The Russellville Democrat., 1882-03-02
COTTON,

The great decline in cotton has griey.
 ously damaged, not only the farming but the conner cial interest of tho
 south. A great many farmers have 1 withheld their cotton from the market with the hope of realizing better pri-
 ces, while the merchants have made all the purchases that they are able to carry at last fall prices and held it over | for better prices, while still another ] class have made extravagant investment
 in cotton futures, all anticipating hand some profits on their investments, ba- sing their estimates and hopes fer ad- yanced prices upon the shortage of the crop. Now the time has come when they had hoped to realize big profits, i but instead of that the result is, cotton Is much lower than at the prices they purchased.
 ! Ali so the time is full ripe when last years accounts must be settled and old scores squared as q basis of renewing credit for the curreat year. The con sequence is co ton must be forced upon the market 1t the present prices, which will be followed by disastrous results all over the .outh to all classes, but es-
 pecially to the merchants. The like of smash-ups will be unheard of before unless spirit of forbearance and in- dulgence comes to their rescue. But even if indulged the great sacrifices ut which they must sell their cotton will stagger many of them so that they will
 reel along in business for few years [ longer, never be able to recover from
 the heavy losses of the present and at last break.
 Why it is that men of fine business capacity should have made such heavy ! investments in cotton we are unable to account for on any other reason than that they based their estimates of big 1 prices upon the shortage in tha crop. 1 We can very well understand how the | ideas of the casual observer would swell the prices in his own mind from ] NiiS S'hb itIi oii lii tiO tlop, bhS " ny
 the investigating sober minded business
 man should be deluded ill this way is Il | little strange. Prices are not arbitrary 1 but are governed by we'll known and 1 fixed laws, to one who has made them
 study he never need be more than
 slightly deceived.
 i The law of demand and supply gev-
 ern prices as surely as the sun governs
 the day.
 Formerly gensang in China was
 worth it's even weight in gold, this
 stimulated its production till finally
 the price of gensang was reduced to q
 reasonable Der cent on the cost and
 laDor of producing it. The four years
 of the war that the production of cot
 ton was stopped the price went up to
 $l, per pound. This stimulated its pro-
 duction till it fell back to old land mark ! prices.
 1 The prices of cotton this year is not as good as last, though there was more cotton raised last year than this. i The reason is that the demand was greater last year than this, everything then was prosperous and all the pro- eesses of consumption was on their feet at work. Now that we have had d bad 1 crop year, not only for cotton, but for ! the necessaries of life, it's necessary l tendency is to place Il check upon 1 credit, to check investments, to tempo
 ralily check the growth of development ! and enterprise, and to cause the people 1 to cconomizc and draw in near the base ] line of the necessary supplies of life,
 consequently the processes for the con-
 sumption of cotton are diminished and
 cut of. It Is true we have had light
 crop of cotton but the demand for cot
 ton has diminished in proportion to the l crop if not even greater. While the
 prices of cotton may swell little from
 what they are, we think no business
 man can hope for any very material ] change until the coming crop year be- l gin to indicate itself.