THE COTTON GLUT
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—As one who regularly reads, and has for many years read, your paper and as one who has always felt that you never publish any statement not previously verified, I should like to correct you in some statements published in your issue of August 15th under the heading "The Cotton Glut." To begin with, the Cotton Exchange in England is the Liverpool Cotton Exchange, not Manchester. Manchester represents yarns and cloth, the prices of which, to a large extent depend on the quotations made on the biggest Cotton Market in the world.
The next item in the same article to which I would draw your attention is that wherein you state that the Farm Board during last season held 9,000,000 bales of cotton off the market in an attempt to stabilize prices. This is a long way off the facts of the case. At 16 cents per lb. the Federal Farm Board acquired 1,500,000 bales, which they still possess. Possibly aided to some extent by the Farm Board, various Co-operative Societies, which exist in the different cotton growing states of America, during this last season held off the market some 2,000,000 bales, a total amount in all of, roughly speaking, 3,500,000 bales—very different from the 9,000,000 bales you speak of, but quite enough to upset the old-established law of supply and demand. These attempts to go contrary to the established law of nature are bound to have their effect. The cotton trade of the world would to-day be in a much better position had the ordinary law of supply and demand been allowed to function. Assuming that this last season's consumption of American cotton was 11,100,000 bales (official figures are not yet available), the average consumption of American cotton during the last nine seasons has been 13,460,000 bales.—I am, Sir, &e.,
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