Much resentment was felt by those at the convention toward Texas for her disastrous increases in acreage, and the Texas delegates were properly repentant. The most daring and possibly the most hopeful plan, that suggested by A. G. Little of Blytheville, Arkansas, was defeated: It was based on the system in use in Egypt and called for identical legislation by all the states to restrict by law any farmer from planting more than half his land in cotton. The proposal was supported by dele gates from Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, strange to say, but defeated by the votes of the Eastern Belt plus Arizona. It was argued against the resolution that such a course would deprive the South of its mo nopoly on the world's cotton supply. "This may be one brand of political economy," wrote E. E. Miller, Editor of the Southern Agriculturist, "but a political economy of common sense would see that a country cannot be enriched by producing any commodity to sell abroad at prices that will keep the producers poor, and that it is better to lose a market monopoly than to hold it at the cost of starvation wages and low living standards." " It is doubtful if such a use of the police power of the state would have been held constitutional. Compulsory diversification, if enacted, might have started a new era in southern agriculture. Failing that, the convention turned to the customary plea for reduction of cotton planting.' Writing of the convention's failure to reach agreement, G. L. Fossick said of voluntary reduction of cotton planting: The idea is nothing new. The cotton South has often met fact with expedient and each time demonstrated that hope triumphs over experience. . . . Intermittently, for almost a century the cotton farmer has again been guilty of over production, and each time he . . . has been offered the same nostruras.' J. S. Wannamaker, president of the American Cotton Association, has suggested a plan for stabilizing the price of raw cotton which, calls for neither national con trol nor voluntary cooperation of individual growers.' His plan calls for the appointment of a permanent cotton commission, composed of representatives from all the cotton states to study, advise, and prepare uniform legis lation regarding cotton. The passage of uniform laws jointly by all the cotton states would then be sought in order to carry out the following program: 1. Forbid the planting of more than 40 per cent of any farm in cotton, and set up boards to have supervision and control of food, forage, and cotton acreage.
2. The passage of uniform laws requiring that a crop mortgage to be collectable must cover a certain per cent of food and forage crops in proportion to cotton.
3. The creation of financial machinery to retire such pro portion of bumper crops as is in excess of demand to hold it for the lean years.
The first provision is in line with the laws passed by the Egyptian Government,' December 8, 1926, which provides that no farmer shall plant more than one-third of his tillable land in cotton on penalty of fine, imprison ment, and uprooting of the excess at the expense of the farmer. The fertility of the Nile lands has notably de creased since the building of the great irrigation dams, and the purpose of this legislation is to restore them by crop rotation and diversification. The second provision is suggested simply to give point to the first. It is thought that with the acreage stabilized by the first provision the third will simply take up and distribute the slack in production due to variations in the weather.
The difficulties in the way of the adoption of the plan, however admirable, are such as to pronounce it Utopian. Regardless of the slight likelihood of the cotton states coming to agreement, similar laws in America would be declared an unconstitutional use of the state's police power. They would, if enforced, be likely to lead to diplomatic complications, as did Brazil's valorization of coffee or England's control over rubber. If the doctrine of comparative advantage holds in cotton, its enforce ment would prove unjust discrimination against owners of rich Delta and alluvial lands especially suitable for the growing of long staple cotton.
It does not seem likely that any unified organization or control will ever be worked out that will enable the cotton industry to control to any extent its own destiny. Here, as elsewhere, in our competitive system men striv ing everywhere for their own best individual interest have at times worked themselves collective ruin in the process. Lack of knowledge, lack of common interests, lack of plan and organization have combined with the vagaries of nature and nature's insects to keep the cotton industry untrammelled by regulation.
Our survey will likely lead us to agree with A. W. McLean, former director of the War Finance Corpora tion and Governor of North Carolina, that "at the pres ent time the cotton industry is the most hazardous of all branches of agriculture." It is not a matter of low average price alone, it is the matter of violent fluctua tions which take place in the commodity within very short periods that make cotton dangerous. These fluctu ations create hazards which must be assumed by all those who grow cotton. The cotton dealer and the manufac turer realize these risks and hedge against them. The grower cannot hedge his cotton. He bears the ultimate loss. It is these fluctuations that help to explain how cotton has brought the South collectively great wealth yet left the individual growers poor.