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0 4 V I V THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS OP OUB PEOPLE FABAIIOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF STATE POLICY. 7 ! "ST RALEIGH; N. Cm NOVEMBER 26, 1889. No 4s Vol. 4. 1 1 4 DIRE GANIZATIONS. 3STH CABOU5A FARMERS STATE ALLIANCE. t Ment-Blias Carr, Old Sparta, X.C. President-A. H. Hayes, Bird town, N.C. p RjjeigK N. 0. SecreCj D AUen, Falls, 9. 0. SSraS: Long, Longs, N. C. iSStLecturer-R B. Hunter, Char- to&-J. J- Scotfc AlfordsviUe' NDoor Keeper-W. H. Tomlinson, Fay 8Tst Door Keeper-H. E. King, PgeaSi:AnnBr. S. Holt, Chalk USUteNBuiness Agent-W. H. Worth, Rtote?Business Agency Fund W. A. Graham, Machpelah, N.C. IIEOUTIVK COMMITTEE OT THS NORTH CARO LINA farmers' STATE ALLIANCE. S. B Alexander, Charlotte, N. C., Chair-can; J. M. Mewbora, KinstonN. C J. S. Johnston, Ruffin, IS. O. OinCERSOF THE VIRGINIA STATE ALLIANCE. President G. T. Brbee, Bridgewater, VTice-Pres;dent aj. Mann Page, Bcretary-J. J Silvey, Amissille, Va. Treasirer-Isaiah Printz, Stonyman, Lecturer J. D. Shepperson, Smithville,. Ta Assistant-Lecturer P. H. Strode, Step hen City, Va. Chaplain Wm. M. Rosser, Luray, V a. Doorkeeper B. Frank Beahen, Kim- baAsIstant-Doorkeeper, G. E. Brubaker, Luray. Va. Sergeant-at-Anns Milton Pence, For- estville, Va. State Business Agent S. P. A. Bruba ker, Luray, Va. , , Ch'mn Ex. Com. E. T. Brumback, 7a. Ida, . THE CROP REPORTING SYSTEM OF MICHIGAN. Mb. Editor: Between the pro ducers and the consumers-of food pro ducts stand the speculators with rob hsrv of each reduced to a science. Pn.rt.iVnlarlv is speculation in wheat systematized, and, to enable specula tors the better to control the price, trained experts are sent out from the creat errain markets to estimate both quality and quantity of the coming crop. It there is a snortage apparent, exaggerated reports of overproduction are industriously circulated : this dis courages the farmer and induces him to sell at a low price. When the crop is mainly out of first hands, tlje short age is discovered and the press aids the speculators in robbing the con1 sumer by booming prices. It is aggre gated capital against segregated cap ital; organization against the mob, and the unorganized producer loses. In 1878-9, the Secretary of State, in the cereal reports for those years, recommended that a system of crop reporting be adopted for Michigan trader authority of the State. The mem had been nrst introduced m linois in 1876, and found a success. le system was again ursred by bec- retary of State William Tenny, in the introduction to farm statistics 01 Michigan for 1880. In 1881 the Legislature passed: AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOB THE PUBLICA TION OP MONTHLY CROP AND STOCK REPORTS. This law provides that the Secretary of State shall obtain monthly state ments of the condition of live stock and growing crops; and immediately after harvest, statementsof the yield of wheat and other farm products; the quantity of wheat, wool and other products marketed, and the amount still remaining in farmers' hands.' The Secretary shall prepare monthly -abstracts of allthi3 information, also of the number of townships from which reports were received and a copy to each newspaper, each member of the Legislature, each crop reporter in the State, and 1,000 for free dis tribution. ( The Secretary shall select at least one person in each township in the BUte who shall be willing to furnish wis information for his township, and other useful information if desired, to we Secretary of State. Such correspondent so fulfilling wese duties receives free a copy each ot the Annual State Report on Affri- ZSaS'J0? f ultlre, and State Horticnltm-ni s; m, . ' the sole, compensation Qf the croo correspondents, and several hundred of them report each month. This information is laid before the reading public by the newspapers and has proved a great aid in protecting the farmers against the garbeled, exag 1 1 gerated and one-sided reports of the speculators. It has been adopted by Unio, In diana and other Scales. If not in use in the South, the A.lli ance should take it in hand at once. The officers of eachSub-Allhnce could become accurate reporters. The re ports when compiled could be pub lished by the State, and you would have no guesswork about the cotton or other crops. If there is no similar system in North Carolina, I call on Bro. Polk and The Progressive Farmer to begin the good word at once, and have all ready for the Leg islature to pass the law at its next ses sion. Anything-that will check the forays of the speculators against the producers should be pushed speedily and thoroughly. From " Michigan Crop Report, Jan. 1, 18S9," I compile these satistic3: For 1888 the average cost throughout the State of producing and market ing one bushel of wheat was 64 cents, the average cost of one acre was $ 1 0. 54. The average yield was 1 6. 