The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-04-09
MEYER HOPES ID
 PUT ONE MILLION
 BALES IN EUROPE
Managing Director of War Fi- nance Corporation Appeals to Cotton Planter for Full
 Cooperation
By HUGH W. ROBERTS Washington Bureau The Age-HernId
 300 Davidson Building

Washington, April S.-tSpeclal.l- Eugene Meyer, Jr., managing director of the war finance corporation, holds that if southern bankers cooperate with the government in putting into effect the cotton export plan which he devised, it will be possible to put 1,o0o,- 900 bales in Europe.
 The plan is very simple. The gov ernment undertakes to lend money to banks, in approved cases, when the banks will underwrite the transporta- ton of cotton to foreign nations. While the details are not known, it is surmised that the government will give the banks long time in which to make rebayment to the government. so that the banks can give impoverished European countries an opportunity to pay. In the meantime, the farmer will have credit at the banks
 One loan, as already reported, amounting to $100,00o, has been ap- proved. The scheme is not approved in it's entirety by all the southern bankers recently in conference With the war finance corporation in Wash ington. But the majority. it is under stood, looked with fayor on the gov ernment's willingness to divide any risk with them for the benefit of the farmer. s.--s.s.
 HELPS BANKERS. TOO
 In this connection, it is the opinion of certain financiers of the W. P. G. Harding type that the scheme if gener- ally sponsored by bankers would not only materially aid the farmers but the bankers themselves. and the coun- try. MT. Meyer. in talking with the bankers reminded them that the plight Of the south was not and could not be sectional, but national; that when the souths cotton was a drug on the market the south could not trade with other sections.
 And Mir. Harding inform ed the bank CTS that loans, on the basis of present prices, were safer than on the basis of high and necessarily fictitious prices, and he urged them to invest in European security, and check against them in advancing money to the pro- ducers.
 At the same time, the bankers of the south are hard hit. They are carry ing all the cotton paper. And half the cotton produced is unsold. Robert F. Maddox of Atlanta informed MT. Meyer that the bankers were carrying the load with difficulty, and that relief was necessary because of the certainty that if they did carry the present crop they could not carry the next.
 THE HARSH REMEDY
 While there was no disposition on the part of any banker to use force, or resort to law, in collecting the in- debtedness of the farmers, and Gov ernor Harding spoke directly against such a policy, the idea was prevalent that the farmer, by some personal means, should be made to see the fol- ly of overproduction of one crop, that is, cotton. 8Y0
 R. G. Rhett Of Charleston had this idea in mind when he stated frankly that new found market during this. the planting, season, attended by an increase in the price of cotton. would be exceedingly hurtful to the south. Under such conditions, he declared, the farmer, now inclined to reduce his acreage, would redouble it. He urged that no relief be granted until after the new crop was in the ground
 He declared 1t to be necessary to deal with the farmer practically inas- much as the farmer could not be per suaded by mere logic to reduce his acreage.