get it. The Englishman will not get it on an order of that sort. You will pay a little over 10 cents before you get your cotton. That is exactly what happens to the English or Bremen buyer. They must pay the market price, on gross weight, or they don't get it.

Mr. GOULDING. Is not that precisely the point the report takes,that the very fact that he has got to sell that cotton to the European spinner at six per cent tare is taken into consideration when he gets the cotton? But the tare is not taken off in our case. The 10 cents fixes the price of the cotton, and the is taken off to the Englishman and not to the American.

Mr. ATKINSON. You get for 10 cents gross what the Englishman pays 10 cents net for, practically. I say, if the quotation is 10 cents, he is expecting to lay the cotton down in Europe at 10% cents net. He covers tare, in his order, and so do you. All the quotations of this country are for gross weights. As we buy one-third, and the Englishman two-thirds, we buy one bale to the Englishman's two, and there is not difference enough to make a difference in price on that. It is a perfect absurdity and a great nuisance that the cotton crop should be sold at a gross weight. It is in the power of thirty or forty men in Boston, Providence, and Philadelphia, to establish net weights, if they can make a combination; but I never knew a combination of more than two to succeed. If you could get a combination of forty, and agree to buy cotton only at net weight, you would establish tare on cotton in that way.

Mr. THOMPSON. Allow me to say a word, in justice to Mr. Goulding. I agree with his report entirely-except that the Englishman pays less for cotton than I do, buying at the same moment in New Orleans. Otherwise I agree with him, that the tare ought to be taken off.

Mr. GOULDING. I think that the committee do not assume that thing; but they say that the brokers say it. We took mainly the testimony of Mr. Nourse in this matter, that the cotton buyers in America, on the same day and with the same grade of cotton, can buy at the same price that the English do; and on the strength of that we take that position. I would like to say also that the committee do not assume that there is this difference; but we ask: How is it, and who makes the reduction? If we start from the same premises, and the con

sumer abroad buys with a six per cent off for tare, who makes the reduction, and where is it made? The Liverpool merchant gives an order for ten thousand bales of cotton, limited at 10 cents. The buyer must protect himself; if he is going to make the same profits that our cotton-broker does, he must fix a price so that he can make the reduction of six per cent for tare. Having fixed that, we do not get that deduction. We cannot see why there is not that disadvantage, and hence we say so in the report. We do not get that reduction.

The PRESIDENT. I would like to call your attention to a single paragraph in the report: —

"Your committee might reasonably be expected to recommend some plan or method of effecting this change." They go on to say that they would not recommend legislative actions, &c. I would suggest that this matter be referred to the same committee for further consideration, and that at the next meeting they report some method of action by which the desired end may be reached, some method well considered and digested, after such consultation as may be necessary, so that we may have something a little more clearly presented as to what can be done. One member asks here, "What are you going to do about it?" Well, we would like to have this committee, who have this thing in their minds, just tell us at the next meeting what we are going to do about it.

Mr. THOMPSON. In what connection did
In what connection did you understand me

to ask that question?

The PRESIDENT. I don't remember the exact point.

Mr. THOMPSON. It was: How are you going to fix the prices? If the Englishman buys two-thirds and you only onethird, he fixes the prices, and what are you going to do about it? The PRESIDENT. It is for the Association to move in the matter.

Mr. NICHOLS. It seems to me that Mr. Atkinson has the right view of this question. I cannot see that there is any injustice in the way the business is done. If I am a planter, or a factor, and have a thousand bales of cotton to sell, when I have made up my mind to sell at the market price of the day, I do not stop to inquire whether the man who is to buy my cotton is a native of Manchester or Lowell, whether it is destined for Old England or New England. I do not care, so long as I get my money. I sell to one as cheaply as to the other.

They both pay the same price at the starting point. But the cost to the consumer or manufacturer depends upon its destination. The manufacturer in Manchester does not get his cotton at the same price as the manufacturer in Lowell. If you take the price of cotton in Liverpool, and compare it with the price in New York or at the South, if no unusual local influences are affecting the market, I think you will generally find that if you take the price at the latter point, and add the freight, insurance, &c., and the commissions for handling, and add to this the six per cent tare taken out, and whatever other arbitrary local charges there may be,-you get the price of cotton in Liverpool. This must be so when the business is in its normal condition, for cotton, like all other merchandise, seeks the highest market. The six per cent allowance is not saved to the manufacturer. He pays it in the price he gives for the cotton in Liverpool. You will find this to be the case to-day, that the price of cotton in this country, with the additional cost of transportation, and with this tare, which is taken out, is the quotation of cotton at Liverpool; so that really there is no injustice in the way the business is done. It only remains for us to see that the amount of tare - the bagging and strapping, &c. is the minimum amount that is necessary to cover the

cotton.

