The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-11-03
PRICES PAID FOR COTTON
Discussion Before the Tuscaloosa County Alabama Farmers
 Union
Fly JAMES o SCAR pRUDE.
Union

live upon and farm the lands of this
 plantation
 Now. MT. President, we are all familiar
 with the methods used in gathering crops
 throughout the south. There are no out
 side or conflicting interests to be reckoned
 with in gathering crops; threfore I take
 it that marketing cotton is foremost in
 the mind of the southern cotton grower
 at this season of the year.
 To my mind the whole subject resolves
 itself into discussion of the price paid for cotton"
 Abnormal Conditions Under normal conditions the law of SUD- ply and demand regulates the price paid for any commodity in the marts of trade
 throughott the world.
 Are these conditions which effect the
 cotton industry in this country abnormal
 and if so, why
 Time will not admit thorough diagno- sis of the case. To my mind the cause
 is deep and shronic in it's nature A thor
 ough investigation of the abnormal con ditions which exist in this country would
 require a complete microscopic examina-
 ton of all the interests effected by the price paid for our raw material. In the first place we are eognizant of the fact that the price paid for cotton is not commensurate with the labor re- quired to produce it.
 Let us ask the manufacturer why he cannot pay q just and equitable price | for our raw material? They occupy the ground between the producer and the consumer
 l In 1911 tho board of governors of the I National Association of Cotton ipanufac-
 turers. of the Albright club. and the American Association of Cotton manu- 1 lecturers, the three great organizations of this country. met in Washington City and, after discussion, 1t was finally con | cluded that owing to the condition oi labor and the high cost of living, and the 1 apparent inability of this country to get prices down, 1t was practically impossible | at that tinle to export cotton goods from | this country.
 Tariff | These great manufacturers of cotton 1 textiles, even with all of their intelligence and wisdom and financial ability, and thorough knowledge Of the commerce oi I the world, could not discover and read 1 between the lines the one word Tariff They did understand that the unrest oi labor, the nigh cost of living were symp- toms produced by this deep seated cause which is embodied by the laws of the na- tion, the very root of which run like 1 threads through the commerce of the whole world.
 l When the manufacture of cotton good: was Inadequate to meet the demand oi home consumption these manufacturers
 coerced national legislation for the pur. | pose of protecting them against English goods being shipped into America. l Notwithstanding the high tariff wal which congress has built around the United States. English manufacturers ir 1911 paid the duties imposed upon then by our government and shipped over this wall to our consumers ($26.000,000) twenty six million dollars worth of goods more than American manufacturers shipped oui of this country during the year 1911 to the whole world
 Over half the cotton mills and over hall the cotton goods manufactured by Amert can mills, are located here in the soutr at the very gate of southern plantations
 and yet England buys her raw matsria from us and carries it to Lancashire there to manufacture seventy-five pc:
 cent (75 per cent) of all the cotton textile: of the world.
 Last year the United States sent oui of this country {s4o.0oc,Co0 forty million