The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-08-21
WILSON ON SPECIE VA1ION
  Secretary 4nts Out h. jury to fs ton industry WORK Or sPEcULAToRs Declares They Have Cornered Cotton Market. The Grower and the Manufacturer Are Alike Hurt by the Mar ket Gamblers who Con-
 trol Prices.
 
WORK Or sPEcULAToRS

Washington, Aug. 20.-Secretary Wilson of the Agricultural Department to-day declared that infinite mischief is done to the cotton manufacturing industry, and to the cotton growing industry by the speculative x$4ement in cotton. ''The spectators have cornered the mar ket," said the secretary, and put up the price so high that manufacturers cannot use raw cotton. At existing prices there is no profit to them. The price of manu- factured goods cannot be manipulated as raw cotton can.
 '.The manufacturer found it more pro- ftable to sell his cotton to the gamblers. Mills were closed down because there was no raw material left, and in some instances cotton which was sold to Eu- ropean manufacturers. has been brought back to this country and used in the gambling operations" '
 Secretary Wilson said that most Euro pean nations, which manufactured cot ton and also owned lands in outlying provinces, where cotton might be grown, were anxious to become independent of our speculators, and were organizing and holding out inducements for the develop ment of the cotton raising industry. The British, the French, the Germans, the Belgians and others owned the lands in Africa, and they had been for some time organizing to produce cotton.
 "They know" said Secretary Wilson. that we are, training scientists here to study the cotton plant and they have been anxious to get our high class men over there to organize for them. The United States sent $S.000.000 to Egypt last year to pay for long staple Egyptian cot ton. The Department of Agriculture is trying to grow as good a staple at home by hybridizing and creating new varie- ties. The Secretary of Agriculture for Egypt paid me visit not long ago. and said that with the irrigation of enlarged areas along the Nile valley, growing out of the completion of the great dam. the production of Egypt would be greatly increased. They pay 15 cents day for labor there. There is a breed of cattle which does all the work and stands the heat better than mules. Those European nations owning territory in Africa have been coming to our Southern States and engaging expert labor to go over there to organize the natives.
 Twelve cent cotton in the United States is a great encouragement to all those people to increase their output. The nations in Asia are doing every thing to increase the cotton production so as to become independent of us. There has been a feeling for some time that 1t would be wiser for us to grow more cot ton, but gambling operations this sum- mer had the immediate effect of stimu- lating efforts for increased production"
 The Secretary said that every effort was making by the Department of Agri- culture to help the cotton growers of the Southern States to a better. system of agriculture through which a larger yield of cotton could be had, but that in- creased output necessarily would come slowly The United States had not been increasing it's output for several years, the Texas crop having suffered consid- erably last year on account of the rav- ages of the boil weevil. MT. Wilson said the prospect for the present crop had nothing to do with the operations of the spectators. The shortage of raw cotton to the manufacturer, he declared, was the fact that the corner in cotton had put the price of the raw material to a point where the manufacturers could not profitably use 1t. The producer had not profited by these high prices as the cot ton practically was all out of his hands Secretary Wilson said ne saw no pros- pect for the relief of working men who were thrown out of employment by the mills closing down because of the scarc- ity of raw cotton until the corner in cotton burst. and the price of the raw material was reduced. The new crop of cotton would soon begin to come in.
 "Of course,' he said, the corner can continue if the gamblers have enough money to buy in the new crop"