The times-news., 1937-08-12
COTTON CROP PALACES

With the prospect Oh large cotloh 1ioP
confronting the South this season there
arises the old, familiar surge and upswlng
of cotton production and marketing talla-
cies.
Discussion of cotton loans and produc-
ton control is raging like forest fire and
the old frazzled arguments for political
control of economic laws are being ad-
vancei with such enthusiasm as can only
be mustered by persons having concealed
reasons for their attitude.
The whole question can be disposed OF
in few sentences, as far as the essential
weaknesses and defects of the schemes OF
the manipulators are concerned.
Cotton loans from political or govern
mental sources slow up market activities,
artifcially raise prices, decrease exports,
and pile up surpluses. The surpluses then
remain in the warehouses as a source of
long continued trouble. They are, as long
as they exist, clog and weight on the
free movement of cotton and on prices
The tendency of the government loan plan
is to create a surplus of cotton and big
surplus always is destructive of stability in
the cotton trade and in the textile industry.
A plan to encourage and promote the
free movement and extensive consumption
of cotton, even at moderate prices, would
prove to be a much better plan for every
body concerned, from the grower to the
consumer, than the political loan plan,
which artificially raises prices of the sta
pie, slows up consumption, and builds up
stocks of raw cotton to depress the market
and make operations uncertain.
Production control, at this stage of
world production, is not merely matter
of holding down the size of the American
crop. Political manipulation in this coun-
try, together with tariff policy which has
been vastly detrimental to the South's
worldwide cotton trade, has aided foreign
countries in developing the business of cot
ton production in big way.
Cotton production control has become
problem which cannot be solved by politi-
cal action in the United States alone.
The situation is covered by this comment
from The Wall Street Journal:
We still the largest cotton-producing
tisn on earth, of course, but conditions have
changed nightly since before the World war.
In the season of 1894 this country produced
over So per cent of the worlds crop. Last sea-
son We produced al per cent. Even should the
anticipated crop of 1888, 900 bales this year
actually materialize, it would constitute but SO
per cent of the world crop in spite of the fact
that it would be 100000 bales larger than the
1894 yield which was almost two-thirds of
world production.
Why? In 1854 all countries combined pro-
duced 22,s94,o0o bales In 19S6-37 the yield
was nearly $4,000, 900 bales. All of this increase
has taken place since 1s23-24, until which year
the foreign countries had not recovered their
pre-war level, and much of it has taken place
since the artificial price and control methods
were first invoked by our government. In add
tien to this heightened competition, substitutes
have jostled their way into world consuming
centers. Yet in the teeth of these facts. il is
now proposed to do the cotton producer the ul-
innate disservice of further increasing competi-
ton by forcing down his supply and, worse,
forcing up his price-both by artificial means
Artificial, politically manipulated pro-
duction and price control of cotton and the
high tariff policy of this country have
caused the loss of a large part of the
Sopth's export cotton business and, at the
same time, the net result of this tinkering,
asfar as it has affected the domestic mar
kee, has been to hold down and depress
the textile business of the United States.
The employment of unsound artificial
methods which do not square with eco
neenic principles, has placed cotton pro
duction, marketing and manufacturing in
position where many. citizens honestly