116 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



cert on the part of the millers. We might 

 then have a voice in fixing the rules and usages 

 of the grain market. We would be heard and 

 felt through our agent. But the Southern 

 Planter discovers great impediments in the way 

 of the successful working of the proposed 

 remedy. He asks, "where would he" (the 

 agent) "get the. money to make advances on 

 his sales ? For the farmer will have advances/' 

 The answer is obvious. From the same source 

 that commission merchants now obtain it. The 

 same facilities would exist for him as for them. 

 He might follow the present usage — take the 

 note the miller gives for the wheat of the far- 

 mer to a bank, and have it discounted, and af- 

 ford him the proceeds of the note given for his 

 own grain, in advance. There is no limit to 

 the capacity of one man to make all the ad- 

 vances which are now made by all the commis- 

 sion merchants, if he sold all the wheat, which 

 does not now apply to all of them. They ob- 

 tain money by means of the notes of the mil- 

 lers discounted in the banks. If he sold all 

 the wheat, he would have all the notes, and 

 ■ consequently would be able to obtain as much 

 money as they now get from this source alto- 

 gether. The credit is really given to the mil- 

 lers, and the grain is the basis of it all. The 

 millers pay the banks by drafts drawn on ship- 

 ments of flour. The answer is so palpable, 

 that I feel some surprise at the question's be- 

 ing asked. Is it possible that it was written 

 after dinner? 



" Aliquando Homerus dormit." 

 This being the simple solution, the whole 

 superstructure of a million's being withdrawn 

 from circulation, fall like the " baseless fabric 

 of a vision." 



7. But the Planter perceives other difficulties 

 in one man's giving the supervision necessary to 

 so many clerks and agents as would be required 

 for so large a business. There are fifty men 

 in New York, I presume, that do as large a 

 business, taking the hypothesis of the Planter 

 that all the grain should be sold by one agent; 

 which I never anticipated. The house of 

 Stewart is engaged in a trade, I do not doubt, 

 to double the amount. Yet there is no diffi- 

 culty in supervising it and making it vastly 

 profitable. I know of one firm who bought of 

 a single establishment in Liverpool, in one 

 year, $900,000 worth of goods. These houses 

 deal in a gfeat variety of articles, buy and sell 

 and trade in both hemispheres. Their business 

 is complicated, varied and widely extended. 

 Here our agent would not buy at all, and 

 would sell, for the most part, one thing, wheat, 

 some little corn, and perhaps a trifling amount 

 of other products. His business would proba- 

 bly be limited to this city, and his dealings 

 with some half dozen firms. The affairs of 

 such an agency would be, to those of Stewart 

 and many others in New York, as unity to 

 a hundred, or perhaps a thousand, in the one- 

 ness, simplicity, facility and concentration on 



the one side, and the diversity, complication, 

 difficulty and extension on the othgr. My 

 friend of the Southern Planter could do the 

 business with ease, edit his valuable paper at 

 the same time, and also find leisure to cultivate 

 his farm, and also make occasional visits to 

 different sections and deliver agricultural ad- 

 dresses. 



But it is asked, who would join the agent as 

 security on his bond ? Who become endorsers 

 for the commission merchants when they sell 

 our grain ? If you were to ask one of those 

 gentlemen for security, when you propose to 

 him to sell your crop of wheat, he would 

 probably look at you with astonishment and de- 

 mand an explanation. And yet these commis- 

 sion houses are generally engaged in specula- 

 tion, I believe, and buy and sell and venture in 

 a great variety of products and commodities, 

 and as a necessary consequence, are subject to 

 the casualties of trade, and sometimes fail* 

 And yet it would be an extraordinary propo- 

 sition to one of them to ask for security when 

 you consigned a cargo of grain to be sold. It 

 would be against all mercantile usage. And 

 yet there is much more peril in the present 

 system, and more necessity for a security, than 

 with the agency proposed. The projet did 

 not contemplate that the agent would be a mer- 

 chant at all, and therefore not liable to the 

 dangers that beset the path of commercial men. 

 He need not incur any risk unless he en- 

 dorses the notes of the miller ; and that would 

 be so small a risk, as "regards the principal 

 millers, that it is scarcely worthy of considera- 

 tion. There would probably be more peril in 

 endorsing the bank notes that constitute our 

 currency. He would be exempt from the dan- 

 gers of trade. It was distinctly stated, in giv- 

 ing a concise sketch of what this agency should 

 be, that the agent ''-should devote his time and 

 his energies to the sale of grain." I would 

 have no merchant, if it depended on me, be- 

 cause there would be less security, and also 

 there should be a concentration on this busi- 

 ness. The compensation would be ample, if 

 the farmers generally seconded the measure, 

 and there would be no necessity nor propriety 

 in his engaging in the engrossing hazards of 

 mercantile life. The argument of insecurity, 

 introduced to prejudice the proposed agency, 

 it will be seen, constitutes an additional and 

 cogent reason for its adoption. It is taken for 

 granted that no man would be appointed by 

 the Executive Committee who was not of the 

 highest integrity and without reproach ; and 

 whose pecuniary circumstances were such, in 

 addition, as to justify committing a large 

 interest to his hands. But there would not 

 probably be so great an amount of money in 

 his keeping at any one time as might, on the 

 first view of the question, be anticipated. Far- 

 mers do not usually leave much of their income 

 in the coffers of their commission merchants. It 

 is no sooner received than it is paid over. 



I 



