Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1886 — THE INDUSTRIAL OUTLOOK. [ARTICLE]

THE INDUSTRIAL OUTLOOK.

Four hundred employes of the Pennsylvania Tube Works struck because a workman was discharged, and the mill was closed down. In the Knights of Labor Convention at Cleveland, a resolution was adopted giving Mr. Powderly power to recall the commissions of all organizers. The Executive Committee was increased from five to eleven members. Permanent headquarters will he opened in Philadelphia, and if necessary the board will sit throughout the year, instead of assembling at the call of the General Master Workman. A Cleveland dispatch states that “the Knights are courting an alliance with the National Grange, the indications pointing to the establishment of close relations botweeu those two organizations.”

Business failures in the United States and Canada for the week numbered 181, against 1(57 the preceding week. More than one-half of the disasters are reported ’ from the Pacific States. The total failures for the year to date in the United States are 4,636, against 5,352 in 18S5, a decline of 716 in twenty-one weeks, as compared with 4,505 in 1884, 4,421 iu 1883, and 3,021 in 1882. Bradstreet's, in its weekly review of the trade situation, says:

The industrial situation is no worse tlinn a week ago. and the outlook favors improvement. The wheat outlook favors an excellent crop. Brad street's San Francisco advices report 60,000, - 000 bushels probable on tlio Pacific coast, with 38,000,OX) bushels of barley. The wheat market is dominated by the bears on heavy stocks, probable go«l crops and light demand. The Louisiana rice crop promises to be a full one, while the sugar crop in that State looks less favorable than a week ago. The cotton crop in Texas needs rain badly. It has gained in the Atlantic States since the rains stopped. Increased beet sowing depresses sugar prices, and reduced coffee receipts have advanced quotations thereof. Tea stocks are large and prices weaker. There is a slight improvement in the movement of merchandise at many points. Cotton goods have impioved somewhat in demand at the East, mid prices are firm. At the interior there is no gain. Prints are steady. Wool is stronger, but sales aro no freer. Iron is dull and unchanged for best makes, fctoel is firm. Manufactured iron is in light demand, except in special cases. Petroleum is low, laboring under heavy bear pressure.

The third day’s session of the General Assembly of the Knights of Labor, at Cleveland, was devoted to discussion of the motion to refer the report of the Executive Board on the relations of the order to trades unions to the Committee on the State of the Order. The whole matter was finally so referred. Mrs. Sarah M. Perkins, on behalf of the Ohio Woman’s Suffrage Association, read an address to the convention. The proposition of the Committee on Laws, that, where practicable, unattached local assemblies should become part of district assemblies, and transact business with the general assembly through them, wai adopted. The Secretary read a letter from Galveston, Texas, relating to the hardships of strikers who are confined in the jail of that city for “constructive contempt,” and asking the General Assembly to do something to obtain for them privileges given persons similarly charged in other courts of the United States. The following resolution was presented and unanimously adopted: Whereas, The jails at Galveston, Balias and elsewhere in Texas are filled with brother Knights suffering for "contempt of court,” as issued ®y Judge Pardee ; be it Resolved, bv this General Assembly, That we petition Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, to exercise clemency in their behalf, as the United States Judges have erdered a release of all prisoners sentenced during the strikes on the Southwest system, and thus bo 'the means of causing better feelings between employers and employes. A committee of two was appointed to draft suitable documents to be forwarded to the President, asking him to exercise clemency toward the imprisoned members of the order.

The St. Louis sugar refinery lias started up with a full force of 500 hands employed. At a cost of several thousand dollars per month the Black Diamond Steel Company, of Pittsburgh, voluntarily made an advance of 10 per cent, in the wages of all its employes.