The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-10-07
TRADE OUTLOOK GOOD
THAT is THE CONSENSUS OF THE
WEEKLY SUMMING UP IN BRAD
STREETS REPORT
VOLUME OF BUSINESS LIGHTER

Industries- Are Active, However,
Railway Earnings Have Increaa-
ed, Prices still Tend Upward and
Bank CIearances Are Far More
Favorable-warl RumOrs Play an
Important Part in Trade DOings.
NEW YORK, Oct. 6.-Bradstreets will
say: Distributive trade, while smaller at
some markets, is still Of encouraging
volume, industry is active, railway earn
ings have increased, prices still tend up
ward and bank clearings increase, while
failures lessen. Fall festivals and other
celebrations at several cities have exer-
cised an appreciate effect upon retail
trade and proved a stimulating factor In
wholesale lines.
In Industrial affairs activity Is wide
spread and strikes are fewer and less
costly than in most years. Though less
ened by holidays, bank clearings, sWelled
partly by heavy October disbursements
and partly by general business expansion,
tend to enlarge as the season ADVANCES.
Business failures are apparently at
minimum, and liz bilities are certainly less
than for years past
Frices as a whole manifest aggressive
strength. Farm products are especially
prominent in this direction. The South's
greatest staple. cotton, owing to short
crop has advanced. The manufactured ar
ticle is strong in sympathy with the raw
product. but is also strengthened by re-
ported heavy dealings in print clotls'
and by the fact that manufacturers oil
most lines of staple cottons are heavily
sold ahead.
Wheat, including flour, shipments FOR
the week aggregate 5,1S3,S9S bushels
against 3,S72,455 bushels, revised, last
week, $40, 224 bushels in the correspond
ing week Of 1898, 4,8a5,61 bushels in 1897,
1876, TIP bushels in 1895 and 2.244,32 bushels
in 1895. Since July 1 this season the ex-
ports of heat aggregate 55699, 4lo
bushels, against 50, 49S.121 bushels last
year and 6O9so, 412 bushels in 1898. Corn
exports for the week aggregate 42SS,149
bushels, against 1928, os9 bushels (reviseO
last week, 3,5S4,710 bushels in this week
q year ago, 2,10e, $40 bushels N 1897, 2772,-
900 bushels in 1896, and 1861 10 bushels in
1895. Since July 1 this season corn eX-
ports aggregate 60,9173s6 bushels, against
SO, $50. 946 bushels during the same period
year ago. and. 1858, 1O2 bushels in 1887
1898 20
The present report of business failures
is even better than any that has gone
before it, in recent years, and the third
quarter of the year 1899 shows the fewest
failures, the smallest liabilities and the
largest proportion Of assets to liabilities
of which there is any recent record.
There were only 2,026 failures, involving
S;J $50 965 in liabilities, and $6,34O28 in as
Sets, IN the third quarter of 1929, de-
crease of 16 per cent In number and 4o
per cent in liabilities from the same
quarter of last year. Compared with the
second quarter of 1899, liabilities are IS
per cent smaller and compared with the
first three months of this year liabilities
are less than half as heavy This tend
ency IS practically universal, though
slight increase in number and liabilities
of failures in the West over those in the
second quarter is noticeable. Against
this however, it. is to- be recalled that
comparisons with year ago are salts
factory, though the busir Tess conditions in
the West and Northwest last year were
highly favorable
The total number Of failures for the
nine months was only 7G75, falling off
Of 20 per cent from last year, of % per
cent from 1897, and Of 81 FER cent from
1885, which year held the record for the
most numerous nine months failures, ex-
ceeding even the panic year, 1893. AS re-
CARDS liabilities, the tota1 for the period
under reyiew-$65, S55, 218-is So per cent
smaller than it was last year; 45 per cent
smaller than ir 1897, 81 per cent smaller
than in 1896; 80 per cent smaller than In
1898, the panic year. IA per cent smaller
than in 1892, and, in fact, is the smallest
aggregate of liabilities for the period
mentioned that there is any record of.
Assets show even greater shr1nKage, be-
ing A per cent less than last year; less
than half what they were in 1897, 1895 or
in 1894, only one-third of those Of 1896,
and only one seventh of " hat they were
in 1893 It is not strange, therefore, to
find that the percentage of assets to LA
bilities is only A per cent this year,
against 81 last year, 55 in 1897, SO in 1886
and 70 in 1898.