for wood, bark, coal, staves, lumber, &c.; every precaution is taken to insure full and exact measure and weight to the party

that buys.

Every one recognizes the justice of this. Not a man in this city who is in the habit of buying cotton for our mills, but would protest in a moment against even his grocer weighing his tea and sugar in the scales with the paper and twine that is to do them up. The flour that he buys must weigh one hundred and ninety-six pounds besides the barrel; the raisins must be net weight, and the fig-box must be deducted. It is right and proper that they should be thus careful; but these items are trifles compared with the amount they pay for cotton bags and hoops, and are only mentioned to show how careful they are about paying for tare in every thing except cotton.

Let us look at a few figures in this connection. The estimated amount of cotton to be used by the United States this year is 1,586,960 bales, which at 475 pounds to the bale will equal 753,806,000 pounds. Six per cent tare on this will amount to 45,228,360 pounds, and at ten cents per pound it will equal $4,522,836 that the Southern planters will be paid this year for bags and hoops at the price of cotton. Thus the cotton mills have over four and a half million dollars to earn and pay for what they never had (as the little we get for bags and hoops hardly pays for the labor expended on them at the mills).

Here is the interest at six per cent upon $75,380,600, paid for bags and hoops at ten cents per pound; and as all the cotton bought in this country, both for European and American consumers, is bought gross, this figuring when applied to all the crop of 5,000,000 bales makes a sum of money that cotton manufacturers ought to look at.

For a moment consider that it is true that all the cotton is bought gross. Of course it is sold to the English at the market price of cotton at the South. They may have made the price themselves that governs them and us, the same price that we can buy it for in the same market, at the same time. I believe the brokers will admit that in the open markets of the South we can buy the same grade of cotton at the same price that the English can, and that in fact we do pay the same prices. Now, the foreign spinner buys of somebody, - who? Cotton with six per cent tare allowed, so that he gets practical

ly net weight, and has this six per cent advantage over us. If it is claimed that the foreign buyer fixes the price of the whole cotton crop at a point where he can make six per cent reduction to his customers, we have to pay that price for what we buy, hence the disadvantage; or, if he pays the market price for cotton the same as we do, and then deducts the six per cent from his profits, the practical effect is the same: that the spinner with whom we compete pays for six per cent less of cotton than we do.

It is assumed by some that we cannot buy cotton net weight; but your committee have not reached that conclusion, and believe that steps ought to be taken at once by those who consume and buy the cotton, to change not only the system of buying, but the method of cleaning and bailing cotton, so that we shall get cotton free from sand and other foreign matter — which, besides the tare for bags and hoops, adds at least two per cent of the 1,586,960 bales of cotton consumed in the United States. This would amount to 14,171,552 pounds, the cost of which added to the six per cent tare for bags and hoops makes the sum of $5,939,991 which the cotton mills must pay for as cotton, but which no mortal man or method can make into cloth, though they have expended upon it an incalculable amount of labor in the mills and $141,715 for freight on the sand alone. And all this that we may make a compost heap with it, and as much more at least of cotton seed that ought to have been left at the gin.

By this showing we have a total of $6,081,706 worth of refuse that we pay for as cotton, which is 8.07 per cent of the entire gross amount of dollars paid for the cotton crop at ten cents per pound.

American manufacturers have astonished the world by their success in textile industries (as well as other pursuits); they have introduced new methods of business, that are being adopted throughout the world; and when we take a survey of what obstacles they have already surmounted, it is not a compliment to their intelligence and ability to say that they cannot devise a method by which they can buy cotton net, as well as the foreigners who have learned by an experience of two hundred years that to buy cotton net is the right way. The fact that two-thirds of the crop is now sold to the consumers at net weight, divests the proposed change of the appearance of an

experiment, and only increases the wonder that we have so long consented to pay for gross weights in buying cotton.

Your committee may reasonably be expected to recommend some plan or method of effecting this change; and they would say that they do not recommend action in the Legislature of this or any other State, knowing the danger attending legislation for any section or class of men or industries. They do, however, believe that combined action on the part of those who buy cotton for use would effect the change from buying gross to buying net, without any disturbance or difficulty that ought for a moment to deter them from the attempt. And the same combined effort in the direction of improved ginning and cleaning of cotton would result in giving us cotton free from sand and seed, so that the waste account of our mills would show an improvement that would justify even an expensive and persistent effort to change the present method of preparing and buying cotton.

In behalf of the committee.

WILLIAM F. GOULDING, Chairman.

Mr. NOURSE moved that the report be accepted.

