The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-08-21
THE HOPE OF THE COTTON MILL
INDUSTRY.

China imports "of such cotton goods as
are made in this country" about $47,-
600 900 worth, while the imports to South
America amount to $50 200, 900. We have
20 per cent of the Chinese trade, while
we only have about one million dollars of
the fifty million dollars cotton goods trade
in South America. Commenting on these
figures and the contrast they make, the
Columbia State says:
''Yet we are urged by cotton mill men
to hold a bellicose archipelago in order
to maintain that 20 per cent, when we
might get at least 20 per cent of South
Americas greater trade without strife
and without expenditure of the nations
blood and money
Mr.. D. A. Tompkins, of Charlotte, has
accepted the dictatorship of the Cotton
Goods Department of the Charleston Elk
position, and has already taken active
steps to secure such exhibits as will make
the department a convincing argument Of
the South's commanding position in cotton
sition at Charleston is to increase the
trade between this country and the West
Indies and Central and South America. In
a recent statement Mr.. Tompkins declares
that the United States sells only $1,000
GOO of the $50, 100000 of cotton goods sold
to those countries and shows that this
small trade is due to our neglect" OF the
markets "at our very door," and he adds:
"If we can get the same proportion of the
South American and West India trade as
we have got of the China trade every
cotton mill now built will have ample or
ders." This would be most welcome just
at this time, for Mr.. Tompkins says that
"the cotton goods trade is in a most de-
pressed condition. and he also says that
while 1.-The manufacturers have been look
ing for relief to the China market" the
looked for relief is "slow" in materialiZ-
ing.
To show how great is our neglect Of
the South American markets, Mr.. Tomp
kins quotes official statistics furnished by
the authorities at Washington. OF the
cotton goods imported into Chilli our
share is only per cent; Brazil about l
per cent; Argentina, l per cent; IRA
quay, 81 per cent, or an average OF
per cent, amounting to about 81 200 600 out
of n Tho Ioto official rpDOrt G
from Cuba show that in 1899 we sold cot
ton goods to Cuba worth 1887, TAI while
in 1900 that trade fell off to $420,142. In
the same period England increased it's
cotton trade with Cuba from 81, O25 to
$2.965,3S7. Think of it, after spending
millions of dollars to free Cuba, our trade
in cotton goods falls off nearly a million
dollars, while Great Britain increases it's
trade 100000 And this, while the
American flag was floating over Cuba and
we have given our best blood and money
to free the Cubans from Spanish oppres-
absurd it is to say that trade follows
the fag!" Speaking of the desirability OF
Cuban trade and how easy it ought to be
to obtain it, Mr.. Tompkns says sit is
very little further than across a ferry
from Tampa to Havana" while from Ha-
vana to Charleston, the water trip all
the way is insignificant If we had
given one-half q as much thought and
spent one hundredth as much money to
secure the trade of Cuba and Central and
South America as to obtain the picayune
trade of the Philippines, it would not be
surest and most permanent as well as
most renumerative markets of the world
to the Southern cotton mills-markets,
too, as Mr.. Tompkins says, that are at
our very door,
The Columbia State, from which the
seen Mr.. Tompkins's article) thus
clinches the position which it and this
paper have long maintained against those
who preferred to get Eastern trade by an
expensive and indefensible war rather
than by the more permanent and peaceful
trade expansion in the countries "at our
very door"
IF we are to have commercial expan
sion, then. it would seem that so far as
our cotton mills are concerned the direc-
ton should be south rather than east.
But this article is not intended to be a
political argument, though the tempta-
ton is strong to make use of these ad
missions of worthy advocate of our
present national policy to refute some
pleas for oriental expansion and colonial
ism, as we'll as to show that what ails our
trade with South America is not the lack
of ship subsidies for the benefit of the
International Navigation company, a