New-York tribune., 1919-09-15
Senate Opens
Final Treaty
Fight To-day
Continued from page I

rrest cotton spinning nation-Great
evts;n France, Italy and Japan. Only
.ns of them. Great Britain, has any
.arr;torv .r which produces cotton. But
10. can be disregarded, for two rea-
.ons. First. the vote of Britain on
,sot commission could be ignored if
.hs CONSERVATIVES Of France. Italy and
,onan agreed, just as could the United
states representative; second, the
Rr;t;sh representative would be found
voting with the other three and against
tho United States, because no one in
pr;tain would be seriously disturbed
!. the Egyptian and Indian growers
ro+ little less for their cotton.
what would be the effect of an
order such as have described from
the commission The price of cotton
would be reduced to the British.
French. Italian and Japanese mills and
he salesmen OF their cotton mate
rsls would no longer have to face the
competition until the order was re-
yoked of the German cotton mills,
famous as probably the most cheaply
operated in the world. Do you imagine
tor one moment that with this thing
80 easy to put over there would not
be enormous pressure on the repre-
;entatives Of those countries on the
reparation commission to bring it
about?. They could not resist it.
Effect in South
But what would this do TO our
people? In the South it would mean
disaster. 1t would mean selling the
crop-our main crop-in tremen-
dously restricted market, and, therefore.
at runously low prices. But it would
not benefit the purchasers of cotton
materials. for with the elimination of
.he German mills, the mills of the
other nations, relieved of this competi-
ton, would make fat profits, and would
not be forced to sell at price COM
mensurate with the price they paid
for the cotton. Indeed, it may be as
sumed that steps 20 insure The holding
up Of prices of cotton Materials, so as
to guarantee this big profit to the Brit
ish, Italian, French and Japanese cot
ton r...s, will be quietly taken just
before the order is issued"
A Senator frequently mentioned as
one Of the leaders of the Adminstra-
ton fight upon learning of this line of
attack began to work against it. His
state raises TO cotton, but he has al
ways been in sympathy with the Sen
ators from states further south. He
made the point that even if the United
States rejected the treaty the South
ern cotton growers would not be pro-
tected. because the reparation comms-
SION is already set up and it will func-
ZION. Without a representative from
The United States. he pointed out. the
very danger the cotton Senator'S fear is
made more probable.
The reply of the cotton Senators
10 TINS is that. outside of the leagu2
Of nations. the United States would be
in position to demand that no for
egn country prevent it from selling
raw materials anywhere it wished ir
time of peace. This provoked, it was
sad, long argument in which the Ad-
ministration leader said Britain
France, italy and Japan could force
their way on such a point anyhow
league or no league. SO far as coult
be learned. however, no one was con
vinced on either side.
This may or may not be the real ex-
planation of why such q large number
Of Southern Senators have recently
come out in favor of reservations, OF
Ct least have decided to vote for them
whether they admit it publicly or not
VI the Democratic Senators who will
vote for reservations, only Walsh. of
Massachusetts,; Myers and Thomas are
rom other than cotton growing states
Following the Southern States Sena-
'ore who have either announced they
Will vote for reservations or whose