New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-11-11
KING COTTON
Its Economic Influence Upon the
Making of History

COTTON As 4 WORLD POWER study in the
Economic Interpretation OF History. BY James A
II Scherer Ph. d. Ill. ID. svo pp i52. fred-
efick A. Stokes Company.
This is truly the Book OF Cotton,
from its earliest introduction to the
West by the soldiers of Alexander the
Great to the part it has played in the
making of the present war, with look
into the future and the possibilities
hidden in the development Of the cot
ton industry in Japan, China and INDIA.
Mr.. Scherer is perhaps a little eco
much inclined to give cotton the hrst
and most decisive place among the
economic influences that have shaped
the history of the modern world. Bu,
that is almost unavoidable in any work
which is exclusively devoted TO any
single phase of the economic interpre-
tation of history. Certain 1t is that
his book is vastly informative, and
that, at the same time, 1t is model
Of popular writing. In antiquity, fax
outdistances cotton. At least, no trace
of the use of cotton has yet been found
in Egyptian tombs and sarcophagi.
India was familiar with cotton at least
500 years before the Christian era.
Mr.. Scherer reviews succinctly the my
thology of the plant, of which Herodo-
tus, Of course, makes mention IN his
writings. The legend that it really
, bore "A vegetable lamb which fed on
grass survived till the seventeenth
century.
The steady. growth Of the cotton
trade through the Middle Ages may be
passed over here with a reference TO
the book itself Cotton made its first
appearance in England as early as the
year 1898, in the form OF candle-wicks.
Early in the seventeenth century the
| first importatons of cotton cloths we're
received. Manchester was spinning
cotton by 164l, and the cry for protec--
ton of home industries arose. Wooi
was in danger. One of the curiositles
Of this battle was an act passed by
Parliament in 1866 providing that the
dead should be buried only in woolleen
shrouds. The penalty was five POUNDS.
In 1903 Defoe was among the pam
phleteers championing the cause of the
English wool spinners.
The great inventors who made cotton
king are passed in review, Kay, Ark
wright, Cartwright, Eli Whitney, and
with them and the industrial revolu-
tion in England at the end OF the
eighteenth century Mr.. Scherer passes
to America. incidentally he tells US
I
wards Of cotton cloth in 1867. Cotton
slavery-the Civil War, the sequence
is worked out in detail, with its reac-
tions in Lancashire first of all, but in
/ France and elsewhere in Europe as
we'll. From the chapter on the New
South and Cotton the observation may
be quoted that "just as in the early
DAYS Of Southern manufacture, when
| Calhoun was proponent of protection,
so now those sections of the South
where manufacture is regaining its i'm
portance are veering toward protec-
| ton" IL is needless TO say that the
author devotes another chapter TO the
connection between cotton and the
Southern race problem to-day, or that
he does not overlook the burning ques-
ton of an American merchant marine.
But cotton is the Golden Fleece most
of all in an international sense. On the
eve of the war, before its actual decla-
ration, the great cotton exchanges OF
the world, at Liverpool, New York and
| New Orleans, were closeds Three days
after its declaration the worlds cotton
trade was in state of collapse. The
effect in this country is still fresh in
the mind. In July, 1915, Germany for
babe all manufacture of cotton fab
RIGS except for military purposes,
and, indeed, cotton is needed nowadays
for all military purposes, from khaki
to gun-cotton. A company of 300 SOL
diers carries three bales of cotton in
the shape of ammunition alone A sub
stitute has been found in wood pulp,
but its propulsive power is lower, and
this means that its use necessitates
new firing chambers and new sighting
for all existing guns. IL is said that
the Krupps have for some time been
manufacturing new guns suitable TO
the explosive power Of the substitute.
Cotton is one OF the great moving
factors OF the struggle for the mastery
of the Pacific, Mr. Scherer concludes.
lie aspires to a sane internationalism
but he warns US TO prepare, "the world
, being what il is" An exceptionally
able and engrossng book, and one Of
striking timeliness.