The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1914-09-09
Wednesday September 1914
SUGGESTION AS TO COT
TON PROBLEM.


ing financial ruin unless some sensi-
BILE and adequate plan for holding up
the price of cotton is devised at once.
It is certain that funds available
from the Aldrich-V reeland Act will
not be a drop in the bucket in so far
as meeting immediate demands is
concerned.
1t is certain that unless some decis-
i've and adequate measure is settled
on at once cotton will drop to five
cents per pound and the South will
lose in round figures five hundred
million dollars, enough to bankrupt
two-thirds the farmers and business
men of the entire South.
The present status Of the cotton
market then, concerns every man,
woman and child, white or colored,
in the Southland. 1t is a question to
be handled with hammer and tongs,
and will not be solved by a lot of
puerile resolutions.
In a sense this is not a national
question, and yet the nation a well
afford to ignore ordinary constitu-
tional limitations, and use every sur
plus dollar in its treasury to save its
greatest export from sacrifice. But
unfortunately the National treasury
is at low tide, due to depressing war
conditions.
The burden then must fall on the
States, and every dollar of taxable
property in the South should be
placed in the scale with cotton to
hold it to a normal price.
1t costs ten cents per pound to raise
and market cotton. AS a business
proposition it is safe to invest in any
non-perishable product at it's cost of
production, if the investor can hold
until normal conditions obtain. Few
individuals unaided can afford to
hold their crop products for more
than a year, and it looks now as if
the European war may last for sew
eral years. The State can maintain
present realty and personal values,
only by maintaining a normal value
for the present crop of cotton, for
with the decline in cotton all other
values will decline proportionately.
This proposition then seems to come
within the scope of what the lawyers
term ''the States police powers"
If this is settled, and some good
constitutional lawyers say it is, then
the legislature should be convened at
once, and the resolution passed at the
cotton convention in Columbia, call
ing for the passage of an act prohib-
iting the planting of more than fifty
per cent. of the present cotton acre
age next year, should be made a law.
This alone would help the price OF
the present crop but it is not sufi-
cient. People can not hold cotton on
sentiment. 1t would require twenty
million dollars to tide over the pres
ent year in South Carolina alone, and
the money should be available at
once. The legislature then, when
convened, should at once submit to
the people the proposition to issue
State bonds to the amount of twenty
million dollars, bearing five per cent.
and running for a period of three
years. The probability is that the
entire issue of bonds by the Southern
States would be purchased by South
ern banks and by insurance compa-
MES and by Western banks that
have no strain on their resources.
While it would take some time to
mature and put in execution these
suggestions, there will be no doubt
about the people sustaining them
and once this is evident cotton val
ues will become firmer.
Of course, whatever plan is adopt
ed will have to be uniform through
out the cotton belt, and immediate
action should be taken.
When funds have been obtained
from this source, the States should
lend direct to the farmers, on ware.
house receipts, at ten cents pei
pound, making loans in the ordinary
way through the banks, and allow,
ing them n per cent. commission,
The obligation taken on the stored
cotton should contain a condition
that it should not be sold for less
than ten cents during the three-yeal
term.
1t would be folly~to undertake tc
fix an arbitrary Price for the stored
cotton, if the States did not at the
same time limit future crops by act
of the State legislatures during the
three-year term, but the two provis
iGrs so support each other as practi
= cally to assure the State from loss
Either, taken apart and alone, would
be visionary and worthless.
But suppose under the condition
laid down Governor Blease will MOI