The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-01-07
WOODEN and Cotton Manufactures the
Only Branches Not Keeping
Abreast with the Times.
RETAILERS PAYING J0BBERS
AN INDICATION THAT HOLIDAY
TRADE WAS SATISFACTORY.
Exports stiII Large-Bank CIearinER
S40,OOO.0OO More This Week than
Ever Before Reported.

NEW YORK. Jan. 6.-R. c. Dun & Co.'S
weekly review Of trade will say tomorrow:
The year begins with the kind of business
demand that counts. For months there has
been rising demand for materials, but
now the crowdipg demand for finished
products begins to advance prices. in the
iron and steel industry about l per cent,
without quotable changes in pig. except at
the East. Beams have advanced 81 per ton.
angles ST. bars 81 and plates are strong,
with an Australian order for 80 600 tons re-
fused at Chicago because the works are al
ready overcrowded. Many thousand cars
are covered by orders at Pittsburg; 1OOeO
tons bars are taken for agricultural works
at Chicago; 10000 tons rails are taken by
the Pennsylvania Company: the Midland
Railway Company, of England has ordered
twenty locomtives from the Baldwin works
and many other home and foreign orders
are reported. The demand has never been
greater at the beginning of the year than
it is now.
The woolen manufacture has a similar
embarrassment. While one hundred Quota
tions of wool by Coates Bros. of Philadel-
phia, average 1893 cents against 201 a
year ago, the market is gradually yielding,
because people appreciate the magnitude OF
stocks on hand. which the Boston CONNER
cial Bulletin reports at POI 600 900 pounds
an increase in its account of ia ,0O0O0
pounds for the year Obviously this means
a great movement from the farms to MILF
ers' stocks and Eastern markets, but prices
are not yet low enough to encourage large
buying or consumption by the manufactur-
ers The only heavyweight goods yet
opened are at reduced prices, as had been
expected, and it is still uncertain how far
the trade for the coming season may prove
satisfactory.
Cotton goods are in fair demand, with
cotton at 5.S7 cents. and, while nobody can
guarantee that the price will not go lower,
it is believed by competent observers that
the market for goods is so far relieved of
accumulated surplus that prices are not
likely to decline materially. even if cotton
falls. The movement of cotton thus far in-
dcates a crop over 800 900 bales larger than
that of last year, in spite of the natural dis
position and concerted efforts to hold it
hack. AS producers are not this year in un-
usual need, a movement so heavy hinders
any advance in price although taSings of
spinners have been as large in 1898 as int
any other year, the exports larger than be-
fore.
The wheat movement has to sustain ii the
largest foreign demand movement ever
known for wheat and corn together, and
Atlantic exports of 52l4.42O Bushels flour
included, against 2,S40, ,SlS last year. with Pa
cific exports of 6l4,SSS bushels, against
S72, 446 bushels last year would give
some reason to anticipate higher prices
were not the Western receipts 410i .532 bush-
els, against 2s76.O62 bushels for the same
week last year. The wonder is that the
foreign demand for corn continues so heavy.
3,572. .4l2 bushels having been exported in this
week, against 2.954S90 bushels in the same
week last year.
The country is on the upgrade, and the
men who expect it to take the downward
road have some time to wait There are no
indications of a reaction which always fo-
lows a large and rapid business recovery,
and existing conditions in the industries
and in foreign trade by no means forbid the
hope that the increase may continue, as 1t
did after the revival in 1879 for several
years. Exports compared with imports,
continue 10 indicate an enormous balance
in cash due this country, and gold imports
begin again.
Failures for the week have been 2iS in the
United States, against 322 last year, and
twenty-four in Canada, against thirty-two
last year.