The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-04-27
SOUTH IS CONDEMNED
PRICE CRITICIsEs cor
 TON MOVEMENT.
Declares Effort to Hold Staple and Re- duce Acreage Conflicts With Anti- trust Laws-Spoke to Man
 ufacturers.


 Boston, April 26.-In opening the an- nual meeting of the New England Cot ton Manufacturers Association here. President Herbert E. Walmsley ex- pressed the opinion that the present outlook in the cotton trade was de- cidedly hopeful and encouraging. He thought the keen competition which TOW exists to a greater degree than ever before would become more and more intensified. President Walmsley condemned as unreasonable the atti- tude of the operatives when they ob- structed progress by resorting to strikes with the object of forcing man. ufacturers to abandon improved ma chinery or methods designed to im- prove the product and decrease the cost of production. The associations medal for excellence in papers on the condi- ton of the cotton industry in the South was awarded to Henry c. Kittredge of Boston, editor of The Textile Amerl- can.
 Theo. H. Price of New York ad- dressed the convention. MT. Price In discussing the relationship between the planter and the manufacturer and it's unnecessary antagonism expressed the opinion that a large proportion of the agricultural population of Arkansas ;n agreeing not to sell cotton below a specified price or in limiting production was under the antitrust laws of the State guilty of conspiracy to de- fraud"
 T call attention to the law" said MT. Price. Tt is emphasizes the in- consistency of Southern protest against trust exactions. while the South is to- day largely engaged in a futile en- deavor to create one of the most op- pressive trusts with which the world s Nnak this attempt will fail is foregone conclusion. That the widely advertised agreement to hold cotton for twelve cents has already come to naught is evidenced by the quantity of cotton being shipped daily at seven and a half cents.'
 MT. Price thought 1t possible that the. South. which now possessed a practical monopoly of the civilized worlds cotton production, might have to meet African competition before many years.
 "Monopolies, 1t Is well to bear in mind" continued the speaker, have once been successful and permanent when controlled by a policy the object which has been to expand competition through a reduction in the cost of production. The South in the fancied security of it's monopoly of cotton pro- duction has been endeavoring to in- crease it's profits by advancing the price of its products.
 "As a man of Southern parentage and a close student of economic pro- gression, I have been greatly at a loss to understand the persistence of the South in the advocacy of this econom- teal suicide. I can only conclude that 1t is in a great measure a survival of the same spirit that led to a war for the maintainance of slavery. It re- quired a war that cost moro than the entire value of the slaves in dispute to dissipate the formvr fallacy and from the intensity of feeling which would be aroused throughout the South because a decline of c&tOn to cents a pound an economic struggle which has cost the South dearly this year and promises to cost 1t still more dearly next year, has been precipitated It is well to remind our Southern friends that combination Al behalf of cxorbi- tant profits has always provoked coun- ter combinations on the part of whom it was sought to mulct."