The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1920-09-29
A REASONABLE PRICE
FOR COTTON
New York Commercial.

expressed by manufacturers that
they are willing to pay a reasonable
price for raw cotton. They are try
ing to combat the impression that
manufacturers are out to force cot
ton prices down. One large manu-
facturer said that the popular I'M
preston that they were trying to
force prices to 20 cents or even 70
cents pound was erroneous but
that, on the contrary they were
willing to pay as high as 80 CENTS II
by so So doing it yields fair profit to
the producer, the latter figures
lingering in the minds OF manutac-
turers, bankers and some others as
being the price at which the pro-
ducer'can sell to advantage.
Naturally the manufacturer need
not concern himself particularly
with the price of raw cotton, as ne
can pass it along to the consumer
the only point being whether or not
the manufacturers profit will be too
large, thus increasing the consum-
er's cost unduly. The probability IS
that not only the manufacturer, but
the consumer also, will be willing to
paw a fair price to the producer II
he can be assured that he is paying
that and nothing more.
As for the question whether ~
cents is the right price for the man.
ufacturer to pay, there is grave
doubt. Statistics submitted by the
American Cotton association do not
bear out that theory, while investi-
cations made by the department OF
agriculture seem to place the cost
of production above that price.
Some economists who have made an
intensive study of the subject place
the cost of production at nearer
40 cents a pound, but whatever it is,
the price paid to the producer
should be sufficient to cover the cost
of production and yield a reason
able profit. If, thereby, it is neces-
sary to advance the price of cotton
goods, then such price will have to
be paid, and the consumer will have
to make up his mind that such
levels must be maintained.
It is really broader question
than whether the manufacturer is to
pay 20 or 80 or even 40 cents a
pound for his raw cotton. 1t is a
proposition that vitality affects the
economic life of very large part of
the community, and the prosperity
of that portion necessarily must af-
feet, the whole. If the South be
prosperous, it means the develop
ment of an enormous buying power
that will react upon industry and
put more money in the pockets of
the people wherewith to pay the in
creased prices for the finished pro-
duct.
More than that, it will mean the
release of whole populations from
a form of economic slavery that is
different only in form from real
slavery. Northern women who wear
and admire fine cotton goods do not
know that the cotton has been pro-
duced by the toll of Southern wo-
men who have as much right to the
lows and comforts of life as their
Northern sisters; daughters of fami-
lies, many of them prominent be-
fore the war, but who, of the second
and third generation, have been de-
prived of the comforts of life for so
long that they no longer know of
their existence.
These small tenant farmers which
compose the greater part of the cot
ton producers of the South have no
idea of how to figure the cost of
production. All that they know is
that if they work hard during the
daylight hours, seven days week,
they will probably come out even at
the end of the year and will have
discharged the debt into which they
were forced in order to obtain the
wherewithal to produce their cotton
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