Bryan daily eagle and pilot. [volume] (Bryan, Tex.) 1909-1918, 1911-03-10
REGULATION OR EXTINCTION
These Are the Two Horns Of the
Dilemma Confronting the Cot
ton Exchanges.
[speclal 70 The Bryan Eagle.

New Orleans, La, March 10.-The
lIimes-Democrat this morning says:
Either government regulation or eX.
tinction, according to f. l.. Maxwell,
who is one OF the largest cotton prod
ucers in the South, is the arbitrary
prospect before the future cotton trad
ing exchanges. Mr.. Maxwell opposes
/ legislation of the Scott anti-future
trading type, which he says would rob
him and all other cotton producers
and cotton handlers of the important
benefits that accrue from the buying
and selling of future hedges, but he
emphatically believes in practical reg
ulation of the exchanges by the fed
eral government Such regulation. he
thinks, is due the farmer, the mer-
chant and the consumer, and may be
obtained in manner that will help
not harm, the cotton industry in any
way.
3 Mr., Maxwell raises somewhere be-
, tween 250O and 5000 bales a year on
his model plantation at Mound, La.
He IS modern farmer and always
takes a leading part in movements
having as their object the betterment
of farming conditions.
I'm my opinion" said he yesterday,
the United States bureau of corpora,
tons and labor should be empowered
by congress to prescribe the form of
contract under which the future trad.
ing of the exchanges is to be carried
on. Recently that bureau spent two
years in intelligent investigation of the
cotton market, and in the report is
sued by Commissioner Herbert Knox
Smith outlined the correct principle
that should underlie all contract trad
ing. This principle is nothing more
nor less than that of common fairness.
The suggestions made by Mr.. Smith
were in effect that the buyer and the
seller of all exchange contracts be
given equal rights and privileges, that
none other than, commercial cotton be
deliverable, that the grade differences
above and below middling at which
cotton is delivered on contract be the
natural or spot market differences,
and that no artificial conditions that
tell against either buyer or seller be
permitted to exist. He also recon-
mended the adoption by all exchanges
OF the government standard types.
Were all the exchanges compelled
to adopt the suggestions made by Com
missioner Smith the cotton farmer
would get all that is coming to him;
the producer, merchant and consumer
would continue to enjoy the benefits
of the immensely valuable hedging
system, the wings of the Spectator
would be clipped in practical and
lasting way and the antagonism the
farmer has been showing toward cot
ton exchanges in general would soon
be thing of the past.
Were congress to pass IA law Civ.
ing supervisory powers to the bureau
of corporations that bureau would
quickly correct all the errors that re-
main without hurting any of the really
good phases of the modern market.
But should congress pass a bill SINH
lar to the Scott bill the cotton market
would be thrown all out of joint and
the result would be control by few
rich and powerful merchants in the
same way the tobacco and sugar mar
kets are now controlled. In such event |
could sell only to few /
more or less non-competitive buyers !
who would then dominate the market. |
IN place Of the many competitive buy |
ers, each bidding against the other, as
5 now the case