Mr. ATKINSON. I would suggest one slight amendment. The term "two hundred years," where the report refers to "experience in cotton manufacturing," should be changed to "one hundred years." It is only about one hundred years since Arkwright's inventions.

Mr. GOULDING. I accept the suggestion. But, if we come to the point of exact accuracy in the matter, I think the history of cotton manufacturing dates back in England two hundred years. The history of machines for manufacturing cotton goes back about one hundred years; but they manufactured cotton by hand in England two hundred years ago.

Mr. ATKINSON. Before the report is accepted I take some slight exception to a position taken in it. It would be well, I think, that that report should be accompanied by a table running back some fifteen or twenty years, such as I once made. I computed the price of cotton, twice a month, in Great Britain. and in America, for a sufficiently long period, I don't remember exactly how long, - reduced the Liverpool price to the American price, in currency, and made the exact comparison. I found that the English spinner, in the long run, paid a differ

ence of freight, insurance, and other charges, equal to between and of a cent per pound on the weight of the cotton; that he also paid a sum, in addition to the New York price, equal to the six per cent tare and the other deductions that are made in Great Britain on the sale of cotton. This table proved that the English spinner, taking his cotton on the same dates, twice a month, paid the difference of about of a cent per pound to compensate for the distance between England and America. That is a question of fact. It does not touch the argument of the paper presented. I heartily sustain the report, because it is in the direction of non-legislative action; legislative action, I think, would be mischievous. The great point that would be brought about, if the buying by net weight can be assured, will be the better methods of ginning and packing which are suggested in the report. Whenever the growers of cotton can get a price that will warrant the additional care in the ginning and packing, and the putting on of proper burlaps instead of heavy bags, we may be very sure that the laws of trade will bring about the object advocated in the report. They are becoming alive to the necessity of that sort of economy. It will be remembered that some two or three years ago the diagram of a "trash-cleaner" was brought before us by a gentleman from Providence, - an invention that had been made in Texas. That machine has been at work since that time in Texas, and cotton in sufficiently large quantities and of a sufficiently improved quality, prepared by it, has been offered for sale, and has been sold at a price sufficiently higher to warrant the continuance of the use of that machine. peared when exhibited here a very crude machine. It has been perfected. There is also a vast room for introduction of better ginning; and when discrimination is used in buying according to the quality and careful packing of the cotton, we may gradually bring about carefulness in handling, the same as that which would be used with respect to a bale of cotton cloth. That is the way it ought to be with a bale of cotton, not stored in cellars in order that it may become damp before it is sold. When I was in the South a little while ago, I learned that the favorite place of storage of cotton, in one of the cities, was in very damp cellars, because dampness added weight to the cotton. For the same reason they were in the habit of leaving it out on the sidewalk, in the rain, before shipping it.

It ap

[The motion for the acceptance of the report was adopted.] The PRESIDENT. What disposition will you now make of the report? If no motion is made in regard to its adoption, it will be placed on file.

I had hoped the report would lead to some discussion. This report presents one view of the question. There are two sides. to this, as to almost every question; and we have had an intimation already to that effect, and while this report is quite full and clear, and presents the matter properly before the Association, it is not clear to my mind, and I presume it is not to others, that the ground taken here is correct, so far as it is assumed that the American spinner pays just so much more for his cotton in consequence of there being a difference of tare to the American spinner from what there is to the European spinner. It is not true of the English as much as of the American spinner, that he buys his cotton direct from the planter, or from the markets in this country. In Europe there comes in to a greater extent than here, if I understand the matter, a class between the spinner and the seller, or broker, at the South. In this country, as is well known, to a very large extent of late years, cotton is bought directly by the spinner from the South. Instead of going to New York, Boston, or Providence, and buying of cotton dealers, he goes directly to the South. The English merchant buys the cotton on the same terms and conditions that the American spinner does. It is shipped to England; it is sold to the English spinners by those who purchase of the Americans; and, in the adjustment of prices, of course the question of tare must come in as a part of the cost, or the expense on the cotton. The Englishman buys the cotton, so far as tare is concerned (if I am right) at the South, on precisely the same conditions that the New Englander buys. There is no difference. That matter of tare is adjusted subsequently. I may be in error; I think not, however. I make these few remarks to bring the matter up, hoping thereby to bring out some further thoughts and discussion, as it is a matter of very great importance, and I think we ought not to lay it on the table, and leave it, and go home feeling that there is nothing to be said. This report tells a part of the truth, and truth that ought to be told; and I fully agree that there ought to be a different system. in regard to tare; that this transporting trash, sand, cottonseeds, here or to Europe, and paying freight on them, and on an