tanned advance in prices for manufac-
tured goods, In short, the probability
of an increased consumption of manu-
featured goods by our agricultural
population and of increased prices from
this cause is slim.