Mr. CUMNOCK. We will say that cotton to-day is 10 cents in Savannah or Charleston, and an English buyer comes in and buys eight hundred bales, and a buyer from Boston buys two hundred bales: is it the universal rule that the Englishman is charged six per cent on his purchase?

Mr. NICHOLS. They both pay the same price. The man who has cotton to sell does not inquire whether he is selling to an Englishman or an American. But when the cotton gets to its destination, all the local charges and allowances must be added, and the consumer must pay them. The English manufacturer pays these, in addition to the amount that you and I pay for cotton at our mills.

Mr. CUMNOCK. Is that the fact? Is it universally done?

Mr. NICHOLS. I understand that this tare is allowed in the English market; and if there are any other local allowances, they must be added to the cost of cotton; the manufacturer pays these, in addition to what we pay here.

Mr. THOMPSON. It strikes me that the Englishman is too

smart to pay three-quarters of a cent more than we do. Now, suppose that I buy it, and ship it to him at just the fair cost: he will not have to pay so much as he pays his neighbor.

Mr. ATKINSON. There are plenty of buyers in the South that buy both for American spinners and English spinners. In point of fact, the last quotation for middling cotton in New York was 11 cents, as I recollect. By the paper the last quotation of cotton in Liverpool was seven pence, at two cents to one penny, - that is 14 cents. Now deduct freight and insurance, and you have 13 cents. Deduct the six per cent tare, extra bags and ropes, and one and a half per cent trade discount, and you have eight per cent deduction in round figures. That is a cent; and that brings the price down to 12: therefore at the quotations of to-day the Englishman is paying 12 cents for the net weight of cotton, and charges, and we are paying 11 cents for the gross weight of cotton in New York. That is about the proper difference in the market in the long run. tations will come even in the long run. Take twenty years, two days in the month, and you will find that you must deduct from the English price the freight, insurance, and six per cent tare, and extra bags and ropes.

The two quo

Mr. GARSED. The gentleman don't seem to get at the matter as I wish to put it. I don't mean to say that the Englishman and the American pay any different prices in Savannah or Charleston. But, taking my friend Thompson's illustration about the hay, suppose the man who wanted two thousand tons of hay went out of the market, and left the one that wanted one thousand tons in the market; the man that wanted the one thousand tons bid for it twenty dollars, and the other one wanted twenty-two dollars; and he withdrew. Now, what would be the effect on that market? The two-thousand-ton man went out, and said, "I will not give but twenty dollars." The other man wants twenty-two dollars. He has got his hay on hand; what has he got to do with it? He must either commence to sell with the man that wants the smaller quantity, and accept a lower price, or start with the man that wants two thousand tons at twenty dollars, thus getting rid of him, and fixing the price. The Englishman does fix the price in Charleston and Savannah. If there is ten thousand bales in any one port, -I am speaking from actual experience, and it is well known that the English buyer is ready to buy at 9 cents, and

he is not willing to buy at 99 cents, he withdraws. It is as common as it is to go and eat your dinner, that he does that thing exactly. Then what? The men must sell their cotton; and, if the Englishman will not advance, they have got to come to that price. Now, he buys with a view to six per cent when the price is fixed. The American cannot fix the price of cotton any more than he can upon any other article. No man can possibly fix the price at retail of the man that buys at wholesale. We are arguing that the large buyer fixes the price; and when there is a universal rule of tare, then we stand on a universally equal footing; and until you do have such a universal rule, you never will do it.

Mr. THOMPSON. If you can by Act of Parliament make John Bull withdraw from the market, you can get it cheaper. I don't think this Association can compel John Bull to withdraw so that they can get cotton cheaper. If Mr. Garsed wanted two-thirds of the cotton raised in the United States, John Bull would have to pay just what we said. If he did not want to give but ten cents, he would not get any if we gave twelve. When we got stocked up, he would get what was left. Mr. GARSED. That is the argument, sir. That is sound. Mr. ATKINSON. I move that the report be sent to the same committee, to propose a plan.

--

The PRESIDENT. You hear the motion of Mr. Atkinson, which is seconded. Are you ready for the question, to refer this report back to the same committee, to investigate the matter, and to devise and report at the next meeting some definite plan?

Mr. ATKINSON. I would amend the motion by providing for the addition of one name to fill the vacancy that exists in that committee.

The PRESIDENT. I would suggest that that vacancy be filled with the name of B. F. Nourse. The committee then would be as follows: William F. Goulding of Lewiston, Me., B. F. Nourse of Boston, Hervey Kent of Exeter, N.H., Mr. Garsed of Philadelphia, and Mr. Cumnock of Lowell, Mass.

[The motion as amended was adopted.]

The PRESIDENT. The next business is to hear from Mr. J. G. Garland of Biddeford, Me., an explanation of his new apparatus for moistening the air in cotton mills.