The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1911-09-13
THE CROP MUST PAY
CHEAP COTTON is DISASTROUS
TO THE COUNTRY.
High Prices Essential to the Growing
of the Staple as Other Crops Are
Just As Profitable.

Just As Profitable.
In an interview on the cotton sit
uation, Richard H. Ednlunds, Editor
cf the Manufacturer; Record. is quot
ed by the Boston Transcript as saying
that "a permanently high price for
cotton is essentially to the best inter
ests if not to the very life Of the cot.
ton manufacturers who are andious
t. see lower prices by reason Of the
probability Of a larger crop this year
would inevitably drive cotton grow
ers to other pursuits, and the smaller
yield next year, with consequent abb
normal high prices, would bring
back all the evils from which the in
dustry has suffered during the last
few years in which it has had to con-
tend with the high cost of raw ma
terial and low price Of finished goods.
"The world must adjust itself to
paying a higher price for cotton
goods. The sooner it is done the
better it will be for all interests and
especially for the manufacturers. The
time has passed when Southern far
mers were compelled to raise cotton.
In former years they were forced by
necessity to raise cotton, and cotton
alone. Conditions have changed: Un-
less 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 compel them to- raise
cotton, though many people seem to
think so.
If New England could turn its cot
ton mills into shoe factories and dou-
BILE the profits on the investment, and
pay better wages to the laborers, mo-
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 dozen things more profitably
than to raise and sell cotton at a
low price, and even 10 and II cents
a pound may now be counted as a
low price. He can do things that he
could not have done few years ago.
Industrial development is affording
employment for thousands who raise
cotton. Urban growth is drawing
tens Of thousands from the country
into city activities. City growth and
industrial development combined are
making it possible for thousands to
engage in diversified farming and
truck growing to supply the home
needs.
''In the last ten years industrial
development in the South increased
largely over one hundred per cent,
while its population increased only
about sixteen per cent. Thus, indus
trial activity gained six or seven
times as rapidly as population. The
extension of railroad facilities to all
parts of the South, and the eve- in
creasing demand in the North and
West for early fruits and vegetables
make it possible for very large num-
Der of Southern farmers to make
money in meeting these requirements
than in raising cotton, even at four
teen or fifteen cents a pound. The
South is now annually shipping to
the North and West of fruits and
vegetables over 100,00O,000 worth.
"The development Of transporta-
ton facilities throughout the South
is making the extension of this in
dustry possible In sections which
were formerly compelled to raise cot
ton. Under such conditions, the
world might as well face the situa-
ton frankly and fully and under
stand it's meaning. It is much safer
for manufactures to squarely face
this condition than to blindly mag
inc 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
s363,000,0 900. If the South, by rails
ing 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 cen
tury ago report made to the British
Parliament advised the spinners Of
England to do all in their power to
keep cotton at low price, because,
said this report, the farmers OF Amer
ca would undertake to so increase
heir production when prices were
low as to get as much money in the
aggregate as when prices were high.
The English spinners have always
gone on the principle that by fore