things can in themselves gratify human desires, and unless there is wealth, which they are supposed to symbolize, they can not be exchanged.

Neither is all wealth capital; but all capital is wealth. So much of wealth as is used in production is capital. Five hundred dollars invested in machinery to be used is capital. It is employed to produce wealth. If the five hundred dollars is locked up, the wealth it represents is idle. It produces nothing, serves no good purpose to mankind in procuring objects of desire or comfort.

Production creates value; it develops wealth. It multiplies those various objects that minister to human wants and enjoyment. The farmer, by whose exertion a crop of cotton, corn, or wheat is created, under the laws of God is a wealth producer. The tree of the forest, transformed into lumber, has value conferred upon it by human industry. The lumber is useful and desirable for many purposes. The same is true of iron changed into horseshoes. All industries that confer value upon the material provided by the bounty of God are wealth producers. Some of these industries confer value by direct methods; others by indirect. The ax, the hatchet, the saw, the spade, the plow, are all instruments of value; but other persons than those that made them must use them in the production of those things that shall minister to our desires.

Wealth developed by production is the foundation of confidence. Such a foundation is necessary to commerce-necessary in the manifold forms of exchange. The employer trusts the truthfulness and

integrity of the employee to do the work proposed. The merchant reposes confidence in those with whom he has business relations. In all the various forms of trade, occupations, and industries, this confidence is a very important factor. Without it, human industries would halt; exchanges would be burdened with needless work. In commerce this element performs a larger and more useful function than money itself. Why should A of New Orleans send a thousand dollars to B of New York, when C of New York owes this sum to A of New Orleans? A's draft on C in favor of B will adjust the claim. Destroy the basis of this confidence, and this method of settlement is at an end. All healthy credit must be sustained by ability, integrity, and truthfulness.

The features of the credit system in vogue in the Southern States during the last twenty-five years, differ widely from those of credit. It operates upon a different basis. The credit mode of doing business and the plan of the credit system are far apart. While credit is helpful, stimulating in the development of wealth, the credit system is depressing, discouraging-destroying hope. The one is rational, an aid to progress; the other is irrational, and clogs the forward movement of the people.

(1) This system is responsible for an indefiniteness as it respects the debtor, which amounts to tyranny. When A borrows a hundred dollars from B, he knows definitely the rate of interest he has agreed to pay B. The rate of interest is determined

before the money is taken. By this method there is no such understanding. All the satisfaction the debtor can get is, he must pay certain prices. If the merchant has agreed to furnish him, it is sufficient for the farmer to know that he must pay these prices. Whether the prices are moderate, reasonable, unreasonable, exorbitant, or ruinous, does not concern the purchaser. It is a financial transaction. which is as clear as the noonday sun to one party, the creditor, and as dark as a starless night to the other party, the debtor. Would that this statement were fiction instead of a hard, ugly fact! The purchaser is enveloped in mists. He travels in the dark twelve months in the year. He does not

know whether he pays forty or a hundred per cent. profit. This is a secret not to be divulged. Human nature is weak. The power is all on one side, and the necessity for supplies, real or imaginary, on the other. The history of nineteen centuries has certainly taught the world one impressive lesson, that power, wherever found, has seldom been sparing in its exercise. It is not in the nature of power, generally speaking, to be merciful. It has not a tender heart. The milk of human charity comes not from this source. The power of this system is a subtle, expensive, crushing machinery.

“Regard for 'Number One,'" says Samuel Smiles, "is the prevailing maxim. High profits are regarded as the summum bonum—no matter how obtained, or at what sacrifice. Money is our god; 'Devil take the hindmost,' our motto. The spirits of darkness rule supreme."

"Mammon has led them on,

Mammon, the least erect of all the spirits
That fell from heaven."

(2) The debtor is bound to the creditor when once he has commenced to make a purchase. If he has incurred a debt with one merchant, he can not readily get credit from another merchant. The reason is obvious. The risk under the system is great. No merchant cares to take a customer who is already in debt to another. If there is a mortgage the transfer is attended with difficulties. The purchaser, as a rule, has no option. He is tied up under this peculiar plan. He may be dissatisfied with his merchant, whose prices may seem exorbitant; he may have found a merchant whose terms are fairer, but if he is in debt, he is in no condition to make the change. The debt chains the farmer to the firm with whom he is trading. He can not buy where it suits him. The price asked is the only chance to get what he wants, even if that price amounts to confiscation. Blindly he must buy, if he buys at all. "Competition" is a word not found in the debtor's dictionary. "What power in civilized society," says Macaulay, "is so great as that of the creditor over the debtor?'

(3) Those who buy supplies under this system can not tell how much they have bought during the year until the cotton crop is delivered. It is believed to be true of 75 per cent. The only check to the making of purchases is upon the class of poor farmers whose property is small, and whose crop consists in a half-dozen bales of cotton. The limit is fixed at

$50, $75, or $100. When merchandise to the amount agreed upon has been bought, a halt to further advances is called. The merchant may not be blamed for refusing to extend the credit beyond the value of the expectant crop. No such limit is fixed for the man whose real estate is large, and whose personal property in the form of horses, mules, and cattle is ample. If the purchaser has a family of somewhat expensive tendencies, the account at the end of the year will generally be larger than he expected. Upon what did the good, easy, careless man base his expectation? He kept no account of his purchases. In a vast number of cases, the bill, as it is commonly known, is called for in November and December of the year. The wail of merchants in January is generally, "We have large balances to carry over for next year." The size of the crop, the price of cotton, and the purchases made, determine the size and the number of balances. Few are the years that from 50 per cent. to 75 per cent. of the farmers who thus bought supplies did not come out in debt to their merchants at the close of the year. These facts are gathered from conversations with many merchants and a large number of farmers. A slight improvement one year is reversed by an unfavorable crop year the next. The indefinite plan of purchasing, and ignorance of the amount bought until the cotton has been sold, is a fruitful source of disaster to the country. "Fifty per cent. of the people,” said a prominent merchant in 1891, “in my section are in debt, and from 25 to 35 per cent. are not in an