The Portland daily press., 1896-02-01

ports-The Weeks Failures.
New York. January 81. -Bradstreets
tomorrow will say: The features of the
week are continued retarded demand
for merchandise and checked Industrial
operations. The least satisfactorily Is
the attitude of some more important in
dustries. Shoe factories at Philadelphia
are shutting down or running part of
the time; cotton good makers regard the
outlook for produce unpromising. There
| is a reaction in the price of steel billets
among fifty pig iron furnaces In Pitts
burg and Shenandoah districts ssfourteen
| idle and the position of woolen good
manufacturers is shown by the fact that
| foreign woolen goods are relatively most
active.
| General trade at the close of January
| proves disappointing, particularly in the
Central Western, Eastern and North
| western States, where movements of
merchandise from jobbers have been s93
SLOW AND UNS ATISFA Glory.
it being ony fair at few points. The
volume Of Spring goods distributed from
Chicago in January, is behind expecta-
tions, although it is larger than January,
1895. Some traders in the territory trib-
| utary to Chicago are making orders
small, owing to having carried over large
STOCKS and to desire to cOnfine their
purchases to actual requirements
At st. Louis the spring demand is slow
| and general trade is characterized as only
fair by the most sanguine.
| The condition in The Northwest is such
that grain moves freely in some regions
irrespective of low prices The result
| OF all this is shown by cuts by the New
York, Chicago, and st. Louis jobbers
in prices of standard cotton goods, which
demoralizes the demand. Relatively. most
favorable features of trade are found in
staples, conservative attitude of whole
sale dealers and aside from an improve
ment in the outlook at Pittsburg and
Baltimore, the actual gain
IN THE DEMAND FOR STAPLES
at Charleston, Atlanta, Augusta.
Chattanooga, Nashville and Mepmhis.
Prices for leather, lumber, and wool re-
main unchanged. Anthracite coal closes
at last week prices with the prospect for
higher quotations. Wheat flour, pork,
lard and petroleum show no change This
advance is practically for wheat, corn
and OATS and reactions in the quotations
aside from those in cotton goods are con-
fined to Southern pig iron. steel billets,
sugar and cot ton.
| There Is an extraordinarily heavy
| movement of wheat and Indian corn
| from Southern ports and newly devel-
| oped South AT rican demand for flour. on
| the Pacific coasts remain the feaUur0s at
| Newport News, New Orleans, Tacoma
| and Seattle. The starting up of shingle
| mills and the building of new ones tends
to revive the demand for staple merchan-
disc III Washington aud Oregon. FARM
| ers are holding wheat for higher prices,
which demand warrants the mills in pay
\ ing. A superior iron ore allotment for
| 1896 appears assured, with 3,500,0o tons
as the share for Mesaba ores against A.
600, GOO tons OF that variety porduced last
| year. Exports of wheat (dour included
as wheat) form both coasts of the United
| States this week is 2, 800, 600 bushels,
compared with 1884, 600 last week, 2, 1885,
| 700 in the week year ago. The exports
of Indian corn are g. 1877, 900 bushels
! trife more THAI the preceding year, and
more than three times as much as in the
| week a year ago.
An indication
OF CONTINUED SHRINKAGE
in the volume of business in December
and extension into January is shown
| by the prolonged decline in totals of
weekly bank olearings. that for this week
is 1891, 100000, being the smallest since
the last week Of November per cent less
than last week, 5.5 per cent smaller than
year ago, and Is per cent larger than
in the week of January, 1894.
Failures in the United States this week
number 393, as against 312 in the like
week last year.