4 7 bushels per acre. Crops are credited with value of straw and their propor tion of rental of buildings. The average yield for five years, 1884 to 1888 inclusive, is 18.53 per acre; average cost, $14.22 per acre. Average net cost about 70 cents a bushel. The yield is below the average this year and prices about 80 cents now. Oats, average cost for those five years was $10.77 per acre and 28 and five-tenth cents a bushel. Price now is 20 to 23 cents. Producers of oats lose heavily this year. Corn for the five years, average cost per acre, $13.74, and per bushel of ears, 21 cents. Western corn is shipped and sold freely here now for 40 to 45 cents per bushel of shelled corn. The extreme floods until June and extreme drouth since then even until now in November, made it a disas trous year for corn. The outlook for next ; year's wheat crop is dismal. Nine-tenths of our wheat fields look bare as newly-plowed land. Plenty of wheat sown in the first-half of Sep tember is just coming up and lots of it is past resurrection. The average cost of the hay crop for the five years was $6.54 per acre; tha cost per ton, $4.74. This is a disastrous year to Michi gan farmers. Crops yield below the average and prices are far below the cost of production. Just as hard, the annual crop of land mortgages, inter est on debts, and taxes on property cme up big as Goliath, strong as Sampson, deadly as vampires and in vincible as death. Wolverine. Mr. Editor: With your permis sion I will give the readers of your excellent paper the benefit of some things which I observed and which impressed me' very much while North this fall attending a number oj North ern Fairs, with an exhibit of Southern products, sent out by the Southern Inter-States Immigration Bureau. The object of this exhibit North, be ing for the purpose of impressing them favorably with our country and climate, that they may come among us and buy up our spare lands and develop manufactories, &c , gave me an , opportunity to learn more of the details of their mode of farming than I could otherwise have had. Their land is not naturally more fertile than ours. It is more fertile because they make it rso and keep it so. They would just as soon expect to get milk from a cow that was not fed, as to get good crops, from land that was not manured. And they do not use com mercial fertilizers, either. They say that commercial fertilizers mean ex hausted lands. They make their own manures, and thereby increase the producing "power of their land. They begin at the bottom, and manage the farm with a special-view of making the manure pile as large and valuable as possible. To this end they give great promi nence to the raising of grasses and forage of all sorts. Hay literally and judiciously fed to stock in winter, produces fat beeves, for market in the spring, which is cash. It produces plenty of milk and butter, which is also money. It produces the best of manure, which means rich land. But you gay they get good prices for their milk and butter. They may re gard the prices good, but you would not. These very farmers seldom realize over four cents per quart for their milk, and frequently, at certain sea sons, have to take less than two cents per quart; and they seldom tet over twenty cents per pound for butter, except for the golden gra ies which sorneiimes "rings a little more. But they must have the cattle and the hay to make the manure, or' their farms will retrograde. There is just this apparant differ ence between tbe special object of a New England and a North Carolina farmer. The Yankee farms with a special view of increasing the produc tiveness of his farm, while the South erner farms with a special view to getting all the crop possible that year. And the results of the Yankee mode are from 50 to 100 bushels of corn 'per acre and from 3 to 5 gallons of milk from each cow per day. The surprise of the New England farmer is great when told that we can raise two crops of potatoes on the same land the same year, or a crop of wheat and corn or potatoes. The superiority of Northern farms, modes and appliances is not the result of superior land, stock or people, but the result of close contact, and sharp competition y the resvlt of . . m necessity. Then why snoula our iarm ers, with climate and other things greatly in their favor, wait for neces sity to force them to the adoption of modes and management necessary to place Southern farming where it be longs, ahead of the world? Experimenting in farming frequent ly pays. The eastern Virginia and North Carolina truckers have been sending hundreds of thousands of dol lars to New Jersey every spring for seed potatoes, because seed raised from the spring planting will not produce well. They degenerate. A few years ago a Virginia trucker made the ex periment of planting the cullings from the spring digging, as a second, or fall crop. These produced finely, kept well through the winter and fur nished seed for the next spring plant ing equal to the Jersey potato in every particular. So much so that last spring six or eight thousand barrels were shipped to New Jersey for plant ing from one small section" near Nor folk, Va. But I must stop, lest I worry you, or weary your readers. Respectfully, r T. C. W. Wasaington, D. C., Nov. 12, '89. Mr. Editor: In answer to the question, does