FOREIGN TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES. 6tf 



NEW CURRENTS OF TRADE. 



Besides the surprising development of our sales of manufactured 

 goods in the most advanced industrial countries of Europe, which 

 may be said to have introduced an entirely new element into Old 

 World trade, we find other phases of commercial expansion which 

 were quite as unexpected and are likely to profoundly affect our 

 economic, and perhaps our political, future. The rapid growth of 

 cotton manufacturing in our Southern States, for example, could not 

 have been anticipated a few years ago, although it seemed probable to 

 those familiar with the peculiar advantages of the South for en- 

 gaging in this industry that some day that section would emerge 

 from its position of dependence upon outside markets for the con- 

 sumption of its cotton and create its own home markets by the erection 

 of mills. Within the years 1889-1899, inclusive, according to Mr. A. 

 B. Shepperson, of New York,* the number of spindles in the South 

 increased 190| per cent., against 11.4 in our Northern States, 4 1-3 

 per cent, in Great Britain, 30.6 per cent, in continental Europe, 71 

 per cent, in India. "In the percentage of increase of spindles and of 

 consumption of cotton" (206^ per cent, in Southern and 29 per cent, 

 in Northern mills), says Mr. Shepperson, "the South makes the best 

 showing of the countries compared, while India is a good second."f 



There are now nearly 4,000,000 spindles in the South, against 

 1,360,000 in 1889, and new mills are constantly being built, % al- 

 though the past year has witnessed depression in the industry due to 

 the troubles in China. The entrance of the South into oriental trade 

 is almost as novel a feature of our expansion as any that have been 

 indicated, and it is one that seems likely to have a most important 

 bearing upon our social and political evolution, as well as upon our 

 influence in international trade. The South has suddenly acquired 

 a great stake in the affairs of the Far East, and what this may mean 

 in the adjustment of our relations with other countries having large 



* Cotton Facts, December, 1899. 



f Increase of India in number of spindles, 71 per cent.; in consumption of cot- 

 ton, 88^ per cent. 



$ "The current year," says Prof. Henry M. Wilson, of Raleigh, N. C, in an 

 article in the 'Textile Manufacturers' Journal' of December 20, 1900, "has 

 witnessed greater strides in cotton manufacturing in the South than last year, 

 when the growth of the industry was considered phenomenal. New spindles and 

 looms have been added, new mills built, and others projected at a rate that 

 causes the careful observer of the South's progress to gaze with amazement 

 upon such activity. Nowhere in the world is the interest being taken in 

 cotton manufacturing as here in the South, where most of the staple is pro- 

 duced. From returns made to the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, the number 

 of new spindles added this year in old mills, new mills and in mills under con- 

 struction is 1,456,897. New looms added to these same mills number 27,613." 



