The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1895-09-28
STUDY In FAILURES.
Intere sting Data Gained by q
Comparison Of Figures.
The Showing Of Manufacturing Interests
Against Those of Trading Concerns
Deductions from Statistics Of tho
Business World Up to Date.

The scientific study Of statistics,
furnished by the leading commercial
agencies, of the failures throughout
the country, reveals some interesting
and remarkable facts. It appears, says
Dnn's Review, that the ratio of manu-
featuring failures to manufacturing
firms is not quite two-thirds the ratio
of trading failures to trading firms, but
the average of defaulted liabilities per
firm in manufacture is about twice as
great as the average of defaulted liabil-
tiles in trading for all firms so en-
gagged.
With about 355,O0O manufacturing
concerns in the country the failures for
the first half of 1895 were 1854, or 3.5
in every 1000. In 1894, with substan-
tally the same number of concerns, the
failures in the first half were 1901, or
about 40 in every 1000. But with
about S33, 900 traders the ratio of fail
ures was ga per 1000 in both half
years. The risk of failure, the death
rate, so to speak, is nearly twice as
great in trading as in manufacturing.
But when magnitude of liabilities is
considered the case is different. Treat
ing for convenience all liabilities of
firms falling as defaults, the amount
for every firm in manufacturing aver
aged in the first half of 1895 S113, and
Silt in the first half of 1894. But the
trading defaults averaged only s54 for
every trading firm in the first half of
1895, and S62 in the first half of 1894,
the average being not half the average
in manufacturing.
The failure rate in each kind of busi-
ness and in separate sections is pecul-
iarly instructive. Where manufactur
ing concerns are few, and mainly
confined to sawmllls, gristmills and the
various mechanical shops, the rate of
failure is very low, particularly in the
southwest and in the southeast and the
western states beyond the Mississippi
But it is larger in eastern and middle
states, where most of the manufacture
ing concerns in competing lines are
found, and still larger in Pacific states,
because of the greater risk and more
venturesone spirit which the promi-
nence Of mining induces. In trading,
failures are relatively more numerous,
at least within the past year, in the
southeast than in any other section,
but again the Pacific section ranks next
this year and highest of all last year.
Depression of cotton and real estate is
the obvious cause at the south, but the
western farming states, in spite of the
great depression in wheat and other
farm products, report lower failure
rates from the Pennsylvania line to the
Sierras than any other section.
One can hardly define a law which
makes the average of defaulted iabili-
ties trading about twice as much to
all firms in trading in the eastern as in
the central Or western states, but
smaller than in the south or in the Pa
cific states. But the exceedingly heavy
New England failures last year make
the most serious break in a continuity
which is elsewhere surprising. Such
exceptions only render the general
steadiness of failure rates and averages
of liabilities more striking and sug-
CeStiVe,