farming pay? I an swer yes. The next question in order would be who does it pay ? To this I answer the man who don't farm. The next question will naturally be, why don't it pay? My answer is, you can find out fust why by carefully reading the forthcoming National Economist Almanac. Then if any one .wants to know just how to apply the remedy, subscribe for ThePbogbessive Farmer and the National Economist, and you will then be thoroughly fur nished with information that will en able you to knock a long hole in the arguments of any enemy of our order. Fraternally, Habry Tracy. THE BUSINESS AGENCY FUND. Mr. Editor : Brq. Rogers of Northampton makes a suggestion as to the mode of raising the Fund, which I published for the informa tion of the brethren, who can adopt it if it meets with their approval. Where a member prefers let him in stead of money contribute 10 lbs of lint cotton or its equivalent in seed. Members to deliver the cotton to the Basin ess Agent of their Alliance or the gin where they have their cot ton packed. If there is' enough to make a bale let the Business Agent have it packed or if not enough for a uaie ix no u&s no convenient marxttt for "loose lint," he can make ' a bale by uniting with the ginner or some brother. The Business Agent will sell the. cotton and send me the money with a list of the names of contribu tors and amount of each. Tobacco could be contributed in some way, delivering it to the Business - Agent of Sub Alliance who would pack and sell. Wheat also could be delivered to the Business Agent who could take one or more loads and dispose of it. There is no excuse for not con tributing. If you have the wtll the way is certainly to be found, al though money may be scarce. - Remember well and bear in mind that Article , 17, Business . Agency Fund provides that after January 1st, 1890, only contributors to the fund shall hae its benefits free of cost. And the Executive Committee are obliged to execute it. If you desire its benefits contribute your share to its creation. W. A. Graham. Nov. 8, '89. Trustee. Queen Victoria will open the com ing session of Parliament in person. I TRUSTS AND MONOPOLIES. The Trust Itself a MonopolyIt Works to Suppress Competition. A R hber of the Great Body of Consumers Its Purposes and Its Operations A Alike Confirm the Charge. Prom the Baltimore Sun. NUMBER VII. I endeavored to show in mylast paper that the two grounds on which trusts .'have been chiefly defended are both untenable, and. furthermore, that they are not the real objects aimed at by Ihese combinations. Their primary object is not to pre vent adulteration or debasement in the quality of the objects they produce, nor, on the other hand, merely to secure the benefits that flow from pro duction on a large scale. , Experience has abundantly shown that the public can protect itself, and at the same time the honest producer, from frauds in the quality of commodities without having recourse to the subtle and ex pensive machinery of the trust. Very brief but very instructive . experience has also been sufficient to show that whaiever advantages for cheapening cost have been secured by its produc tion on a large scale have always been appropriated by the combination itself and never shared with the consumer. Moreover, when under the sugar trust eleven refineries are made to earn "Iirge dividends on the watered stock of sixteen refineries, when under the whisky trusU twelve distilleries are in like manner made to earn lib eral dividends on the watered stock of eighty-one distilleries, no amount of special pleading or economic leger demainca,n obscure the fact that the public is compelled to pay excessive prices for their products, and that this "result has been accomplished through a combination that has been able to limit supply, and by such limitation to run prices. TRUE OBJECT OF A TRUST. Andthis control of supply is the true atcsa ; final object of every trust. But there can be no such limitation permanently and effectively accomp lished as long as there is either com petition or the possibility of compe tition in open market between inde pendent producers of the same article. Accordingly this competition must be entirely or largely neutralized to clear the ground t for a trust. The price of a commodity is settled by what has been called the " higgling of the mar ket;" in other words it is the outcome of the contest between sellers trying to get the highest prices for their wares and buyers trying to buy at the lowest; and the law which controls this higgling is the law of supply and demand, which in the long run makes the normal price of commodities. The trust is a scheme to limit supply by lessening, and if possible eliminating, the competition which has hitherto compelled rival producers to seek their profits not so much in high prices as in large sales. Its avowed object is to substitute combination for competition, which is the very defini tion of monopoly not the meaning of that much-abused word in the loose and random declamation of the hust ings, but its definition by the most exact; thinkers and those who are guarded and precise