Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1895-04-17
Dun,s Review or Trade.

New York, April 12.-R. q. Dun's &
Co.'S Weekly Review Of Trade which
issues tomorrow will say: Progress to-
ward better business continues. but it
Is slow and meets many obstacles. In
speculative aspects and in wholesale
demand for goods, the week shows Inn.
provemenf. Money markets are un.
disturbed and little more active. But
among the chief obstacles is the anx-
iety OF operatives to secure better
wages, even while many manufacture
ing wrokS are running without profit
and others at the risk of loss. In a
number of establishments better wages
have been conceded, thus increasing
the purchasing power of the people,
but strikes have largely overbalanced
settlements, several of Importance hav-
ing thrown about IL 900 workers out OF
employment this week.
Retail trade has improved on the
whole since March, as the approach of
Easter brings more business but dis
tribution to individual consumers still
lags behind purchases of jobbers and
such demand for products as springs
from building and other investments
looking into the future.
Crop prospects will greatly affect the
course of trade for some months and
the government report had little in
huence to discourage. For consumers
the worst feature is the rapid advance
in meats. For the first time in a long
period, prices of commodities average
a shade higher than for year and in
causes, slight advance occurred in
March. On both sides of the ocean the
lowest level ever known may naturally
be followed by some rise.
Cotton is, on both sides, more buoy
ant than anything else except meat
nd no FsfNl Lon t1kr IN ill
risen to $3.50 the highest price for over
seventeen years. Nothing supports the
advance of an eighth in cotton the past
week except the impression that the
next crop will be short, for receipts are
large and about 100000 bales more than
the largest crop ever grown have al
ready come into sight this year.
Wheat has yielded nearly a cent al
though Atlantic exports for two weeks
have 3,706,643 bushels, flour included,
against 3,599,6SS last year, with west
ern receipts only 2,0SS, 467 against 4,223,-
434 last year. Receipts of corn are
about half and exports a fifth of last
years.
Decrease in receipts of cattle are ex-
aggerated, $50, 406 having arrived at
Chicago against 7S9,543 to date last
year and the prevalent opinion is that
western packers are helping nature to
some extent.
1888 tons weekly, practically the
same as March l, with a decrease OF
1850 tons in unsold stocks during the
month. Doubtless heavy stocks were
taken UP by manufacturers in antici-
patton of a strike in coke works, but
the apparent consumption is larger
than at any other time for some
months and only a sixth less than in
March, 1892. BeSsemer iron has adj
vanced little further to $10.75 at Pitts
burg, but there is no change whatever
in prices of unfinished products dur
ing the week, and while the demand
continues good for structural forms and
little better for bars, the market de-
rease in demand for wire, owing to the
Scant purchases of farmers for fencing,
affects the outlook. 1t seems probable
that pig iron must recede unless
larger demand for finished product is
soon developed.
Sales of wool are particularly inter-
esting, amounting for the week to g.
030, 200 pounds and for five weeks pre-
| Vious to 25,621 200 against 25,277,376 in
the same weeks of 1892. In brief, sales
are close to the quantity required for a
| full consumption and the long delay in
| placing orders and the latenesS of the
| season make the proportion of mills at
| work larger than usual. No improve
| ment in prices appears, and domestic
wool does not respond to recent adj
| VanceS in foreign markets. The low
| price encourages manufacturers to
compete much more vigorously with
the foreign goods of many kinds than
| they had expected and for the medium
I and cheaper grades of goods they have
more than the usual demand, because
| purchases of consumers have for two
years been comparatively small. The
better goods fare not so well, foreign
competition being more effective. but
| there is good demand for dress goods.
In cottons continued strength appears.
which further occasional advances of
a quarter and an eighth in print cloths,
and the aggregate is fair. Many agents
| are sold well ahead.
Failures for the week were POI in the
! United States against 21S last year and
| q in Canada against IA last year.