lement plays a larger
part, for it is in such times that the greatest fluctuations in price
take place. Merchants or manufacturers holding hedging contracts are
under a greater incentive to buy or sell, as they see their opportunities
for profit growing greater or less, as the case may be, and in
consequence more contracts are made, and they pass from hand to hand with
greater rapidity, the gain or loss thus being distributed among a greater
number of persons than would otherwise be the case. It is the operations
of speculators, and the manipulation that once or twice during its
history has been possible by unscrupulous traders which has brought about
at such times public agitation for the abolition of the Exchange. Recent
changes in the form of the cotton contract have made it almost impossible
for such operations, if repeated, to be successful, and thus there is
little likelihood that the very important economic function of the
Exchange will be interfered with by legislation.

CHAPTER IV

The Cloth Market

The output of the manufacturer finds its way to the ultimate consumer
through a variety of channels. What these are will depend upon the manner
in which the various mills are organized, and their respective policies
as to the marketing of their products. Some mills, usually very large
organizations, will have plants completely equipped, in every department,
spinning, weaving, dyeing, printing, finishing, etc., and will process
all of their goods themselves in every detail, offering them on the
market in their finished form. Some of these may make a wide variety of
fabrics suitable for one class of trade, or for many classes of trade,
while others will specialize on a few articles. A good many concerns that
are not of the largest size, but which confine their production to a few
articles, may also put the goods through every operation themselves.

Then there are a great number of cotton mills, many of them of very large
size, which do no weaving at all, but confine themselves to spinning,
finding a market for their yarns with the many weaving mills which have
no spinning plants.

Many Large Mills
Do No Finishing

Numerous mills, both large and small, manufacturing, principally, goods
of a staple grade, which may either be of fine or coarse character, sell
their entire product in the gray, or unfinished state, because they do
not wish to burden themselves with the task of putting the goods through
th