in their terms. "Wherever competition is not monopoly is,'' said John Stuart Mill, and so say all great writers on the history and laws of trade. A sinister word. v There is scarcely a word in our vocabulary that conjures up ideas more repungent to equality of citizen ship and to free institutions or which comes down from the past freighted with more sinister import than the word monopoly. It is associated with all those wrongs and hoary abuses by which, in the older nations of the world, the great mass of the people have at times been sunk in ' hopeless poverty and toil that privilepe might roll in wealth and idleness. We are bound, therefore, to inquire how far in its observations the trust merits and justifies the stigma that such a classi fication would stamp upon it. Each one of the combinations we have examined aims to intervene be tween the producer of the raw ma terial and the purchaser of the manu factured article, and, as far as possible, to control the production of some commodity of necessary or general consumption. , ; PRODUCERS OP RAW MATERIAL. Let us begin, therefore, by inquir ing what has been the effect of the trust on the producer of its raw ma terial. In order to measure this effect fully we must, if possible, select a trust tljat is, if not the sole, at any rate the chief consumer of the raw material of its particular industry. The sugar trust cannot immediately or greatly depress the price of raw sugars, because by long usage in the trade that price is established by the quotations in the London market, and as nine-tenths of our raw sugars come from abroad, their shippers have choice of markets, and will not come here unless they have assurance that the New York market is as good as the London mar ket, and this assurance they can Com mand by contracting for the sale of their cargoes before starting. Yet, even with this protection, the sellers will eventually find some difference, for, instead of dealing with sixteen in dependent buyers, they now deal prac tically with one, and the diminished consumption caused by the artificial stimulation of the price of refined sugar, brought about by the trust, will inevitably affect the value of the raw product under the operation Of the law of demand and supply. Neither can we approximate the in fluence of the whisky trust on the price of corn, because it is but one of many buyers in the home market, and it consumes too small a fraction of the entire domestic product to enable it to dictate prices. Its influence on other industries will be considered in an other and more important relation in my next paper- - But the Standard Oil trust is an example to our land. The producer of petroleum cannot, like the foreign sugar planter, send this product in differently, and at the same cost, to the European or the American mar ket; nor can he, like our farmer, find numberless other purchasers in the home market. He is largely depend ent has been at . times entirely de pendenton the Standard combina tion to buy his crude oil. Has he shared in the phenomenal prosperity of that, combination? Has it ever paid him fairly remunerative prices for that product, which in itself has turned into golden streams ? On the contrary, during the highest tides of its prosperity, his business has been vibrating between actual loss and lean and beggarly profits. 4 'To strike oil" was formerly a phrase implying the sure acquisition of great and immediate wealth, but as the refining business passed into the grasp of a single combination, the whole oil-producing territory passed into a " state of chronic depression." And so we are justified in saying that in its dealings with those who produce its raw material the trust re veals itself wherever its power and tendency can have full play in the character of a true and unmistakable monopoly. the consumers of its products. We may next ask how the trust has dealt with that larger body, the general public, who purchase and con sume, its products. . This question I have already virtually answered in the paper reciting the enormous profits of each one of the combinations investigated profits so far in excess of the possible returns of legitimate industry as to imply beyond question the spoliation of the consumer by the single or overshadowing producer in the market. Stress is constantly and especially in behalf of the Stan dard trust laid upon the argument that self-interest will always prompt a seller to content himself with moder ate and reasonable profits in rder to secure' the largest range of customers, and the public is . assured that in this principle it will . find protection against extortionate charges. But does any one argue that self-interest impels the owner of a patent upon an article of general use or necessity, or even, like the Bell telephone, of general conven ience, to content himself 'with moder ate profits in order to increase to the utmost the number of purchasers? The argument has force only in re spect to articles whose use is volun tary with the people, and which they must, therefore, be tempted to buy. On the other hand, as long as there is or can be but one