Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1899 — BUSINESS SITUATION. [ARTICLE]

BUSINESS SITUATION.

Chicago Correspondence: Bank clearings arc one of the moot reliable indices to the general situation, and it is an easy matter to judge from them of the degree of prosperity that has pre- ; vailed during any given period. The re» turns for Chicago for the first nine , months of the current year are larger than the entire 1897 total and only slight- i ly below the total for the twelve month* of 1898. Chicago clearings for 1890 wi& exceed those for 1898 by more than sl,000,000,009. What is true of Chicago is : true of the country at large. The aggregate clearings of the country for the month of September exceeded $7,090,000,000, being ahead of those for August and nearly equal to those for July. The far western cities show the largest percentage of gain and the southwestern ones the smallest, but even the latter show an improvement of 19 per cent as compared with last year. • ’l]

Reports from all over the country tell of an increasing volume of trade, and manufacturers, jobbers and merchants | are abnormally busy. The scarcity of '.Jg supplies is the prominent feature, and ‘J buyers complain of inability to get all their wants satisfied. There has seldom |j! been a time when goods have been so well sold up. So far as the speculative situation is concerned, there has been very little 1 change this week. Money continues to •• be the governing factor in the stock mar- % kets, and so long as rates remain at their .J present level it is idle to look for any | material improvement in security values. Trading in grain has not been marked by any striking features. Compared with the closing prices of a week ago values were 1 cent a bushel lower for wheat and a trifle higher for corn. Business was fairly good and the crops of the season having all matured changes in prices 3 from day to day were not, as during the growing season, affected by fluctuating -I prospects of the yield. An estimate made , by Statistician Snow that the total win- g ter and spring wheat crop was 564,000,000 busels had much to do with creating a change in speculative sentiment, which resulted in a loss in price of 1 cent a ; bushel.

Talk of tight money had also predisposed speculators in wheat to doubt tha possibility of an advance in prices. Another contributory cause of the heaviness . that characterized the market toward the end of the w<>ek was the growing conviction that war in the Transvaal, should it occur, would not tend to the enhancement of the price in this country whatevef might be the effect upon British markets of a consequent rise in ocean freights. Corn prices were upheld because of thg great activity of the shipping demand, and 'the prevailing impression that the accumulations from previous crops have been practically all used up. so that this year’s production has alone to be depend- * ed on to fill the extraordinary ednsumption caused by the barren pastures at home and the heaviest foreign demand ever experienced, owing to a like effect s of a hot, dry summer in Europe.