p. 8 | EVIL TIMES

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 9, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 22.

EVIL TIMES.

THE outlook for farmers in the United States is indeed very bad. It is calculated that the mortgages on farms amounts to the enormous sum of three billion, four hundred, and fifty million dollars ($3,450,000,000) at a rate of interest averaging from 7 to 9 per cent., saying nothing of the costs of commission in obtaining this money. B. F. Butler argues that the debt can never be paid. The United States, with their immense resources, have only paid 57 per cent. of the national debt during the last twenty-five years, at a much lower rate of interest, while the balance might be refunded any time at 3 per cent. interest. But farmers cannot refund this at a lower rate of interest; and statistics show that the profits on farming industries barely average a little more than 4 per cent. He also shows that there can be no material help in the silver bill, or in Senator Stanford's proposition for the government to loan $3,000,000 to the farmers at 2 per cent. But if the mints should coin silver at four and one-half millions a month for one year, and all the mines could produce in that time, it would pay one year's interest on the mortgage debt. The money that is proposed in Senator Stanford's bill would, if placed at once in the hands of the farmers, pay their mortgage debts to the amount of two-thirds of a mill on a dollar, or it would pay the interest on the mortgages for five days. The times are evil. There are many proposed remedies, but all are remediless. The only hope of better times is in the coming of Christ.