People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1896 — THE TRADE REVIEW. [ARTICLE]

THE TRADE REVIEW.

Dun « Co Report >ln*ine** Fairly BrUk —The Week’s Failure*. P. G. Dun & Co.’s Weekly Review of Trade says: The waiting condition which seems to some people better a stagnation, still continues. Ba: there is a difference. Thousands of orders and con* tracts are merely deferred because they can be more safely given a little later. There is nothing exciting in the speculative market for exportable products, and the stories about damage to wheat have been numerous, but the general belief regarding the future supply is fairly reflected in the decline of 1.62 cents per bushel. The western receipts continue larger—for three weeks 5,818,625 bushels, against 4,362,537 last year, while Atlantic exports, flour included, have been only 3,198,803 bushels for the same weeks, against 4,749,674 last year. The hene market fails entirely to respond to abort crop stories, for it is known tiat western reports indicate a crop exceeding last year’s. Cotton speculation lifted the price a fraction fcr a day or two, but it declined again, and such movements are always easy at this season, when stocks can be easily controlled. The European and American mill supplies, with commercial stocks, still exceed maximum consumption for the crop year, and the promise for the coming crop is decidedly good. If the output of pig iron were always a reliable barometer of business conditions, as some suppose, the returns of furnaces in blast May 1, according to the Iron Age, 188,319 tons, against 187,451 April 1, would be convincing. But the increase of stocks unsold since

Jan. 1 has been 242,915 tons, and this deducted from the output of furnaces leaves 2,976,348 tons for four months, which is certainly in excess of the actual consumption, because the stocks of the great steel companies are not included in the statement. Since the steel billet pool was formed these stocks have doubtless increased largely. There is scarcely any improvement in the demand for finished products, though the Bar association has become strong enough to enable makers of steel bars to get a slightly higher price. The textile manufacturers are still waiting, as they have been for months past, and the extensive curtailment of production does not strengthen prices in the least. Some large cotton mills have discontinued production this week, but the only change in representative quotations is an eighth decline in brown sheetings. The market for woolens is exceedingly dull, notwithstanding the stoppages of many mills, and while worsteds and clay mixtures are both a shade lower, there is nothing like confidence or activity as yet in any branch of the manufacture. Sales of wool have been 2,648,200 pounds for the week, at the three chief markets, and for three weeks ending May 21, 9,187,400 pounds, of which 4,882,300 were domestic, against 15,948,350 in the same weeks of 1892, of which 8,601,700 were domestic. Failures for the week have been 227 in the United States, against 207 last year, and 28 in Canada, against 23 last year.