The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-12-15
OPTION GAMBLING ILLUSTRAT.
ED BY THE COTTON MARKET.

ED BY THE COTTON 7.
The great national evil of "option"
and future sellingaffects injuriously
every producing region. In the West
it is the producer Of cereals who is in
jured by it; in the South it is the pro-
Queer of cotton, says the Lice StOcI0nd
Form Journal.
On November 18th the price of cotton
touched the lowest point ever known
in the history of that staple. On the
2Sth of July of this year the New York
price ON the July option was sos cents
and the Liverpool price about 81 cents.
This was then the lowest yer known.
The market reacted and the price al
vanced to 8 43 cents in New York with
a corresponding rise in Liverpool.
From that point it has steadily declined
until on the 18th of November the price
for January cotton touched 10 cents.
The price on November 18th, 1890, for
January options was 9 43 cents in New
York, a decline Of a cent and a half a
pound. Spot cotton followed the futures.
although the decline was not quite so
heavy.
The worst of it is that nobody seems
to know what is the matter with the
market. The department crop report
dated November 10Th was favorable to
higher prices. 1t reported the Novem-
hon, ypD+,1,,,n - Mt fnryNroIlO 70 a. liCrl
rate of yield" The ''lateness of the
crop, the extremes Of temperature, the
excess of rainfall followed by drouth.
causing enfeebled vitality and loss of
foliageand fruit. have been unfavorable
for a large crop" Killing frosts in the
northern cotton belt occurred on Octo-
Der 29th, and in some places as early as
the 23d-in short, all the legitimate
conditions favored a strengthening of
prices. Consum ption is growing larger
every year, and one cotton authority,
not inclined to be bullish-the market
editor of the Globe Dem1Ocrat-says of
the actual facts, that lit will take
about all that is raised to meet the de-
mands of the manufacturers" The
same authority says that the most
plausible reason given for the decline
is that the market is in the hands of
the New York bears, who are doing as
they please with it."
There is, in fact, no other plausible
explanation. So long as the market is
in the hands Of option and future deal
ers who a get it in c~hancery" and
pound the life out of it at their own
s sweet will whenever their interests
may be thereby promoted, neither the
producer nor legitimate speculation
stands the slightest chance. By Iegiti-
mate speculation we mean the kind
which takes actual money and with it
buys actual cotton when it is thought
to be too low, and stores it for the rise
that must come when it is, in fact. too
low, provided the market is left to the
government OF the natural conditions
of demand and supply. But this kind
of speculation has no chance, for what
man will take actual money and buy
real cotton, lose interest, pay ware
house and insurance charges. ETC.,
when he can with a comparatively
small margin, buy wind cotton that
answers his purpose just as we'll, and
be attended with none of these e
penses2 And what man, when the
market is temporarily overstocked,
will and carry the excess, when he
knows that future and option dealers
can, almost at pleasure, hammer the
price still lower, no matter at what
figure it was bought?
The same conditions ruinous to the
producer which the cotton market here
presents, are occurring constantly with