Year: 1875

Among the speakers who are to address
the coming Initiation Convention at Detroit
there is one who if he chooses to do SO, can
give the meeting an instructive example Of
the results of easy credit and imitation upon
a farming community. We refer to Senator
Gordon, of Georgia.


Georgia had until last year law admir-
ably calculated to extend the credit of cot.
ton planters and make it easy for them to
borrow money; in fact, so far as they were
concerned, to make money very abundant.
This was the Lien law, which empowered a
farmer or planter to mortgage his coming
crop to factor to obtain advances of
money-that is to say, by pledging cot
ton which was not yet harvested, or, in
deed, planted. The planters were poor;
needed more money, as pretty much every
body does and here was device which
seemed sent down by Heaven or Mr. Kelley,
which enabled them to get ''more money" at
once. In fact, it made the planting busi-
ness quite lively. All that an impecunioua
planter had to do was to 60 to town
and show a factor that he had so much good
cotton land, capable of raising so much cot
ton, worth so many dollars; and that he
needed so much money to plough and plant,
and cultivate and harvest, and gin and bale
the crop, and send it to town for the factor
to sell. The security, under the Lien law.
was perfectly good, for it gave the factor the
absolute and exclusive control of the crop
when it was made, and authorized him to
take his advances and charges out of the pro-
ceeds, before any other claims. Every
Georgia town at once had factors, who stood
ready to make advances to planters on theiI
coming crop. They charged the planter ono
per cent month; they sold him his sup
plies, charging him two per cent commits
sons; they sold his cotton, and charged him
two and half per cent on its value for that
service. They were very helpful to the
planters and this happy being found himself
at once with 'more money" than he had
seen for some time.


But, alas when the crop was made, and
the "more money so easily got was spent,
and settling day came, as it must come no
matter how easy it is to borrow, then thu
planter discovered that, what with advances
and interest and commissions the crop
belonged, in fact, to the factor; and the
planter had sometimes not enough left
to keep him over winter, and very
often nothing with which to pay the wages
of his laborers. However, the benefcent
Lien law enabled him to borrow again on
the next crop; and this he did. Meantime
however, the shrewder planters began to noS
tice that, whereas formerly forehanded and
skilful- planter could get very limited adj
vances from merchants and banks, now no.
body would lend to any planter except a
factor. The factor was able to borrow OF
banks and merchants but the planter could
get money only of the factor Moreover, the
whole planting community presently dis
covered that though they could get money
more easily than ever before, yet they were
running more and more deeply in debt, and
in spite of all their exertions were getting
poorer all the time. BY and by, as debts in
creased, the factors refused to make more
advances the sheriff began to go through
the country, and the end of the business was
that the Georgia Legislature last winter was
induced by the planters themselves to repeal
the Lien law. Perhaps Senator Gordon will
explain to the Detroit Convention why tho
planters thus demanded the repeal of law
which certainly enabled them to borrow
easily and to obtain ''more money just
when they needed it.