The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-01-03

of production, while the demand of the
world is steadily increasing either for
American or Egyptian cotton, thus far
insufficiently supplied. These statements
bring to light what I believe to be a
fundamental principle, namely, that no
cotton that can be a useful substitute
for American cotton can be produced in
tropical country, where it is a peren-
NAL plant.
Give regard to India, where cotton is
raised in a hot climate. 1t is a variety
oil which the fiber is so strongly adhcr
ent to the seed that it cannot be de-
| tached by a saw gin. The efforts to in
tToduce American seed that can be
worked on saw gin have failed. The
| fiber is short, rough and unfit for any
tut the coarsest fabrics. 1t is now but
little used in Great Britain, mainly in
l!Germany, where the grade of goods is
low and the standard of wages SO low
that large numbers of hands can be EN-
| ployed In the production of coarse cloth.
| India must be counted out.
Russia appears to have found a place
| in Middle Asia where cotton can be
grown from American seed for the SUP
ply of Russian cotton mills-an ins!g-
factor LndL can never DS Idhcn
into competition with this country.
China must produce several million
bales of cotton, which are converted in
to homespun fabrics on hand looms, be-
cause the total quantity of cotton fab
RIGS exported from India, Great Britain
and this country to China would not
clCthe 20 per cent of the computed pop
ulation of China if all were used for
| clothing which is not the fact. China
can never compete. / imported 100 bales
during the civil war; the best handled,
the most perfect and the most honestly
prepared lot of cotton that ever came
to our mill, with a staple about quar-
| ter of an inch long. We never wanted
any more except for one reason. In
the middle of every bale was card in
Chinese characters, which l had trans
lated I found it was the address of the
farmer who made that bale of cotton,
and that if l had found any false pack
in it I could go through the merchant
from whom the cotton was bought to the
J farmer and recover damages. Such is the
common honesty, integrity and high quail
ity of the Chinaman in his personal reiE-
tions, and his capacity to write his own
address on his own card.
II imported cotton from Lagos, on the
west coast of Africa. where the British
are now hoping for great results 1t was
tropical cotton, rather poor in staple,
| very woolly in its appearance and wholly
unfit fer use as a substitute for Ameri-
can cotton. The British hope to grow
cotton in the interior. How many gen.
erations will it take to develop the aptI-
tude for picking and baling cotton, even
as badly as it is done in our Southern
states?
Peruvian cotton I also imported, a
valuable variety, so like wool that it
| brings a special price for hosiery yarns
in Liverpool. No considerable quantity
of cotton can come from there.
brazilian cotton l also imported, SUBJ
| ject to very similar objections
There is but one section on the earth's
surface, where in my judgment, there
can be competition with our cotton states
in growing cotton of equal quality, and
| that is on the high pampas of the Para
quay and Parana rivers, sufficiently ete-
waited to be free from tropical conditions
endowed with a soil of wonderful fertility
and capable of unlimited crops of cotton
and wheat. The wheat is beginning; the
cotton must wait for good government
dense population furnishing hands IN
the picking season and other conditions
which will not arrive for half q century.
Therefore the cotton states of this country
hold an unwholesome butIpractical monop-
| oily of the cotton commerce. They are
not, therefore, under the wholesome slim
illus of prospective want, and therefore
their method, as rule, subject to con-
spicuous exceptions, in dealing with their
land, their cotton and their cotton bale
| is as bad as it can be, as l have often
said when face to face with my friends
! IN the South
This expert testimony will fortify the
position of Southern cotton ginners, who
ought to raise their own supplies so as
to be enabled to refuse to grow cotton
at less than ten cents pound. 1t also
convinces them there is nothing In the
cry 'the COLLINS VIII get you if you don't
look out"