Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-04
Dun'S Report.

New York, May 3-R. G. Duns weekly review of trade tomorrow will say: May business begins in better condition than at any other time since the breakdown in May 1893. Smaller in volume than then. it is not now shrinking, but en- larging. The chief obstacle to a more complete recovery is the anxiety of many to pluck fruit before it is ripe. Holders of some staples have lifted them so far as to prevent their marketing. Con- sumption of materials in some branches is checked by advices which cannot be realized for finished products and work CTS in some industries are demanding wages that cannot be paid out of any
 business in sight. In spite of labor troubles and speculative excess the out look brightenS. Money markets continue healthy, and with heavy sales of railway bonds abroad the deficiency in public revenue, $S, $40 in April, causes no apprehension.
 Demands for the full restoration of wages to the level of 1892 have closed many woolen mills and threaten to close others employing about 5000 hands at Olneyville and about Providence and have arrested work at other mills of some importance already. Similar de- mands have been made in the cotton mills of Massachusetts. The strike which closed iron furnaces at New Cas- tie. Pa, has just ended without effect, but other strikes have stopped numerous "Oiho dbout I illSDulS anu OlltTS are threatened. Exaggerated accounts of recovery in business. so often published and sometimes prompted by manufac- turers themselves. make it not entirely strange If operatives fail to see that the business in great industries is without profit, and much of the working force is still unemployed.
 The speculative fever grows more fierce, as is natural when business starts up with prices at extreme low points, and the prices of staples have grown about the exporting points. The strike at New Castle, Pa., now over stiffened Bessemer pig so that $1075 was quoted at Pittsburg. and the closing of the Wheeling mills stiffened bllets while southern makers have nominally ad- vanced their price, though sales have been made here under slO for No. 2. Ad- dltional contracts for structure work here and at Chicago, sales of 1000 tons of rail at the east, better demand for wire and its products and for plates and sheets are the encouraging features this week. Cotton ties are a shade higher at 55 cents per bundle, and wire nails at s5 and cut nails at 70 cents by car load are less demoralized. Consumption docs not yet equal the capacity of works or output of pig, but improves. Late in the week important strikes in iron works about Pittsburg threaten serious dis turbances.
 Another heavy decrease of II, ,667 tons In the output of coke makes the shrinkage nearly twenty per cent in two weeks, and furnace is offered at $l.10. Anthracite coal agents agreed to mine only three days of the week in May but prices are unchanged Window glass makers have adopted a new scale for the two lower brackets 50 cents higher than before.
 The remarkable rise in leather con- tinues, and yet shipments of boots and shoes from Boston for April were slightly larger than two years ago, or ever be- fore, and most of the works have orders for three or four months production at a material advance in prices. The chief embarrassment Is uncertainty as to the future price of leather. The rise in prices of cotton goods also continued. The woolen year ends with the lowest prices yet known.
 Failures in twenty-five days of April show liabilities of $9, ,536, ,96O, of which $3,- 614,7 736 were of manufacturing and S5,- 705, $50 of trading concerns Last year in four weeks, ending April 26, liabilities were $S,S26,S62, of which s, ,6S7, ,320 were of manufacturing and $4677 699 of trading concerns.
 The weeks failures are 231 in the United States, against 233 last year, and thirty-four in Canada, against thirty-five last year.