THE FARMERS IN THE FAR WEST.
DROBABLY the Farmers of the Western States of America are as honest a class-of people as the world can show; but they are not so well off as they could wish to be, and they feel that persons engaged in some other occupations. are a great deal better off than they deserve. They are sincerely convinced that it is their duty to better themselves, if need be, at the expense of their superiors in fortune ; but they are just and kindly people, and in the first instance, are content to make profit out of those who, as they evidently think, cannot feel their lose, and would have no right to complain of it, if they did. Those soulless persons, mere persons, furls, with no feelings to be lacerated, the Corporations, or rather one class of them, the Railway Companies, have been pitched upon to contribute to their material well-being, and they have no scruple or compunction about their choice. On the contrary, they have come to feel that in mulcting these bodies they-are fulfilling a duty almost sacred, almost as binding as a precept of religion. That a Corporation, the mere creature of local law, should be making eight or ten per cent., while a hard-working farmer makes only three or five, seems to them altogether wrong,—and the more wrong, that the charges out of which its profit is made are deemed by them unjustly and oppressively heavy, and come, in a large measure, out of their pockets. Then the Companies have resisted, by appeal to the Federal Courts, the attempts of State Legislatures to cut down their profits, and this-to the Western farmers appears intolerable, as putting their "natural liberty" in question. It is not a natural liberty to take the property of other people that is meant; they are not thieves, nor advocates of theft ; and as regards the property of individuals, though they think there are many persons far too rich, they are not even advocates of confiscation. But they are sturdy Democrats, brought up in the teachings of the United States' Constitution ; and the Railway Companies, in resisting the- terms which the States have offered to them, as being, in the words of Jefferson, "equal and exact justice," seem to them to have attacked the sovereignty of the people, the inalienable "God-given" right of the citizen, in concert with his fellow-citizens, to regulate all public interests. They assume, as too plain to be disputed, that Railway Companies, having been created by the State for the benefit of the public, and not of their shareholders, the State, though it has made terms with them, on the faith of which they have sunk their capital, has. a "natural liberty," in the interest of the public, at any time to vary the terms at its discretion. Of course, they deny that the State Legislatures have offered or are likely to offer the Railways unfair terms ; they protest their own willingness to pay fair charges, but by this they certainly mean thalowest that they cam have fixed: At any rate, they say, either the public
must be at the mercy of the Corporations, or the Corporations be at the mercy of the State, and they prefer the latter arrangement. They seem scarcely at all to think about railway stockholders, as distinguished from the Companies to which they _belong. The Companies they speak of as greedy monopolies, controlled by great capitalists with ill-gotten gains, which it would be im- moral to add to. Clearly they do not altogether forget that much of the stock is in the hands of foreigners. And they do not think " absentee " stockholders, who have no lot or part in the United States' Constitution, and who do not even put in a claim to natural rights, entitled to much consideration at their hands.
Such is the impression as to the average Western farmer's state of mind to be got from the proceedings of the annual meeting, held in January last, of the Illinois State Farmers' Association. The Farmers' Clubs, for which the above-named association serves as a centre in Illinois, differ from the Granges only in that they are not, while the Granges are, secret societies; the objects and methods of the two sets ofsocieties are precisely the same, and their members are nearly all drawn from the same class. It is not against the high charges of the Railway Companies alone that their animosity is directed,—" excessive salaries, high rates of interest, and exorbi- tant per cent, profits in trade " were equally denounced by all the more representative speakers. Their feelings are those of struggling men, just intelligent enough to be .suspicious, who find interest high, labour dear, profits low, money hard to come by or to keep, who feel sure the men from whom they buy and the men to whom they sell alike make too much out of them, that they are making the fortunes of others, while themselves always short of cash. If they could only get at their farms the prices their produce commands at the coast ! If they could only buy at their farms at the prices of the great cities ! If even they were not robbed by the intermediaries be- tween them and the great markets,—by the rapacious merchant, the extortionate railway company, those " non-productives" who get rich upon the produce of their honest industry. If even, they being as poor as they are, the inhabitants of cities with whom they have dealings were not so rich! And then of those prosperous people so many are of the wicked, enriched unquestionably by nefarious means! Discontent and envy are, it must be confessed, very natural in men of their position, and these are such dangerous counsellors that it is well that the farmers do not dominate the Federal Government as they do the Legislatures of Western States. The wide sweep of the farmers' grievances might make one doubtful even of their case against the Railway Companies, but that enough is known of these corporations to make the charge against them probable. There are few of them whose stock has not been well "watered," and a fair nominal return upon it therefore represents a very large per-centage on the capital expended. No doubt there are natural limits to the charges which a railway company can profitably make, and these can hardly ever be for any length of time exceeded ; but within these limits, rates may have been charged much above those which would have afforded a good return upon all capital