Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1902 — COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL

Ney-York.

Bradstreet's annual review of American trade, finance and industry "shows

that 1901 has established the highest record of the last five years of commercial expansion enjoyed, by the Upited States. The year has seen transacted an aggregate of general business, as reflected ia, bank clearings, far in excess of any preceding period; imniense increase in outputs of coal, orc, iron, steely leather, lumber and a multitude of qtber. branches; freight transportation facilities insufficient to handle the* volume of business offered, and a “volume of holiday business passing all previous bounds both ia quantity and quality.” Present estimates indicate that the earnings for 1901 will exceed the highest records of preceding years by one-fourth. Gross railway earnings have increased 12 per cent, and net returns have gained 16 per cent over the best preceding year. There has been a gain of 38 per cent in bank clearings over 1900; the highest price for wheat since 1898 and of corn and oats for almost a decade. Not all the returns, however, are so favorable. There is less money in cotton for the South this year, and the margin of profit iu manufacture has occasioned complaint in New and old England. Export trade has shown signs of hesitation after years of steady advance, and imports have increased; still the margin in favor of exports is very large. Food products as a »whole are higher than in the general price boom of 1900. while manufactures are lower. Prices as a whole are .8 per cent lower than in February, 1900, and December, 1899, but are higher than in any year from 1893 until the third quarter of 1599. In transportation activity has been without" precedent. The pre-eminence of the trade conditions of this year is all the more notable when we consider a number of occur rences which in a normal year Would have proved depressing, if not disastrous. There were the machinist and steel strikes, the stock excitement of May, tho failure of several imprudently managed combinations, the efforts of some combinations to fix prices, the shortage in corn, cotton and oats, and the assassination of President McKinley. With the record of such a year as a basis the outlook for 1902 is encouraging. As the report under consideration well says: “If only a portion of the high hopes indulged in as a result of the recent conferences of capital and Jabo r materialize, industrial peace, and through this sustained commercial good feeling, will have been powerfully furthered.”

Chicago.

In almost all wholesale lines tho usual holiday dullness Was not experienced.

While the volume of trade was not nearly as large as during some weeks previously, orders c thick and fast in departments where spring buying is usually done some weeks later. There was n firmness in quotations indicative of a rising rather tlYahadeelTriiTlgTnarket.aj»4 the conditions surrounding trade in all its branches were more favorable, perhaps, than during any former closing week of a year, have the prospects for a large spring businessUeeHT more auspicious. This is indicated by advance sales and also by the widespread requests for early deliveries. As to grain prices, Wheat is now at a point where a few big traders seem inclined to sell it on every bulge. The foreign situation is fairly strong, and the latest estimate of German requirements is for 8,000,000 bushels monthly. Seaboard clearances continue close to the level of 4,000,000 bushels weekly, which are not enough to make foreign markets weak, and their supplies are being closely adjusted to requirements. In the soft winter wheat markets there has been a good milling deptand at better than. May prices for the No. 2 red, and an indisposition on the part of farmers to sell, which makes the movement light.