Birmingham state herald., 1896-02-21
rHE CHIcAao CorroN RxPosIrIoN

portunity for the southern people to show the advantages offered by their climate their steam and water power and their agriculture, for the building and opera tion successfully of all the mills needed to spin the raw cotton into yarns. It would be a grand thing for the south if we could increase the value to us of our cotton crop to $1,00O, 900, 900. It would make us the richest region in the world. The time will come when 10000000 crop will not be too much for the worlds con- sumption. There is a prevailing fallacy that we are likely to grow too much cot ton. The following facts, taken from a table prepared by MT. Thomas Ellison of England, will show that production has not outrun consumption. In this com putation it will be noted that the total supply for each year is made up by add ing the deliveries to mills during the year to the surplus remaining over from the preceding year.
 In 1S60-6l the total supply was 6,356, ,000 bales, and the surplus at the end of the season was the amount needed to run the American mills about five weeks and the European mills twelve and one-tenth weeks. In the year 1S90-91 the supply was II ,64OO 900 bales, and the surplus for American mills was for about four and one-half weeks and in Europe seven weeks.
 At this point-August 31, 1S91-it ap- pears that there was a less surplus than on August 31, 1861, by about 10 per cent in the supply for American mills and by nearly one-half in the supply of the Eu- ropean mills. Yet the price in the year lS60-61 averaged 7.63 pence for middling Orleans and the price for 1890 was only 5.06 pence
 In 1S91-92 the supply was 2,314, 900 and the surplus at the end of the season for American mills was seven and one-tenth weeks consumption and in Europe eleven and nine-tenths weeks. smaller surplus, taken together, than in 1S60-61, and the price had fallen from 7.63 pence in 186O-61 to LIS pence in 1S91-92
 In 1S92-93 the supply was II TOP 900 bales and surplus at end of the year for Ameri- can mills was five weeks and for Euro pean mills eleven weeks, and the price 4.75 pence.
 In 1893-94 total supply was II 609 900 bales, and at end of the season, 31st of August, 1894, the surplus for American mills was about four weeks supply and for European mills nine and nine-tenths weeks.
 This utterly oVerthrowS the theory of overproduction and the cause of the low price, the surplus in America and Eu- rope being less than in 1S6O
 The above comparison of supplies and surplus is based on the worlds produc- ton.
 It will be seen that a similar result is seen when we confine our comparisons to the American crop alone
 In 1852 the American crop was 2.41O. 900 bales, and in 1860 it was 4,S61 0OO q little more than doubled in one decade. and vet the price in 1851 averaged 10 94 cents. and in 1860 was practically the same. be- ing 1091
 Compare that result with the decade 1SS1-S2 to 1S91-92. In 1SS1-S2 the American crop was 5,435, 900, and in the year 1S91-92 it was the largest ever grown. being 903S 900, an increase in the decade of 65 per cent, when it was 100 per cent in the decade 1851 to 1860, and yet the price in 1S9l-92 was only 41a cents, when in 1SS1-S2 it was 11.73 cents, decrease of over 60 per cent.
 It will be noted, also, that in the de- cade 1851-1S60 there was a constant and rapid increase in the volume of money coming from the large output of gold in California and Australia and there was free and unlimited coinage of silver in the United States and in most of the na- tons of Europe, and the other decade was under the full operation of demone tization of silver, as it occurred about 1S71-1S73
 So it appears that while there has been large increase in production there has also been large increase in consump- tion-quite as large in the latter as in the former.
 We need not fear overproduction when the financial affairs of the world get upon d better footing than at present, and hence we should encourage every move ment to prepare for the greater crops Which must surely come from our in- creasing southern population and the necessary extension of farming acreage There is no better movement than the erection of spinning mills at the south to put our raw cotton in better shape for the markets of the world. It is not beyond the reach of an early fruition to calculate upon a $10, ,000,00 crop, worth at home $400, ,000, 900. and the manufacture of it so as to bring us in $1 ,000. OOO, 900. We expect to see this result in the first de- cade of the twentieth century. Abiding to this subject the Chicago Chronicle says:
 Unless the plans of it's projectors mis- carry, the proposed cotton states exposi- tion In Chicago will develop into an en- terprse of great potential value to the communities taking part in it and to this city. It's scope has already been so greatly extended that the project in its present state bears little resemblance to the modest proposition of the manu- lecturers of Augusta, Ga.. from which it sprung. From an exhibit of the manu- factures and resources of a single city it has grown to take in the evidences of the material wealth and progress of fif- teen states. Projected purely as a cot ton exposition, it is likely to be extended in scope so as to include all products of southern fields, forests and factories. Doubtless the cotton feature will pre- dominate, as the transference of the seat of that manufacturing industry to the south is engaging the best energy and thought of the southern people today. [N-1..