Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1915-01-26

not, the shrewd Teutonic trading mine
would rate cotton that could be obtain
ed so easily as not in the 25-cent class
Of cotton that could not be had in suf
ficient amount to supply the demand
at all.
If we can find an outlet abroad,
the South Carolina cotton producer
may revel in riches, Is the keynote o.
Mr.. McLaurin's divinations-but wha
has all this to do with the matter o.
warehousing the South Carolina croI
which the legislature entrusted to Mr.
McLaurin at his own instance largely
About all Commissioner McLaurir
tells us on this score is that the pres.
ent warehouse act is but small be.
ginning in so great a work."
He comes to the new legislature
asking new powers and grants OF
money, but like the man entrusted
with the one talent Of whom the Bible
tells us, we are constrained to think
from his failure to report on it that he
must have gone and buried his talent
because 1t was so small.
But, what then?
Can the lord Of the vineyard make
him master over big things who has
proved faithless in small things?
Some weeks ago we clipped from
The Yorkville Enquirer, whose editor
has been the friend and familiar OF
Commissioner McLaurin in the ware
house and other matters. an article
which in part follows:
while in Columbia, Wednesday, the
editor Of The Enquirer called on Hon.
John L. McLaurin, at his office in the
state warehouse down on Gervais
street near the river, and found him
hard at work on problems connected
with the financing Of cotton.
Asked about the details Of the sys-
tenn, and as to how he was getting
along generally, Mr.. McLaurin said
that he was still taking over other
warehouses, and that the system was
growing, but unless the general as
sembly should see proper to enlarge
the powers Of the commissioner,
especially as to the matter Of making
sales and negotiating loans, the law
may as we'll be repealed so far as any
present or future value to the farmers
is concerned"
II Commissioner McLaurin knows or
feels that he has made a failure in SO
far as the present warehouse system
Is concerned, 1t seems to US that 1t
would be the frank and proper course
for him to inform the legislature Of
that fact.
We have had an open mind with re-
gard to this warehouse experiment and
have desired to see it made practical
success. We believe Mr.. McLaurin in
have been sincere in thinking he could
benefit the state and farmers by means
of 1t, but we have not had much hope
for its practical success since the leg
mistake, as we think, the first in en-
trusting the execution Of the scheme
to Mr. McLaurin, and the last In ac-
cepting and undertaking the trust.
Some mtn have u mission to talk and
theorize and some have the talent for
reducing theory to working practical
ity. Both Of these types are useful In
their way, no doubt, but 1t Is as i'm
possible to make them fit in each
others place as to put a square peg
in a round hole.
Mr.. McLaurin is on record as con-
Tossing that he Is easily "stringed'
and gulled in business matters. He
quotes and swallows the theories and
speculations of Theodore Price and
others on the cotton problem Ito the
confusion Of his own argument, If 1t
be analyzed) as glibly in his report to
the general assembly as he ever dis
coursed on the subject Of Commercial
at a former period in his
career when some bunco artist com
him, as we have been led
to believe from his own confession Of
his jejune career. But we suggest
that all this has nothing to do with
the practical working and details
the success or non-success Of the par
warehouse system that Mr.. Nc
Laurin was commissioned to conduct.
We do not apprehend that the legis-
lature constituted Mr.. McLaurin COM
missioner to travel about the country,
to hobnob with presidents and poten-
tates, in some sort Of ambassadorial
to devise international
schemes Of trade and negotiate plans
for revolutionizing the established sys-
tenn Of commercial business. II 1t did
we do not wonder that he declined to
accept any salary beyond actual ex-
penses' out Of the picayune $4,000
that the general assembly appropriat-
ed for his experiment.
How many junkets, think you, to
Washington and New York in the
style that BELTS Mr.. McLaurin's ele-
CANT proportions and his ideas Of what
Is the thing" for an ambassador Of
trade for the ancient and historic
Carolina commonwealth would be re-
quired to reduce that $4,000 pittance
to the condition Of last years bird
nest after it had passed through a
siege Of wintry winds?
We do not believe the state Of South
Carolina is either in the humor or in
the circumstances at this time especi-
ally to enter upon new, extensive
and untried experiment in paternal
1t cannot by itself domi-
nate and control the currents Of the
cotton trade If the effort to better
the conditions Of the farmers by the
system as authorized by
the last general assembly has proved
or is destined to prove a failure, we
believe the warehouse act should be
repealed and the experiment abandon
ed.
1t would clearly be idle, in our
opinion, at this time for the state to
enter upon a scheme which confessed
ly entails the creation of congresses,
the building or purchase Of ships,
the elimination Of all the system Of
and established instrument