Throughout the greater part of the year prices of all cottons were high and it was only when it was known that the American crop was to be the largest grown for many' years that prices began to fall. While cheap cotton is undoubtedly best for business in the long run, in a falling market buyers of manufactured goods are inclined to retrain from making purchases that. essential, in the hope that they will be able to get'
bottom prices. Again, in ina_an undertaking such as ours obliged to acq cotton sufficient to keep machinery: occupied for some considerable time and every drop in the price of the raw material means that stocks and undelivered purchases decline in value—this was the unfortunate experience during the last three months of the year and Our profits consequently suffered.
With an American cotton crop. around 16,000,000 bales and fai crops in India and China I do not look for any appreciable change in prices unless the acreage under' cotton is materially altered.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.