seller of an article which people are almost or actually compelled to buy, that seller can and will sell at a price that brings to him the largest possible returns, or, in other words, at a monopoly price. When the patent on the telephone ex pires and other manufacturers can supply the market the public will get telephones much cheaper, , while still paying reasonable profits to those who make them. , : j In the case of the telephole the law of patents has for a fixed term entire ly obliterated competition; in the case of trusts their own successful combi nation has mpre or less fully obliter ated competition. As each one of them control the sale of an article of general necessity or convenience, they have thus one and all become monopolies, and as a result we se them all patent and trusts gather ing their millions by leaps and bounds. TRUST MAY BILLET ONE CONSUMER Off ANOTHER. Let me add, in conclusion, that a trust may not only despoil the great body of consumers by its control of prices, but may impose heavier ex actions upon a part to compensate it. self for temporary favors to others. The history of the oil trust shows that it has resorted to this practice, for merly so common with railroad com panies. At the very time it wa driving a competitor in one market to remediless bankruptcy by selling it oils therein at less than cost, it wag recouping its losses by advancing ih price of oil in other localities whera there was no competition. In thii way it waged its wars and made its conquests not at its own expense, but at the expense of the public. I have already noted the same practice in the gas trusts, and examples might be multiplied from other combina tions; but surely enough has been said to prove that in dealing with the con sumer, also, a trust is always and everywhere a monopoly. In my next paper I will consider the relation of the trust to labor and to the public generally, in continuance : of this particular line of discussion. Wm. L. Wilson. A LIMIT TO CORPORATE RIGHTS The decision of the United States Supreme Court, recently announced in the Filbert street case, appears to de termine finally that no chartered rights of a railroad company can ex clude it from control by the Legisla ture in the public interest, or can per mit it to escape subjection to the con stitution of the State, or allow it to avoid payment of damages for tbe consequences when it occupies oi verges upon a public highway in such" a manner as to injure private proper ty. It is not postible here to consider all the far-reaching consequences of this important decision, even if, in detd, they could just now be fully discerned. The matter that seems to us of most concern is, if we rightly understand the decision, that it will operate to put the railroads of Penn sylvania at once under the jurisdic tion of the constitution of the State without regard for any voluntary ac tion upon their part. Thus far some of the railroads have clung fondly to the theory that they could set the fundamental law of the State at defi- ance so long as they did not seek for .new legislation under its provisions. Thus article seventeen, which forbids discrimination against persons and places and the issue of passes to others than the officers of the companias, has for fifteen years been treated with contempt by the Pennsylvania Rail road Company, to the serious hurt of the interests of Pennsylvania and of Philadelphia. It will be a most fortunate circumstance indeed if the decision of the highest tribunal in the couun try shall have the effect to put thi3 insolent and domi neering and unscrupulous corporation where it ought to be, into the position of servant rather than of master of the people and into positive subjection to a law which cannot be just if it is not universal in it3 supremacy. The people are making headway , against corporate power. We shall have our masters transformed into servants after awhile. The Belt Line Railroad scheme is an instrument with which we shall further relax the deadly grip . with which the railroad holds this city of Philadelphia. Philadelphia Manu facturer. LIFE LENGTHENING. Human life is estimated to have lengthened 25 per cent, during the last half century. "The average of human life in Rome, under Caesar, was eighteen years," says DrTodd, of Georgia; "now it is forty The . average in France fifty years ago was twenty-eight; the mean duration in 1 867 was forty-five and one-half years. In Geneva during the thir teenth century a generation played its part upon the stage and disappeared in fourteen years; now the drama re quires forty years before the curtain falls. During the golden reign of good Queen Bess, in London and all the large cities of merry old England, fifty out of one thousand paid the last debt to nature yearly, which means, ' instead of three score and ten, they averaged but one score. Now, in the city of LondoD, the average is forty seven years." Herald of Health,
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
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Nov. 26, 1889, edition 1
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