AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 743 



Of England's cotton importations, 1890- 1893 inclusive, j6 

 per cent came from the United States ; and during the same 

 period 69 per cent of all importations into Europe had the 

 same origin. These facts not only reflect the extent to which the 

 world is dependent upon the United States for its cotton supply, 

 but also indicate that the low prices of recent years are to be 

 attributed to the enormous scale upon which she has been 

 engaged in the production of this commodity. The cotton famine 

 during the Civil War, when production in the United States was 

 largely suspended, conclusively shows that the size of the American 

 crop is the principal factor in determining the price. In 1864 

 cotton sold for $1 a pound ; but after the war planting was 

 resumed, and the European supply increased to such an extent 

 that stocks began to accumulate in the ports, and prices declined 

 with the annually increasing crop in this country. 



The plea cannot be made that an export bounty is necessary 

 to give us a commercial advantage over competitors in the growth 

 of cotton, for we are already easily supreme in this regard. 

 Moreover, the enhancement of the price of cotton by means of 

 an export bounty will not increase the world's demand to the 

 extent of a single pound, save as it cheapens the price. Its only 

 influence will be to augment the production of a commodity 

 of which there is already too great an abundance, to depress its 

 price still further, and to defeat the very object for which the 

 bounty is proposed. It is even probable that, with the world's 

 markets overstocked and the home market dull, because of the 

 enormous crops in the United States, those engaged in the export 

 trade would underbid each other in a struggle for its control, 

 and the bounty would thus be handed over as a gift to foreign 

 buyers of cotton. From the point of view of European importers, 

 manufacturers, and consumers of cotton, such a policy will doubt- 

 less be regarded with unconcealed favor ; but from the standpoint 

 of an American the policy of expending the public treasure in 

 the interest of a class of producers, only to leave them in no 

 better plight than they were and to furnish the other nations of 

 the world with a raw material at less than its normal price, can 

 hardly be regarded with favor. 



