Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1871-11-09
Changes in the Cotton Trade.

lcIOHi tHo NCW 1oih GN CiiHS oSIJ
Contracts for the future delivery Of
staple productions were first made
soon after the wars Of Napoleon, at
Stettin, on the Baltic. The articles
dealt in were grain and rapeseed oil.
This method of doing business was
suggested by the military contracts
of the French occupation. and by the
stock transaction OF London and
Paris. The merchants of Bremen
and Hamburg adopted the contract
system as soon as telegraphic COM
munication was opened on the conti-
nent, and when England joined tine
conhnental system by submarine ca
bic, the German merchants at Liver
pool adopted the firm offer method
in their hourly transactions with the
continent. Agents were placed in
the principal cotton-spinning dis,
tricts and to them these "a firm offers
were made.
The changes in the price of cotton
during our late war lent additional
zest and impetus to this mode Of
transacting business, and, mercurial
as the cotton market ever had been,
it was rendered more so by this inno-
walton. The effect OF anv changes
in political or mercantile affairs was
felt at once, and the good old times
of q leisurely commission business by
correspondence passed away. Pur-
chases and sales "to arrive" by tele-
graph, were at once added to the
firm offers, and the whole machinery
thus created now rules the cotton,
the grain, provision and petroleum
exchanges Of Europe and America.
Firms unwilling to conform to the
new system began to lose their most
valuable commercial connections and
at last reluctantly yielded;
The present and Immediate future
being continually anticipated, or, in
technical phrase. discounted" the
future. contract business increased
dailv, and now greatly exceeds the
so-called "spot" or immediate delive-
ry business. In correspondence, the
daily quotations ceased to be interest
ing except so far as they related to
actual private transactions, and un-
less one had sufficient strength of
mind and holiness to canvass the fu-
ture of politics, finances and crops,
his letters were laid aside with pro-
voking Indifference. :,
One, half of the business of the
telegraph, on land and IN the sea-
now turns upon transactions anticipa-
ting the future, and more than halfthe
time of our active merchants is spent
in the open thoroughfares and on ex-
change, in shaping their course ac-
cording to the varying values of the
staple in which they deal. Solid
grocery articles alone are free from this
Change, but the indications are that
they will soon yield to the new order
Of things.
The " future" cotton business, So
called, in this city, already exceeds
that of Liverpool. A spinner may
sell quantity Of goods to deliver al
any future time, and can Immediately
cover his contract by buying pro.
portionate number of bales Of cotton
A planter may consider a certain
price to be remunerative, and can in
stantly dispose Of his entire croI
many days before it is picked Oh
ginned
The cotton business, SO far as the
handling of the article itself IS con
concerned, is evidently about to leave
this city to some extent and return tx
cotton ports, where the Europear
spinner prefers to buy. But thes'
future contracts are an lmportan
substitute, and by means of them thu
cotton business Of New York will b.
fullv maintained.