AGRICULTURAL RELIEF

167

We should be the last to quarrel with those who do not at once favor such legis-
lation as is here defended. We have not long believed in it ourselves. A life-
time of ultra conservative thinking in matters governmental and economic has
rot made it easy to accept a different view. But long and earnest study has
brought the conviction that the outstanding problem confronting American
agriculture, perhaps the most important economic problem now before the
American people, is that of the proper handling of agricultural surpluses. And
with that conviction has come the further one that the problem is too great to be
solved by unorganized agriculture, without governmental intervention and aid.
[t is a problem of dull and prosaic aspects. It presents nothing of the spectacular
and bizarre. Yet it touches the lives of more of America’s millions than is
probably true of any other one of her many problems. Upon its wise and just
solution there depends the future of American agriculture, and in that future is
hound up the fate of America herself.

CorroN SurrLus CONTROL
(By Sir Charles W. Macara, Bart, President Federation Master Cotton Spinners
Association, 1894-1914; President International Cotton Federation. 1904-
1015)
SIR CHARLES MACARA
We have the privilege of presenting in this issue of The Review a discussion
of the problem of cotton curplus control from the pen of Sir Charles Macara of
Manchester. Sir Charles is the dean of cotton philosophers. Tor a long period
of vears his voice has been recognized as authoritative among the group of think-
ing men who have the rare endowment of vision which enables them to see some-
thing more in a bale of cotton than 500 pounds of raw material which furnishes
the basis of a profitable transaction in sale or manufacture. He has always
seen able to see the men and women who produced the bale and the operatives
who converted it into an article of commerce. Further than this, his outlook
has always been toward the future of the great industrial fabric based upon
cotton production, its future as affecting the course of empire and the lives and
fortunes of all the people of the world.

It is always a pleasant thing to find ourselves in accord with the thought of
men whose opinions we respect and whose character and personality we revere.
[t is particularly gratifying to us, therefore, to know that our reasoning on Aa
problem which can not be dismissed with a wave of the hand, is supported by so
distinguished an authority.—Staple Cotton Review, June, 1927.

Although now at an age when I find it necessary to refuse many of the invita-
tions I receive to contribute to publications in all parts of the world, I am so
much interested in the question of the control of surplus products that I can not
allow the opportunity to go by of making a few observations on the article on
this subject appearing in the March number the Staple Cotton Review from
the admirably lucid pen of Mr. A. H. Stone, vice president of the Staple Cotton
Cooperative Association.

Moreover, I am sensible of the compliment paid to me by Mr. W. M. Gerrard,
the general manager of the association, who in bringing the article to my notice,
intimates that my comments upon it will be appreciated regardless of whether
[ agree or disagree with the discussion of the subject now taking place in the
journal of his association. This attitude of mind is particularly pleasing to
me, and I could wish that everyone would have the courage to face our numerous
cotton problems in this sane, unbiased way. Unfortunately, on our side of the
water, we have great inertia and prejudice to overcome before we can progress
very far, and the battle for the control of England’s surplus products has already
cost the cotton trade five wasted vears and the loss of hundreds of millions of
pounds of capltal. What I have for long been trying to make people see in the
spinning and manufacturing sections, is that it is not good for any branch of
the trade, from the grower of the raw material to the person who handles the
finished goods, to work for a price which represents a loss, nor is it wise in any
man’s interest for any section to be callous and indifferent as to the welfare
of another section. We are too bound up with each other to allow of this atti-
tude, for the snapping of one link means disaster to the whole chain.

{ have no doubt that many men in my own country have found it difficult
to appreciate the stand I have taken for so many years in support of the cotton

planter. They have, I know, regarded this attitude as quixotic, and taken the