Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-09-08
Miseellaneuus 8eadins.
CHEAP COTTON DISASTROUS.
High Prices Essential to the Manu-
facturind Industry.

featuring Industry.
Richard II. Edmonds, editor Of the
Manufacturers Record, while in Bos-
ton for a few hours today, in discuss
ing the cotton situation, said:
"A permanently high price for cotton
is essential to the best interests, If not
to the very life, Of the cotton manufac-
turing industry. The manufacturers
who are anxious to see lower prices
by reason of the probability Of large
crop this year are shortsighted. Low
prices this year would inevitably drive
cotton growers to other pursuits, and
the smaller yield next year, with con-
sequent abnormal high prices, would
bring back all the evils from which the
industry has suffered during the last
few years in which it has had to con-
tend with high cost of raw material
and low price of finished goods.
The world must adjust itself to pay
ing a higher price for cotton goods.
The sooner 1t is done the better it will
be for all interests, and especially for
the manufacturers. The time has
passed when southern farmers were
compelled to raise cotton. In former
years they were forced by necessity to
raise cotton, and cotton alone. Condi-
tions have changed. Unless prices be
high, that is, high as compared with
former years, they can make more
money doing other things. There is no
moral obligation to the world to COM
pei them to raise cotton, though many
people seem to think so.
IF New England could turn it's cot
ton mills into shoe factories and dou-
BILE the profits on the investment, and
pay better wages to the laborers, no.
body would say that New England
must continue to make cotton goods
because the world needs cotton goods.
Now the southern farmer can do a doz-
en- things more profitably than to raise
and sell cotton at low price, and even
10 and II cents a pound may now be
counted as q low price. He can do
things that he could not have done a
few years ago. Industrial development
is affording employment for thousands
who were formerly compelled to raise
cotton. Urban growth is drawing tens
of thousands from the country into city
activities. City growth and industrial
development combined are making 1t
possible for thousands to engage in di-
versified farming and truck growing to
supply home needs.
I'm the last 10 years industrial de-
velopment in the south increased
largely over 100 per cent, while its pop
ulation increased only about 16 per
cent. Thus industrial activity gained
six or seven times as rapidly as popu-
lation. The extension Of railroad facil-
tiles to all parts Of the south and the
ever-increasing demand in the north
and west for early fruits and vegeta-
bles make it possible for very large
number Of southern farmers to make
more money in meeting these require
ments than in raising cotton, even at
IA or Is cents a pound. The south is
now annually shipping to the north
and west of fruits and early vegeta-
bles over S10O,00O,00O worth.
1.-The development of transportation
facilities throughout the south is MAX
ing the extension of this industry pos
sible in sections which were formerly
compelled to raise cotton. Under such
conditions the world might as well face
the situation frankly and fully and un-
derstand it's meaning. 1t Is much safer
for manufacturers to squarely face this
condition than to blindly imagine that
we can again go back to low priced
cotton over a long term of years. Last
year the south's cotton crop, the seed
included, was worth 1868, 100000. If
the south, by raising a small crop, can
sell it for such a figure, it is certainly
not going to raise two or three billion
bales more and sell it at two or three
hundred million dollars less.
Nearly three quarters of a century
ago a report made to the British par
lament advised the spinners Of Eng
land to do all in their power to keep
cotton at a low price, because, said
this report. the farmers of America
would undertake to so increase their
production when prices were low as to
get as much money in the aggregate
as when prices were high. The Eng
lish spinners have always gone on the
principle that by forcing prices down
they would increase the supply. Three
quarters Of a century ago, and even up
to a few years ago, that was the case.
1t is not so any longer. Conditions
have absolutely changed. Economic
development has made it possible for
the south to turn it's attention to other
crops and to other activities which
yield a far larger profit than cotton,
unless cotton commands what manu-
facturers regard as high price.
IF during the last few years the
cotton manufacturers of this country
had given more attention to educating
the public to paying higher price for
cotton goods, instead of spending their
time, as they have done, in seeking TO
put down the price of the raw material,
the situation would have been far
more favorable for them. Persistently
claiming, as most Of them have dom.
that prices of the raw material were
too high, they convinced the buyers
that cotton goods ought to decline III
price, and therefore the price of the
finished article continued low, while
economic conditions forced an advance
in the price of raw material. The
spectators who were credited with be-
ing responsible for these higher prices
did not create these conditions. They
only took advantage of the situation.
THE southern representatives and
senator's who united a few days ago in
urging southern cotton growers not to
sell at less than 13 cents a pound may
be open to some criticism. They have
been praying one way, that is, for high
er prices, and voting another way. In
the campaign for political capital,