Not for several years have farmers been able to sell their cotton crops at the remunerative prices which they have obtained this season, and the war has thus done a great deal to improve financial conditions in the interior. Accordng to the Statistical Department of the Egyptian Ministry of Finance, the weighted average of the prices obtained for cotton and cottonseed on the Alexandria Spot Exchange from the beginning of September to the end of March were respectively $14.18 per cantar and 59.1 piastres per ardeb. On these assessments the crop of 8,560,000 cantars and approximately 6,650,000 ardebs is worth £28,000000 to Egypt, which represents an average gross return of £EI72 for every feddan planted with cotton, Comparative figures for the past ten seasons are given as fol-
Gross return Value of crop. per Feddan In 1936-7, when world consumption of all cottons was a "record" and American sold at ar. average price of 1234 cents per pound at New Yo the return per feddan was higher, but in no other season since 1929-30 has it approached that indicated for the current season. In the general rise which followed the outbreak of war. Alexandria took the lead, near-month futures quotations in that market advancing from $13 to $2514 for Sakellaridis, from $113% to $23 for Giza 7, and from $10 to $21 for Uppers in the space of fifteen weeks. In the same period American prices at New York rose from 8! to 10% cents, A contemporary fall in the exchange value of the pound sterling from $4.60 to $390 was a factor in the Egypti advance, but while the true near-month parity between Uppers at Alexandria and American at New York had averaged 50 points during the month of August it had widened by the middle of December to 500 points. Since then Alexandria prices have lost a good deal of ground, but the parity has never contracted below 265 points, compared with an average of under 100 points in the six months before the war. There is thus no rational ground for the contention that Egypt's cotton has been sold at unwarrantably low prices in relation to American.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.