The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1894-01-05
BUSINESS COLLAPSE WITHOUT PRE-
0EDENT.
IN COMMERCIAL DIASrERS THE YEAR
1893 HAS BEEN THE WORST IN FIFTY
YEARS.


caption "The year 1885,"
Starting with the largest trade ever
known, mills crowded with work and
all business stimulated by high hopes,
the year 1898 has proved, in sudden
shrinkage CT trade, in commercial dis.
asters and depression Of industries the
worst for fifty years. Whether the
final results of the panic of 1887 were
relatively more severe the scanty
records of that time do not clearly
show. The year closes with prices of
many products the lowest ever known,
with millions of workers seeking in
vain for work and charity laboring to
keep back suffering and starvation in
sll our cities.
The review of different departments
of trade given to. day exhibits a col
lapse of industry and business which
is almost without precedent. The
iron industry sustained weekly pro-
ductlon OF 1851 tons pig May 1,
but by October I the output had fall.
en- to 1896 tons, and the recovery to
about 100, 900 December I, still leaves
forty pei cent. of the force unemploy-
ed. Sales of cotton goods are fully
quarter below the usual quantity. The
small advance attempted in boots and
shoes year ago was not sustained
but with prices as low as ever, the
shipments of boots and shoes from
Boston are twenty-four per cent. less
than last year in December, and
though in November the decrease was
but 10 s per cent, it has been twenty
two per cent. for the last four months.
GRAIN AND PROVISION MARKETS.
Not only manufactured goods as a
whole, but the most important farm
products are so low that producers
lnd little comfort. Official and other
reports deluded traders with the notion
that crops Of last year were so short
that famine prices could be realized
on purchases. Enormous stocks were
bought and held with the aid of banks,
until heavy receipts in the Spring
caused a collapse of wheat, pork and
cotton pools. Wheat was repeatedly
sod here and at Chicago at the lowest
price ever known, and is but half
cent above 1t now. Pork fell 81 in
an hour when the speculation burst,
but sells lower yet to-day. Cotton
was llfte1 a cent with accounts of
scarcity in September but has lost
most of the gain and sells below eight
cents.
Monetary anxieiies appeared to
cause the panic, and became epidemic
when doubts were raised in April
about redemption of treasury notes in
silver. Deposits in national banks
alone decreased in five months nearly
$500, 900, 900 purchases for consump-
tion shrunk so much, so many hands
were out of work, or earnings reduced
wages and business Of all kinds was so
reduced that accumulation Of idle
money became the greatest ever known
exceeding $2oo, 900, 900 in New York.
Clear evidence of the shrinksge in
different branches of business is af-
forded by answers already received to
several thousand circulars requesting
figures of sales during the last half of
1893 and 1899. Returns of textile
goods show sales amounting to $43,.
S93,S75 this year against $7o,347,8S2
last year, decrease of sixty-seven per
cent.
THE DECREASE IN BUSINESS.
Iron returns aggregate $4o,8s3.I8o
against sos, ,5ao,oaI last year, de.
crease of thirty eight per cent reports
thus far of jewelry show decrease of
twenty.nlne per cent; of furniture,
twenty-six per cent; of dry goods,
twenty per cent; of hats, nineteen one
half per cent; of hardware, nineteen
per cent; of shoe manufacturers,
eighteen per cent. and by dealers,
eight per cent 1t is curious that the
only trade showing any increase as yet
Is in groceries, the aggregate sales
being one per cent. larger than the last
half of 1899.
In thirty-seven years, covered by
the records of this agency, the num-
Der Of failures has only once risen
little above I6,65o in year. In 1893
the number reached has been I6,6so.
The aggregate of liabilities in all fail
ures reported has in six years risen
risen above Saoo, 900. This year
the strictly commercial liabilities alone
have exceeded $63I,4aa,o39, the liza
bilitieS of banking and financial insti-
tutions have been $aIo,956,864 and
the liabilities of railroads placed in the
hands of receivers about $I,2Ia,2I7,-
o33. AS all reports hitherto have
been osome extent erroneous, through
inclusion of failures not strictly COM
mercial, the classified returns show
3,a6o manufacturing failures with LA
bllitles of Sl647o7,44o; 1868 fail