Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1902 — COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL

' ! V .I*l “I ndaatrial activity U nBI IOrL neater than at any recent ——■ ’date. Many new factories and mills have been added to the productive capacity, facilities are being increased at old plants, and idle shops resumed through the settlement of labor controversies. A coke blockade still exists, the railways being unable to handle the output, which is above all records and in urgent request. Despite the rapid development of transportation facilities the nation’s needs have grown still faster and the situation is distressing for shippers and consumers. Large crops are being harvested and the greater abundance of foodstuffs caused a decline in prices of commodities during August of 3.5 per cent, as measured by Dun’s index number. Retail trade is large, with a bright outlook for the future in jobbing and wholesale business. There are few of the cancellations so numerous at this time last year, while collections are improving. An advance of 22.9 per cent in bank exchanges at New York over the same week Fast year cannot be explained by speculation, as dealings in stocks were also heavy in 1901. Railway earnings in August exceeded last year’s by 4.2 per cent and those of 1900 by 18.1 per cent.” R. G. Dun & Co.’s Weekly Review of Trade makes the foregoing summary. Continuing, the review says: Although the weekly capacity of pig iron furnaces in blast on Sept. 1 was reported as 335,189 tons by the Iron Age, it has since been appreciably curtailed by the inadequate supply of fuel, on which account numerous furnaces were blown out, or at least banked. As consumptive requirements are increasing it is necessary to place orders abroad more extensively, and in some cases, the entire output of foreign plants has been secured. Not only raw material but billets and even rails are sought jn other markets, German mills offering the best terms in most cases. Heavy importations have prevented further advance in quotations, but domestic producers have a ready market for their output, contracts still running far into the future. Railways are in great need of new locomotives and other equipment.

Grain and Flour Exports. Bradstreet’s says: Wheat, including flour, exports for the week ending Sept. 11 aggregate 5,444,142 bushels, against 6,276,299 last week, 6,648,609 in this week last year and 4,065,982 in 1900. Wheat exports since July 1 aggregate 50,101,742 bushels, against 68,341,271 last season and 34,985,533 in 1900. Corn exports aggregate 91,512 bushels, against 21,196 last week, 777,831 last year and 2,402,786 in 1900. For the fiscal year exports are 931,351 bushels, against 11,521,576 last season and 37,657,036 in 1900. “ In the world of commerce, uDICdOO. attention is being directed towards the Northwest, where the extremely light movement of spring wheat to market has come to be a consideration of great importance. It is not that the movement has been lighter than for the past five weeks, but that this fact continuously passed over as a condition only temporary and due to give way on the first several successive days of good weather, has been viewed more seriously now that it is the middle of September and there is as yet no satisfactory increase. j In the mammoth Minneapolis elevators, with capacity for carrying 35,000,000 bushels, there is to-day 1,318,663 bushels of wheat. The millers are still taking everything in the grade wheat that comes in, and elevator men have found no surplus with which to fill their houses. That wheat will come in very soon in larger quantity is the expectation. The government weekly report was favorable. Trosts have occasioned some alarm and a little of a scare worked into the speculative markets in cereals, but everything still standing is so close to maturity that it is doubtful if any damage serious enough to change the supply outlook materially, is possible at this late date. The country in its entirety presents a view encouraging in the extreme.