Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1902 — COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL

Uaw Vnrb “Foreign markets were NBI IOIK. badly disarranged by the “ ’sudden illness of the Kiug, and there was much liquidation prior to .he closing of British exchanges from W ednesday afternoon to Monday morning. Domestic financial conditions are exceptionally satisfactory and trade is well maintained, although low temperatures interfered with the distribution of midsummer specialties. Manufacturing operations have increased in activity, especially in the iron and steel industry and textile production, while the constructive work on new buildings and bridges is very heavy. Labor difficulties have not improved in the anthracite coal region, but numerous settlements have l>een effected elsewhere. Railway earnings thus tar reported for June exhibit an.average increase of 4.6 per cent over last/year and 17.7 per cent over 1900.” R. G. Dun & Co.'s Weekly Review of Trade thus sums up the industrial situation. Continuing, the Review says: Most of the blast furnaces that were stopped by the scarcity of anthracite coal have resumed with coke, of which the ovens have established new records of output, and shipments have been still larger owing to the stocks accumulated during the ear shortage. Despite the vigorous pig iron production, numerous contracts have been placed abroad, and still the machine shops, manufacturers of stoves and implements, and ebnsumers generally are seeking deliveries. Structural shapes of steel and all forms of railway equipment continue to lead the market, orders in these lines running far into next year. Bars and sheets are the least active divisions of the market, but even in these there is no tendency to weakness. Higher freights have not materially cheeked importations, and it is reported that a large structural mill in Germany has sold its output for this year to American consumers. Failures for the week number 200 in the United Suites, against 204 lust year, and 20 in Canada, against 23 a year ago. Bradstreet’s report says: Wheat, including flour, exports for the week aggregate 3.382.701 bushels, against 3,860.434 last week and 4,364,147 in this week last year. Wheat exports, July, 1901, to date, aggregate 248,668.583 bushels, against 214.501,550 last season. Corn exports aggregate 130,501.550 last season. Corn exports aggregate 130.102 bushels, against 110.979 last week and 2.445,460 last/ear. July 1. 1901, to date corn exports are 26,323,177 bushels, against 173,879,684 last year. ~ The first half of the year CnlCdGO. has passed. This marks the a (close of six months of prosperity as great as the country has ever known. It has been a time for the exploitation of new plans, new enterprises have been born, new business ventures undertaken, while in the old established lines there has beep a general expansion. It has been a period of commercial aggressiveness. of easy money affording opportunity for the development wf new country, the enlarging of industrial plants, for betterments by the railroads. With other grains advancing, the wheat professional assumes that should the weather continue unfavorable wheat is bound to do better, and is buying moderately- on this theory, as wheat and corn are selling only 3c apart, aud wheat should be worth more money, baaed on the present prices of coarse grams. Cattle and hogs sold nt the highest prices of the year last week, and cattle brought more than at any time in twenty years. It was natural with live hogs selling close to $8 that product should sympathize. The righest prices of the season were made, and the close recorded a gain of 35c ou pork. 5c on lard, but a loss of 15c on ribs. Local speculative interests are inclined to leave provisions and go into grains, as pork at over $lB is not so attractive as September wheat around 72c.