COTTON CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 48, 25 August 1931, Page 12

COTTON CRISIS

MR. HOOVER'S SUGGESTION

I WASHINGTON, Sird August. Among other suggestions which President Hoover has submitted to the Federal Farm Board for consideration is the proposal oF Senator Smith, of South Carolina, that the Government should purchase 5.000,000 bales of cotton and withhold this amount from the innrket for one year on condition that the fanners from whom it. is purchased a.^'ree to plant nu cotton next year. The price of cotton has been going from bad to worse all this month. Liverpool quotations for delivery a month ahead have dropped from roughly 5',4d in July to a six decimals over S'/sd as on Saturday last. The United States Federal Farm Board recently advised the Governors of fourteen cotton-producing States urging them to lead a movement to abandon much cotton now growing and thus eliminate excess which threatens disaster to the cot-ton-growing States. The board suggested that every third row of cotton should be ploughed under. The proposal was rejected by the Governors of the cotton-growing States. The United States manufacturing position as at 21st July was reported by a New York journal to the effect that a number of cotton mills had nearly as many rayon content fabrics on their looms ns they would have all cotton goods. Kuyon producers were more busy than any others in the textile division and there seemed to be nothing in sight to indicate any falling off. The continued prevalence of hand-to-mouth buying is said to be international, most storekeepers having no expectation that any great change will be seen in the character of buying this autumn. "Small and often orders" have not yet attained the degree of excess in stores that makes consumers pay much attention to them. The public is not as yet conscious that this system of buying is closely allied with a system of postponing price reductions from which customers should benefit more than they do. "The raw cotton market" is somewhat of a puzzle. "The trade is of the opinion that current prices will not hold by the time a new crop begins to move. For the coming four to six weeks crop reports will be watched with great interest, but merchants who judge the situation by day-to-day evolutions in the speculative market are apt to be confused. Production is being curtailed in increasing volume."