People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1894 — BUSINESS STILL IMPROVING. [ARTICLE]

BUSINESS STILL IMPROVING.

But It Is Still Far Below a Full Volume for the Season. New York, Sept. 24.—R. G. Dun <fe Co.’s weekly review of trade says: Plenty of material for encouragement and also for discouragement can be found by those who seek that and nothing else. But business men who want to see the situation exactly as it Is find accounts so far conflicting that it is difficult to strike a balance. In the aggregate business is about a tenth larger than last year, but still falls about 25 per cent, below a full volume for the season. The iron business, after Its great increase of output last month, shows a disappointing weakness at all eastern and central markets, with consumption not large enough to keep fairly employed the mills in operation. I , In textile fabrics th"re has been a distinct ! decrease in trade, as initial stocks for the next season have been ordered and dealers are now waiting for the retail trade to give encouragement for further purchase. The strike at Fall I River and New Bedford has not ceased, and , about a dozen additional cotton mills have gene intA operation elsewhere, several with reduced wages, but the orders for the present are narrow and much smaller than usual. Breadstuffs are weaker, possibly because the government official report went so far in predicting short crops so as to cause a reaction in opinion. While lower estimates of corn are commonly accepted, the price fell 3 : ,j cents, and men are reasoning that if the official estimate of wheat has been found IOO.CCO.OUO bushels out of the way the corn estimate may err from 400.000.000 to 500.010.000 bushels. Failures in two weeks of September show liabilities of only $2 867.764. of which $969,716 were of manufacturing and $1,796,048 of trading concerns. Failures during the week have been 212 in the United States, against 321 last year, and in Canada forty-eight against forty last year.