The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1911-09-01
yCAEAP COTTON
HURTS MILL MEN
and PLANTERS
HIGH PRICES ESSENTIAL TO THE
INDUSTRY IN ALL
PHASES.
INTERVIEW BY Mr.. EDMONDS
Says Manufacturers Are Short Siqht-
ed in Their Desire to Bear the Price
OF King Cotton-That High Prices
iX4as All.
INTERVIEW BY Mr.. EDMONDS

Richard H. Edmonds, editor of the
Manufacturers Record while in Bos-
ton for few hours today, in discuss
ing the cotton situation, said
"A permanently high price for cot
ton is essential to the best interests,
if not to the very life of the manu-
featuring industry. The manufactur-
ers 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 pur
suits, and the smaller yield next year,
with consequent abnormal high prices
would bring back all the evils from
which the industry has suffered dur
ing the last few years in which 1t has
had to contend with high cost of
raw material and low price OF finish
ed goods.
q The world must adjust itself to
paying a higher price for cotton
goods. The sooner it is done the bet
ter it will be for all interests and es-
pecially for the manufacturers. The
time has passed when Southern. farm
ers were compelled to raise cotton.
In former years they were forced by
necessity to raise cotton. and cotton
alone. Conditions have changed. I'm
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, 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
dozen things more profitable than to
raise and sell cotton at low price,
ay4 even 10 and II cents pound may
F,w be counted as a low price. He
Fan do things that he could not have
* done a few years ago Industrial de
'efopment is affording employment to
thotS6nds who were formerly com
PEELED to raise cotton. Uurban growth
is drawing tens of thousands from the
country into city activities. City
growth and industris development
combined are max Z It possible for
thousands to engage In diversified
farming and truck growing to supply
home needs.
Industrial Development.
"In the last ten years industrial
development in the South has increas'
ed 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 ever In
creasing demand in the North and
West for early fruits and vegetables
make it possible for very large mum
her of Southern farmers to make more
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 early
vegetables over s100,00O,OOO worth.
"The development of transporta
t,on facilities throughout the South Is
making the extension of this Industry
nossfbIe in sections which were form
erK compelled to raise cotton. Undel
.rcb conditions. the world might as
vol face the situation frankly ano
fnllv and understand its meaning Il
:, r,,cb safer for manufacturers t'
so,,arelv face this condition than u
hiirdlv imagine that we can again y
hack 10 Iow.priced cotton over 'oni
torn of years Last year the Sou'h
a,,o, crop. the seed included, wa
uortb 1868 100000 II the South D!
raising a small crop. can sell 1t 10