The Daily News. MONDAY, APRIL 25. COMMERCIAL CRIMINALS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 372, 25 April 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, APRIL 25. COMMERCIAL CRIMINALS.

The man who sells what he does not ipossess and the man who purchases what he has no money to buy, are common objects in the commercial world. These types of thieves are perhaps commoner in the United States of America than in any part of the world. By the simple process of using colossal eftro~itery, and by lacking any instinct of feeling for humanity are many millionaires made. The stupendous operations carried on by individuals in the United States makes it frequently appear that these persons have great qualities. In reality such operations are merely theft developed into an art. The jargon of 'change with its "bulls" and ".bears" is simply a pfllite method of naming a criminal act. The extraordinary point about huge commercial thefts is that the thief does not go to gaol, although he may indirectly cause starvation to thousands and death to some. The latest commercial crime to be committed is the crime of Patten, who is trying hard to "corner" the cotton crop, and who cheerfully observes: "If the mills of America and Europe don't pay my price they will have to close in August.' In other words, Mr. Patten says: "If 1 am not made a multi-millionaire I will ruin innumerable cotton manufacturers, throw millions of operatives out of work, and fill a cemetery or two." Mr. Patten can't live for ever, and he only has to have one bed to sleep in and three meals a day, but he wants enough money to buy millions of meals a day and plenty of ibeds. The vast probability is that Mr. Patten will achieve his end, and that he will become a noted philanthropist. Most of the earth's greatest commercial thieves have become philanthropists. One noted person of the United before he became the chief patron of a New York church, and a collector of priceless art treasures, burnt tens of thousands of acres of growing cotton for "commer-

cial" purposes. Paragraphs about his terrific generosity are as common as "scare" headings in American papers. A "bear" is a person who sells what he has not got in the hope of buying back on a fall, and the "bull" is he who buys for a rise without money, and who does not intend to pay if there is no rise. The latter cheerful gentleman, we are told in relation to the cotton crime now being committed in America, alleges that 142,000 bales of cotton are now held by t!ie "bears," and this is insufficient to meet their liabilities. As they don't want to meet their liabilities, it is obvious that they feel quite as cheerful as their friends the "bulls." The ramifications of commercial theft are so many and the effects so ghastly that international revolution might easily be the outcome of a cotton war. Thus the dishonesty of millionaires and .potential millionaires is such that they have been guilty of forging bills of lading in respect of non-existent cotton, supposed to be delivered in Liverpool, and which suppositious cotton is, of course, the medium of "bull" and "bear" tactics in Wall street. The gentle Patten and people of similar criminal inclinations can obviously entirely upset the great cotton manufactories in the North of England, and which votv largely depend upon United States raw cotton to carry on. The preparation of Mr. Patten and the clever gentlemen who are buying without cash and selling at a rise, or inversely, have so depressed England's "cottonopolis" that the Manchester merchants have decided to. reduce wages on May 5. In Manchester alone 16,000 operatives will be affected, and this is but a tiny proportion of the | whole of the people in the North of 'England and in Europe who must inevitably bo hit hard if Mr. Patten has his way. Britain imports from her own possessions about IS.OUO bales of cotton only. Britain consumes 1,488,000,000 lbs. of cotton annually, the Continent of Europe about double this amount, and the United States, 1,887,000;000 lbs. By far the larger proportion of the raw cotton is grown in the United States. As there are 2000 cotton .mills (many of them employing thousands of "hands") in (Ireat Britain, the extent of Mr. Patten's promised philanthropy can be feebly estimated. The number of persons engaged in, the cotton 'business cannot readily be ascertained, "but when the Northern Army in America in 1801 established a blociflide of Southern ports, and stopped the cotton export, no manufacture could be carried on in England. And, for that ■reason, 350,000 people who lived by the cotton trade then received poor relief. What a civil war did in 1801' one wretched .person desires to "improve" on in lfilO, The only weapon with which the ••comer" criminal can be adequately v f ought is the boycott. Britain cannot use the boycott as far as cotton is concerned, because the colonies and possessions cannot supply her looms. If ' anything should hasten commercial development in British possessions it is the "cornering" crime of America. British possessions might easily grow all the cotton required, or any other product, but in the meantime trade is in suea an undeveloped state that the ceaseless expansion of America is all the greater by comparison. British caution in the use of capital plays into the bands of the Yankee trnstmoiiger. How could the Empire be quite independent ot American cotton corners and the "bulls" and "bears" of Wall street? Simply by growing enough cotton for herself in her own dominion*.