that could honestly be charged upon. This is what is alleged as affording a justification for the regula- tion of railway charges by the State. Corporate management, it is said, has beena failure, partly because it has been incompetent, chiefly because it has been dishonest ; it is time for the State to interfere with and control it. To which is added, that the State, when it thus interferes, is under no call to consider anything ex- cept the public interest. But has not the State made itself re- sponsible for, by authorising or permitting, all the Companies have done ? And has it not benefited enormously, even if not as much as it might have done, by the operations of the Companies? Had not the Companies, too, the risk, in too many eases the loss, of those operations ? All such queries the Western farmer puts aside. They belong to the past, and it is his "natural right" as a man, his privilege as an American citizen, to think of them not at all, but to confider only what, in existing circumstances, is best for the State,—that is, for himself and his class. To have charges settled which his soul does not revolt against, even if they make railway profits vanish, is what he cannot help considering his duty, because nothing less than this can impress his mind as just. That the State (we do not now speak of American local legislatures, whose powers may prove to be more limited) has a right to interfere with railway charges—to bargain, in the first instance, that they shall not be excessive, and then, from time to time, to revise them— that it has a right to take the railways altogether into its hands, need not be questioned. What is to be suspected in the case of the Western farmer is, that he is not disposed to be particular about the equities applicable to such proceedings. The reason- ings of the Unutges would cover the complete confiscation of
Railway property by the State, and would, of course, also justify repudiation.
In America it is considered highly probable that the Granges and Farmers' Clubs will have an important bearing upon the for- tunes of party, and if their members were equally in earnest about all the points in their programme, they might in that case have an immense effect upon the policy of the Federal Government. Un- fortunately, they are most in earnest about those of their views which are most impracticable or inexpedient to bc adopted. Next to the movement against the Railways, what most interests them is the currency question, and the average Western farmer is dead against "hard money." At the Illinois meeting a courageous gentleman proposed a resolution in favour of a currency based upon gold, but though some of the more intelligent members of the Association agreed with him, in the meeting he "found him- self absolutely alone." What the farmers want is a means of getting rid of the 12 per cent. of interest which they now pay upon borrowed money, and what they think desirable is that the State, withdrawing the issues of the National Banks, should lend them, on real security, what they need in greenbacks, at "the lowest possible rate of interest,"-3-65 per cent, being considered a very fair rate. Powerful as they may possibly become, if they adhere to the policy attributed to them of attempting to hold the balance between the old parties, wefear the Federal Government will not be able to bring itself to oblige them in this matter. After Currency—a success in respect of which would be no less grateful than complete victory over *he Railways—what they are chiefly interested in is the subject of State taxation ; and here their ideal is the fiscal system of Penn- sylvania, under which it is found possible to defray the expenses of the State Government out of taxes levied upon Corporations and a few licence duties. This, no doubt, makes things very pleasant for the run of the inhabitants of the State, who, if they pay anything towards carrying on their local government, have the good-fortune to pay without knowing it. Possibly, however, Pennsylvania does not regulate Corporation profits, and the farmers should keep in mind that it does not do to burn a candle at both ends. Co-operation for purposes similar to those of our Supply Associations comes next among the objects—and in theory it is a cherished object—of the farmers ; but though this would give economy and spite the middleman, it does not seem at pre- sent to come to much in Illinois. The best point in their pro- gramme, and undoubtedly that in which their interests are moat concerned, obtained at the meeting, we are sorry to say, only a success d'estime. Free-trade would do far more for the Western farmers than all the other things they want put together, but the impression we have gathered is that the Illinois farmers, at any rate, are not disposed to do much for Free-trade. Whether, if they did their best for it, they could soon succeed, against the solid phalanx of interests and the dense mass of popular prejudice enlisted in defence of protective duties, may be doubted, but they certainly could engage the whole West in favour of Free-trade, and the exigencies of parties might give them an opportunity.
The consideration of their interests, it should be said, does not wholly engross the Granger Lodges and the Farmers' Clubs ; at their gatherings they make some room for pleasure, and educa- tional improvement also is avowedly among their objects. They read papers on useful subjects and debate them ; they eat and drink ; they play croquet; and as women are among the members, it is possible that they make love. For no such purpose as this, however, is it that ladies have been admitted to membership. The managers of the Farmers' movement no doubt considered that meetings which are interesting are more likely to be long continued, than meetings which are merely improving or useful. But the admission of women is a tribute to the value of women's brains, a recognition of their right to be instructed, and of, at the same time, their ability to give good counsel. Our Farmers' Clubs can scarcely be expected to take such ground as this at present, but they are apt to find their meetings, even when not uncheered by the flowing bowl, a little dull ; and reallythey might do worse than ponder the American precedent.
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