Birmingham age-herald., 1894-12-22
WEEKLY TRADE REVIEW. Exports of Gold Make Business
 Uncertain.
HOLIDAY TRADE VERY POOR
Large Transactions in Pig Iron and BilletS-FailureS for
 December.

NEW YORK, Dec. 21.-R. G. Dun & Co. s weekly review oftrade tomorrow will say: But for the large exports Of gold and the uncertainty of financial legisla- tion the indie ltion would be more encour- aging. Some encouragement is seen, how ever, in orders given 10 manufacturers, though until the year enos~ the force actually al work naturally diminishes. The holiday trade has been rather poor at many points, partly owing 10 the mild weather. Distinctly more confidence is shown about the future demand for indus trial products, though prices are not better.
 Domestic exports increase little, though exportable staples are not better in price. In November the excess of mer- chandise exports over imports was S29, 573, ,s91, besides g, ,931 ,021 silver, and de- creased returns indicate as large an excess. For this very reason the exports Of $5, ,332, 07I In god since last Friday aud the withdrawal of about three times as mucd gold from the treasury are the more mo- ticed. Money continues to accumulate, and there is no enlargement in the legiti- mate demand for commercial loans, though some offerings of paper, apparently to pre- pare for yearly settlement, have excited re- mark.
 Larger orders for manufactured products
  and shoes: the general tendency of prices is downward. Steel billets sell at S15 at Pittsburg and Bessemer pig at S9 50 at val. ley mills, and in other products the tone is on the whole weaker, except in struct- ural business, which holds the recent small advance. As yet quite large transac- tions are reported in pig iron and billets and an improved demand for nails, while nothing is doing in rails and business in sheets and plates is light. Competition be- tween the works in OnPratiOn for DnSinpss- which is not enough to keep them em- ployed, pushes prices in many lines below the ordinary cost of production.
 The heavy auction sales of cotton goods, resulting in prices about 10 per cent below those previously current, and the an- nouncemeut of numerous reductions in prices by agents are by some deemed evi- dence that many mills have accumulated larger stocks in advance of consuming de- mand than has been supposed.
 Quite large sales have followed, but the market is still high and uncertain. The volume of domestic Trade does not gain ex- cept in comparison with last year, when it was declining. Exchanges for the week here are 7.09 per cent larger than last year, but 33 per cent less than in 1892, and for the month the daily average has been 6.9 per cent larger than last year, but 26.4 per cent less than in 1892.
 The withdAawals of gold from the treas ury have been over $21, ,000, 900 since De- cember 1, md are attributed in part to re- placement Of bank gold, which was reduced by the purchase of bonds. Yet it is plain that the desire of foreign offices to get gold instead of stocks, and of Americans to get gold instead of notes, rapidly takes from the treasury whatever was gained by sell ing bonds.
 Failures have been somewhat more inn pcrtant, with the lia bill ties for the second week of December at $2, TIA, ,607, and for two weeks of D,cember the aggregate has been s6, $40 ,401, of which the man nufaciuripg liabilities wer- g 466, IA aud the trading liabilities $4 uH ,5z9. But last year the liabilities in natures of the same two weeks were $11 ,679, ,t9j, Of which no less than S5. .174 ,4y4 were of man uiacturing and only 50, 3U1, ,7SI of trading concerns. The failures for the past week have been 349 in the United States, against 422 last year, and thirty-six in Ianada, against thirty-seven last year.