COMPETITORS OF COTTON 



us in a ridiculously unsound position. We are officially 

 committed to global free trade in all the world's great 

 commodities. One of our most persistent complaints to 

 the totalitarian powers has been against their export 

 subsidies. If we do not heed the same protest of our 

 good friends Brazil today, but it may be Russia or 

 China or Mexico next year they might humanly re- 

 taliate by dumping cotton here at a price far below 

 "parity." Our Government will then be on a very hot 

 diplomatic spot and the domestic backfire will be loud 

 and explosive. 



The most cheerful view of the foreign cotton situa- 

 tion is that an expanded postwar international trade 

 will raise living standards in low-income nations so that 

 there will not be enough cotton to go around. Sta- 

 tistically the picture is perfect. Prewar, we each con- 

 sumed twenty-eight pounds of cotton every year: 

 abroad average consumption was less than five pounds 

 per person. If United States consumption remains at 

 its prewar level and foreign consumption can be raised 

 to, say, fifteen pounds, there is not enough land on 

 earth climatically adapted to the crop to produce suffi- 

 cient cotton to fill the demand. Even the most optimistic 

 global planner bogs down on such a program to solve 

 the American cotton problem. 



Already we have made one tangible contribution to 

 this international program. On invitation from our State 

 Department and at the expense of the American tax- 



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