during the year. His crop may be short, and the general crop may be large. These and other causes may bring about a considerable balance due the merchant at the end of the year.

This way of trading is beyond the grasp of the average farmer. He can not calculate the disastrous consequences to himself. To ask a man to do business on this plan, is almost to invite him to enslave himself and his family. It has worked this way thus far.

What the country needs just now, to assure reasonable prosperity, is genuine sympathy between the merchant class and the farming class. Honest sympathy, transparent as God's daylight, is the need of the hour. "If I were to be asked," said Judge Talfourd, on whom Death was at that moment laying his hand, "what is the great want of English society-to mingle class with class; I would say in one word, the want is the want of sympathy."* It is the need of the South. The greedy, selfish policy, by which a few are enriched, and many are impoverished, is a curse to any land in the long run. Men may call such a policy by the fairest name, and justify it by every specious argument at their command, yet such a policy is fundamentally wrong. To put the common welfare of millions on the rack, is neither humane nor just. "Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people." There is no flaw or error in this great truth. The righteousness that elevates and prospers a nation, will do the same for the individuals composing the

* "Thrift," by Samuel Smiles.

nation. Oppression of every form, whether encouraged, stimulated, or invited by direct or indirect means, is in intent and in practice opposed to right

eousness.

The cost of supplies on the time basis cripples the Southern farmer. Whatever else may be fiction, this is history from 1865 to 1893. What is this credit cost above the cash cost? The evidence shows that it is from twenty-five to one hundred per cent. above a fair cash valuation. Some of the most successful and competent business men in the South contend that merchandise in towns and country stores can not be sold for cash at a profit less than twenty-five per cent. The credit cost to the consumer ranges thus from fifty to one hundred and twenty-five per cent.

Prices, of course, have been subject to various fluctuations. When cotton was selling at thirty cents per pound, the margin of profit was larger than when cotton sells at seven cents a pound. Nor have these prices been uniform among all merchants. It is claimed that the general average prices, as stated, ruled the market for all men who bought on time.

The question is not whether merchants could do business of this nature on a less profit. It is presumed they could not, or they had no inclination to do so. If the first view be the just interpretation of these commercial transactions, then it is fair to conclude that the consumer, judged by the experience of the past, can not continue to be a partner to these transactions upon these terms and prosper.

These terms are denied by some. Catalogue prices are no criterion. The discount off to the trade is large. Articles of luxury are not under consideration, but the necessaries of life. If the terms are not as high as represented, why should this confessedly risky business be courted by so many men? Why should it be called the moneymaking business?

The direct information of individuals, various comparisons, the common judgment of reliable men and the testimony from ten Southern States, leaves no room for doubt as to the general average prices on the time basis. Besides, certain deductions, difficult to explain away, corroborate this common opinion.

Honorable business has no need for evasion or jugglery of any kind. It can stand all the light that may be let in upon it. The man that offers to sell a horse for two hundred dollars, and proposes to make by the sale one hundred dollars, has a perfect right to do as he pleases with his property. The price may be regarded as exorbitant, but that is his concern. The purchaser may decline to buy at this price, because it is too high, or because he can not afford it. In either event, the act is his own, and honorable. Neither the seller nor the purchaser is blameworthy. The price of the horse is under consideration, not men.

The credit price is the topic for investigation. Is it high?

A friend bought coffee for his family at 12 cents cash; a neighbor of his bought, on time, a similar

article at 25 cents. A white farmer bought two articles of universal use on the farm for $9.80 cash; another man bought similar articles on credit for $14. The cash price of a necessary article was $18; the credit price, $28.

These may be exceptional cases; possibly are. If such transactions are made in one place, they may be made in another. The path of self-denial for twelve months is certainly the path of wisdom. Such an effort will bring its own reward in time.

"In Alabama 45 per cent. of the farmers, white and colored, are heavily in debt, without available means of liquidation; and not less than 65 per cent. find it necessary to seek assistance from the county commissioners and the merchants. They pay over 50 per cent. more for their supplies than cash prices. Money is borrowed by mortgaging farms at interest rates ranging from 18 to 24 per cent. per annum. The negroes get about 35 per cent. of the cotton made in the State, but it is all pledged for supplies before it is gathered. On an average 90 per cent. of the whole crop is pledged before grown, for supplies and interest. All supplies on this basis cost upward of 75 per cent. above cash prices. The same thing is true of Mississippi. One-third of the farmers of Texas are hopelessly burdened with debt. They obtain from $2 to $5 advances from merchants on cultivated land secured by a crop lien. The annual rate of interest is 12 per cent. in Texas. Farmers pay from 15 to 25 per cent.; the difference between cash and credit prices is from 25 to 50 per cent. In Arkansas 75 per cent. of the farmers in the cotton regions are in debt; in the grass and grain region, 25 per cent. The tenant or share-hand farmer is scored at the rate of 50 to 100 per cent. In other words, it costs him two-thirds more labor to live than it would if he had the cash. The worst form of indebtedness is that contracted by securing advances on grown crops; it throttles industry and breeds despair by reducing the borrower to slavery."*

"In my opinion, the true cause of the unrest which pervaded the State for some years before 1890 was a system of commercial extor

* History of the Wheel.

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tion or legalized robbery of the farming, and, in general, the poorer class by the money owners and money lenders, in whatever form it was loaned to the people, whether by bankers, private usurers, or cotton factors. This system began as early as the close of the war, when the Confederate soldier came home to find that all was lost, both on the battlefield and his farm. In order to assist him in the struggle to restore his fallen fortunes, to give him credit and standing in the commercial world, the lien law was enacted. It was intended as a blessing, but became a curse so patent that in time the farming classes cried out against it as an infamous, though silent, oppressor. Merchants and bankers charged outrageous rates of interest. With rates of 300 per cent. under the lien system, and 50 per cent. charged by bankers and merchants, the farmer was taxed to death; certainly to the point where forbearance ceased to be a virtue, and where revolt was the remedy, both in law and equity." Monopoly is the true cancer, but, like other cancers, its roots penetrate the entire body on which it subsists; in consequence of which we challenge the world to produce the equal of some Arkansas monopolists on a small scale. We know of a certain mercantile firm who twenty-five years ago owned nothing comparatively, but to-day own eighteen thousand acres of land, a great part of which is in cultivation; also mules, horses, cattle, and several stores. Perhaps one person would be more correct than a firm, for one person owns the greater part of the property. The inquiry arises, how did this man, who had no capital to start with, amass that amount of property in twenty-five years, while farmers who had capital grew poorer every year? The answer is, monopoly and extortion! These, in the instance named, were managed through the 'anaconda' mortgage, which he succeeded in obtaining on crops and stock, and often on lands. Then began the wholesale robbery by charging two and three prices for the goods furnished, thereby reducing his victims to extreme poverty; yea, to financial skeletons. The poor victims, unable to comply with the enormous demands, were sold out' at shamefully low prices, the mortgagee being the purchaser at twothirds the cash value placed on the property by appraisers chosen to put the lowest valuation that decency would permit.

"The instant one of these anaconda mortgages is executed, the maker becomes practically the slave of the mortgagee; he is deprived

* Senator Irby from South Carolina.