The Final Consumption of Cotton

Abstract

Students of the cotton economy have dealt chiefly with aspects of supply. Emphasis has been laid upon crop control, production methods, and the intermediate stages of distribution. The basic demand for cotton, which stems from its ultimate uses, has been comparatively unknown to economic research. Is it realistic to hope that the total demand for cotton may be increased appreciably by conscious effort? The chief avenues for such effort are (1) control of consumer psychology, (2) strengthening of merchandising methods, (3) improvement of existing products, and (4) discovery of new uses. The potential effect of such enterprise cannot be appraised without a broad statistical picture of the uses of cotton, organized in terms of the quantity of the raw fiber which reaches ultimate consumption through each use. There has been a remarkable scarcity of such information. When fabrics leave the textile mills and fan out toward the myriad of finishing and fabricating plants through which they take form as consumer articles, the quantities of cotton involved are obscured in statistical reports. Frank A. McCord, in collaboration with the writer, has made a comprehensive study of statistical sources which give bases for estimates of the volume of cotton entering each final use. The fragmentary data thus obtained have been supplemented by contacts with 1,500 firms and individuals having first-hand knowledge of specific uses. The outcome is a publication, only recently released, which gives estimates of the volume of raw cotton required for consumer articles manufactured in the United States during the years 1937 and 1939.1 The study revealed 266 more or less homogeneous uses, each of which required as many as 100 bales of cotton per year. The 100 largest uses in 1939 are presented in Table I. Drastic shifts in consumption have subsequently been made as a consequence of the war, but the figures for 1939 provide a closer approach to a normal situation than later statistics would afford. Some of the chief implications of these statistics will be discussed briefly in this paper. Against this statistical background, some broad conclusions will be drawn regarding the possibilities of change in the total demand for cotton and the principles which should characterize a conscious effort in that field. No attempt will be made here to analyze the international aspects of cotton consumption or the effect of the current upheavals incident to the war. Neither will discussion be given to the connection between expanded cotton consumption and the best interests of society as a whole.