The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1937-03-09
CRISIS FACES THE SOUTH


The Texas Weekly asserts that an acute
crisis faces the cotton belt if income from
cotton production remains down and ma
tional income goes up. The country is due
a rude awakening from the shock which
this condition in the South will produce
nationally, the Texas paper believes.
While this section of North Carolina is
not directly interested in the growing and
marketing of cotton, our pepole have a
vast indirect interest in this great crop and
in the prosperity of the people in the cot
tom belt. Thousands of dollars worth Of
tourist and other business comes out OF
the cotton country every year to Western
North Carolina. So that after all the peo-
pie of this section have direct interest in
the condition of the cotton growers.
This is the principal reason The Times
News would assign for frequent mention
of the problems of the cotton growers and
attempts to present these problems to read
ers of this newspaper.
Over long period of time cotton was
the chief export crop in this country; and
. while it is true that during the greater
part of that time, cotton prices were not
maintained at point which made its pro-
duction highly profitable to the South, it is
also true that in late years cotton belt eco
nomc conditions have been complicated
and made increasingly unsatisfactory, and
the production of the crop increasingly un-
profitable, by loss of much of the export
market. .,.
All the cotton the South can produce
must be sold at profit to bring prosper
Gus conditions to the larger part of the
territory in which cotton is grown. When
there are no cotton profits business is stag
mated in the cotton country. Therefore,
the meaning of the statement quoted from
The Texas Weekly is that if prices con-
tinue to advance throughout the country
without an increase in the income of the
cotton growers an economic crisis will de,
veiop in the South.
If the cotton growers have to pay more
for the things they buy, they will be com
PEELED to sell their cotton for more, to in
crease their income, TO enable them to buy
necessities. If the expense account of the
cotton growers goes up, income will have
to go up to meet it, or there will be a break
down in business and a recurrence of de
preston conditions.
More than any other section of the coun
try the cotton belt is due to receive jol
from conditions now developing in tn
United States. This is due to the fact tina
the cotton belt is nearly all one crop sec
ton and that crop is not food crop whicI
the producers can use for subsistence.
is a product which the growers must Sc
in order to reap benefits Of any sort fror
its production. The conditions referred
are those being developed in industry
which will inevitably raise prices to COZ
sumers in practically all hires. -
Vast wage increases in industry ar
hailed throughout the country with shout
of approval by Industrial workers and b
many persons outside the ranks of indus
trial workers, who have not, stopped
consider who will finally meet the costs
increased payrolls. OF course, the ultima'
purchaser or consumer always pays an
pays and pays-the costs of labor trouble
and strikes, and the costs of higher wage
or higher prices for raw materially
cause additional costs must be met by II
producers and manufacturers by advan
ing selling prices.
The buyers of motor cars will pay fl
the strikes in that industry and they '