The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1915-04-13

n the March American Review, gives ex
PRESTON to views that will meet with the ap
,roval of observant and unprejudiced people
The berating of the business interests of tn
by selfish politicians for their owl
advancement is more largely responsible TO
he business depression than many suppos
IF will admit Mr. Duke says:
SOLID
ut is a great mistake to assume that
there is a conflict in interest between
different classes of Enthusiastically
if comparative wealth is the basis of
this classification. Undoubtedly it is
unpleasant for the average man to pay
direct taxes, and therefore an income
tax, especially when it is graduated,
may be assumed to diSpease the rich,
who have to pay it, and, corresponding
ly, to please the poor who do not have
to pay it. Generally speaking though,
these matters of business involve no
conflict of interest whatever. The very
conditions that bring good dividends
to the shareholder and opportunities
otherwise for the profitable investment
of capital, bring good wages and abund-
ant work to the wage-earner and good
markets to the farmer; and the very
conditions that bring distress to one
bring distress to all. The difference
between the various elements is not a
matter of conflict, but a matter of vast
difference of degree of interest; the
conditions that merely curtail the div
idends of the shareholder and lessen
the income of the capitalist may bring
the best obtainable wage of the laborer
to the starvation point, or, worse still,
transfer him from the ranks of self
supporting and self-respecting labor to
the breadline.
1T is not a pleasant contemplation,
but it is the simple TRUTH that since
1904 the whole course of national pO-
litical affairs, so far as it has been in
fluential at all, has been-With one SOL
itary exception-toward the depression
of business, the hindering of business
prosperity, the curtailment of the in
come of the capitalist and the laborer
alike
eff it were not for some of the ben
efits that come to our trade from the
European war we would now be in a
condition infinitely more distressing.
Thousands of men are now out of en-
ployment, but there would be tens of
thousands if peace had reigned. Ger
tain farm products have been low be-
cause of the war, but it is my belief
that cotton itself is as high now as it
would have been by this time if condi-
tions of the first half of 1914 had con-
tinued; and the prices of other farm
products are twice as high. Mills have
had to close or run on part time, but
are better off ininitely-they and their
employees-than they would have been
had the world been spared the sight
of men by the millions shooting
each other down. The European war
is a nightmare to all humane men, and
ultimately we must suffer financially,
as we'll as in our pity and sympathies,
on account of it, but, so far, its effect
on our business prosperity undoubtedly
has shown decided balance of advant-
age and not disadvantage.
1.-The normal effect of all fiscal legis-
lation and trade tendencies has been
turned awry, in one direction or an
other, by the cataclysm that involves
the whole of Europe, but before that
cataclysm happened there we're ten
denotes unmistakabIe to the observant
business man. He deceives himself,
and not others, who says that the bus
mess conditions here were good in June
and July of 1914. The trade bal
ance-the excess of our sales over our
purchases-had been S30S,624, 462 in
our favor during the first seven months
of 1918; during the first seven months
of 1914 our sales exceeded our pur-
chases only $60,579,S30. A change so
soon of $3.50 100000 in this absolute
barometer is more significant than any
theory of what should happen how
ever so ingeniously devised or attract
lively expressed
mo man can assert it as fact, but
I repeat that. in my deliberate judg-
ment, formed not without careful
thought, it has been only the tragedy
of war that has prevented our condi-