Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1903 — COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL

i, ~ i, ! “Irregularity in retail New York, trade is due t o weather conditions. At most points an early season stimulates business, but in other sections there has been interruption from excessive rains. More uniform activity is reported in wholesale trade, with a notably largo movement of groceries, millinery, paper and builders’ materiafs, while conditions are satisfactory for the season in jewelry. Manufacturers of clothing, furniture, footwear and iron and svt'eel are well engaged, ample supplies of fuel greatly facilitating operations, hut extensive strikes threaten to render, idle many New England textile mills.” The foregoing is from the Weekly Trade Review of R. G. Dun & Co. It continues: The cut of spruce lumber has been large, but early breaking up of winter restricted movement and high cost of labor and provisions rendered ojieratious expensive. Early opening of lake navigation will benefit business, and the railway traffic embargo will be removed. Earnings of railways thus far reported for March exceed last year's by 12.8 per cent and surpass those of 1901 by 22.9 per cent. An output of about 300.000 tons of coke in the whole Conuellsville region for the last week indicates that fuel troubles are almost ended in the iron and steel industry. Quotations are sustained by the vigorous home consumption, and there is the additional support of stronger markets abroad. Work is resumed on bridg<*s and buildings wherever the places of strikers can be filled, and several contests in this department have been averted. A large opening trade in pipe has been followed by liberal supplementary orders, jobbers renewing contracts extensively, and prices are well maintained. Sharp competition for business in bar iron has caused a slightly lower level of prices, while plates and sheets are firmer, especially in galvanized lines. A prominent feature of activity is found in merchant steel for agricultural implement works and wagon factories, these orders running far into the future. Oversold conditions at rail mills are sending urging orders abroad. No improvement has appeared in the dry goods market. The situation is peculiarly complicated as to cotton goods; stocks ahe light as a rule and labor troubles threaten to curtail output, yet jobbers arc reluctant to undertake contracts at present quotations. Meanwhile producers are in no position to make concessions, and a dull market is the result. Dullness is reported in woolen goods, with new business on a limited scale. Cancellation of early orders has become a serious problem, many mills that had disposed of their product for the season now seeking business. Jobbers nre piachrg large orders for fall delivery of shoes, readily paying the recent advance in prices, and manufacturers of heavy goods have booked more business than is customary at this early date. Leather is quiet, but low stocks nffimtain prices. At last the turning point has been reached in domestic hides, and prices have steadied, which is due to the somewhat better condition of receipts. Failures this week numbered 214 in the United States, as against 205 last year, and 20 in Canada, against 22 a year ago. Bradstreet’a Grain Figures. Wheat, including flour, exports for the week ending March 20 aggregate 2.401.987 bushels, against 2,395,598 last week, 2,904,110 in this week a year ago and 4,494,335 in 1901. Wheat exports since July 1 aggregate 172,448,815 bushels, against 1114,398,707 last season and 150,907,098 in 1900. Corn exports aggregate 3.018,210 bushels, against 3,072,008 last week. 139.205 n year ago and 3,582,943 In 1901. For the fiscal year exports are 44.505,408 bushels, against 24.133,900 last season and 145,171,003 in 1901.