142 COMMERCE AND EXCHANGE 



yet owing to their proximity to China they will probably meet any 

 increase in the demand from Asia without drawing upon the Euro- 

 pean or American supplies. The cane-sugar producing countries, 

 several of which were, but a few years since, the most disorderly in 

 the world, are now policed in a most satisfactory manner. On every 

 hand there is the promise of a vast increase in the output of sugar. 

 Yet so elastic is the demand that it has responded to the increase 

 in supply thus far without seriously affecting prices. European beet- 

 sugar, after the repeal of the bounties, advanced only about twenty 

 per cent, which was slightly less than the effect expected, while in 

 America, inside the tariff wall, the price of sugar, in spite of the 

 increased supply, has declined only about half a cent a pound. The 

 regularity with which the demand for sugar responds to every decline 

 in price is one of the marvels of modern commerce. 



(6) Hemp. The United States and the United Kingdom have long 

 been the best customers for Manila hemp. But the United States 

 was formerly content to buy its share from English traders. Owing 

 to the removal of the duty and the payment of what is practically 

 a bounty, namely, the reimbursement of the insular export duties on 

 all hemp imported into the United States, we are now buying our 

 supplies direct. The hemp industry has responded to this stimulus 

 in a very striking manner, the total output in 1903 being nearly 

 threefold that of 1899, and over half of the whole goes to the United 

 States. The only discouraging feature is the fact that the resources 

 of this industry are overtaxed and there is a lamentable lack in the 

 preparation of the fiber, reducing its quality in a very marked degree, 

 the premium on good qualities not being sufficient to induce proper 

 care in its preparation. 



(c) Cotton. The ravages of the boll- weevil in Texas and the conse- 

 quent unprecedented speculative fever in the cotton market has 

 caused a great deal of attention to be directed to the changes in the 

 cotton production of the world. Though not so spectacular as the soar- 

 ing and tumbling of prices, the thing of vital importance in the cotton 

 trade has been the rapid growth in the demand rather than an}'- 

 fluctuation in the supply. The decrease of the output of cotton in 

 Texas from the promised yield suggested by the crop of 1900-01 

 was more than offset by the increase in other states, notably Arkan- 

 sas, Georgia, and Louisiana; and the commercial crop as a whole 

 was the largest on record. Yet large as it was, the crop did not 

 nearly meet the demands of the spinners who depend upon American 

 cotton. Mills everywhere have been shut down or run on short time. 

 The most marked feature of this growing demand has been the 

 growth of new mills in the United States. It is claimed that the 

 United States now consumes more raw cotton, by nearly a million 

 bales per annum, than any other country, and that it uses forty per 



