COTTON 
73 
stored on board a foreign ship and bills of exchange 
drawn and negotiated!" 
In view of these facts we may regard this leak in 
the export trade as belonging to the past rather 
than to the present. 
SHIPPING 60% OF OUR COTTON TO EUROPE 
Lastly we come to what is perhaps the greatest 
leak of all — not to the cotton farmer solely, but to 
the Cotton Belt. We are still shipping 60 per cent, 
of our cotton to Europe — almost as uneconomic, 
as has been said, as it would be to ship our iron ore 
instead of turning it into the finished product here. 
And in view of the leaks we are to stop and the 
great resultant savings that are to enrich the South, 
and in view of the prospective remedying of this 
last great leak, we cannot better conclude this 
chapter than by quoting an extract from an address 
by Mr. Richard H. Edmonds, of the Manufac- 
turer's Record, delivered in New York City a few 
months ago — not a mere day dream, a flight of 
fancy, but a prediction of what actually bids fair to 
come to pass within the lifetime of most of those 
who read this article: 
** It is not to be expected that the South will ever 
manufacture its entire cotton production, for, when 
it has reached the point where it consumes in its 
own mills the 10,500,000 bales which now measure 
its average crop, the world will be demanding of 
it, and it will meet the world's demands for, 
probably 20,000,000 bales. But the utilization in 
its own mills of 10,000,000 bales would mean the 
employment of 1,000,000 operatives, the invest- 
ment in mills, textile machinery, building plants and 
kindred enterprises, of not less than $2,000,000,000 
