The San Francisco call., 1898-08-15
WE ARE AVERAGING UP WELL.

TH HE close of the war with Spain again changes
 conditions, but hardly back to where they were
 before the In fact, they probably never will get back there Heretofore the United States has been a nation aside; henceforth 1t will be one of the worlds group with universal, not sectional interests and with greatly broadened field of commercial ac- tvity From this time the attention of the country will be more or less diverted from the monotonous fostering of local trade the expansion and exploa ton of and continually increasing foreign com merce with transmarine countries. Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines will be opened up to our goods as never before and industries must be created to fill these conditions. Unless all signs fail the United States is the of remarkable commercial expansion.
 Wall street sees this, and with its traditional shrewdness is already discounting 1t by resumng the purchase of railway and other shares, The public, which has held aloof so long, is now reappearing in the street and taking hold The granger stocks have been the favortes, owing the fine crop prospects, which indicate large railway earnings this fall Gov ernment and railway bonds continue active, with tendency toward irmer prices. The bank clearings do not show any particular activity in general trade the gain last week being 58 per cent over last year On the other hand, the smallness of failures ndi- cates that business is a safe and conservative footing those for the week being I57 against 2I4 for the same week in 1897 and 258 in 1896
 Tn the extreme East there are decided indications of an increase in business The foreign demand for wheat and corn IS better in spite of small advance in the former cereal The iron trade, both East and West showed marked improvement during the week with increasing activity all along the line. Cot ton has advanced, the inquiry for wooden goods IS decidedly better, and all textile works report more motion. The fluctuations in general merchandise generally toward higher prices and include advances in oats lard, beef coffee lead, rubber, copper and +bo% ir rhao+ a1r dty ad There have been no depreciations worthy of note. The money markets all the country reported in good condition, with an abundance of funds and all the gold coin the country sagger under, with lots more to flow n from Europe during the coming fall No reckless speculation is visible anywhere, and the commercial reports unite saying that rarely has the financial horizon been cloudess at present.
 All this is general It is aggregation of con ditions a common average throughout the country Individually speaking, trade is almost featureless There is no boom in anything and single line hibits any especial activity It is what is called in the jargon of commerce "a percentage basis" The Unit ed States is now running along on the lines of the ordinary merchant, who falls behind some goods and ahead on others but is averaging up good percentage of profit the whole proposition. This is healthy state of trade and Is the best and safest to win
 Here in California the conditions are practically the same as elsewhere. Regarded as whole the trade situation IS without especial feature but the aggregated lines averaging up we'll. During the past week there have been marked depreciations in anything except three lines of canning fruit and this happens every year at this time and lasts only a week so, during the brief period when all the fruit in the State to be rpenng at once. An almost unprecedented hot rested the State for some days but although the thermometer ranged from II5 and higher in the interior val leys no serious damage to fruit anything else was reported As far the leading items of produce are concerned; wheat shows small gain for the week: the other cereals dull and materially changed hides quoted rather steadier dried fruits are stiff and wanted for Eastern account provisions are more active owing to large Government orders for cured meats; wool is quiet and hops du butter cheese and eggs higher fresh fruit IS still selling at good prices in spite of the temporary congestion already noted and the only thing to show any marked weak is the American hog which has persistently de- clined in price for fortnight and is utterly devoid of backbone at the close.
 These few points pretty well the trade sita- ton at the moment. Everybody is looking forward to good fall trade and there is nothing in sight to indicate anything else.
 Colorado gentlemen in quest of Senator Wocott's eeat should bear in mind that t was held at ,re4,,