412 BANKS AND MONEY. 



CHAPTEE XXIX. 



BANKS AND MONEY. 



&quot; The basis of our currency is not gold, but the nation s honor, guaranteed by the national 

 loyalty and the general interests of its members.&quot; Hon. M. Anderson. 



FAEMEES NEED CHKAP MONEY LEGISLATION CONTEOLLED BY CAPITALISTS FAI;M- 



EKS AND LAWYEIiS IN CONGEESS EXEMPTION OF BONDS FBOM TAXATION llATB 



OF INTEBEST A TEST OF PEOSPEEITY; OF CIVILIZATION BANKS AND BANKING 

 SAVINGS BANKS PAPEE PEOMISES MADE LEGAL TENDEES PEOF. BONAMY 

 PEICE ON CEISKS AND PANICS ENGLISH CO-OPEEATIVE ASSOCIATIONS AS FINAN 

 CIAL SUCCESSES. 



IT lias been a favorite theory that the farmer should leave the 

 after-management of his products to other classes of society, 

 especially gifted by nature and qualified by special education 

 and opportunities to deal with them to the best advantage for 

 him and for themselves. 



We will judge of the correctness of this principle by its re 

 sults. The British &quot;Fortnightly Review&quot; thus clearly and 

 impressively states the problem, as it looks from that point : 



In this complex industrial s} r stein, wealth has discovered the ma 

 chinery by which the principal, in some cases the whole results of 

 common labor become its special perquisites. Ten thousand miners 

 delve and toil, giving their labor, risking their lives; ten masters 

 give their direction, or their capital, oftenest only the latter. And 

 in a generation the ten capitalists are rioting in vast fortunes, arid 

 the ten thousand workmen are rotting in their graves or in the work 

 house. And yet the ten thousand were at least as necessary to the 

 work as the ten. Yet more, the ten capitalists are practically the 

 law-makers, the magistrates, the government. The educators of 

 youth, the priests of all creeds, are their creatures. Practically 

 they make and interpret the law the law of the land, the law of 

 opinion, and the law of God. They are masters of the whole of 

 the social forces. A convenient faith has been invented for them by 

 moralists and economists, the only faith which in these days they at 

 all believe in the faith that the good of mankind is somehow pro 

 moted by a persevering course of selfishness; that competition is, 

 in fact, the whole duty of man. And thus it comes that in ten 

 thousand ways the whole social force is directed for the benefit of 

 those who have. 



The farmers are by far the largest class of our population, 

 but are they the most prosperous? Is it not well to inquire 

 what it is that retards their prosperity, and prevents them from 

 exercising a proportionate influence over the public policy of 

 the country? 



