Delaware gazette and state journal., 1899-05-11
The Business situation.

r. G. Dun & Co. IS Review for last
week says that "the failures in April
were the smallest in any month since
records by months began, 3S per cent
smaller than in April Of last year, not
third of the amount in 1897, and not
half the amount in April of any pre-
vious year. Both in manufacturing and
trading they were the smallest ever
known in that month, and in trading
the smallest ever known in any month,
as in manufacturing they were if the
larger failures were omitted. The ratio
of defaulted liabilities to solvent pay
ments through clearinghouse was less
than 70 cents per $1,000, against 80
cents in January and 81. 10 in March,
81. SO in August and $500 in Septem-
ber, 1896. A great share of the risk in
the business world has been eliminated.
1t is not inconsistent nor strange if
business halts. because it has been
crowded to the utmost for four months
in anticipating future needs on account
of new combinations proposed. In
some cases prices have been advanced
so far as to check new business, and
in others works have been engaged so
far ahead that new orders cannot now
be taken. Yet new business, in amount
which would have been astonishing
two years ago, is still coming forward,
and the voluntary advance in wages by
the sixteen Bessemer firms of the Cen
tral Association, and by the Frick coke
works, whose shipments IN April, 30, 452
cars, were the heaviest ever known.
show confidence in the future. At
Buffalo and in Idaho strikes are causing
trouble, hut labor questions elsewhere
do not affect general business.
Bradstreet's for the current week
notes that an era of trade and indus
trial combinations seems evident from
the long list of announcements of new
consultations, rumored or actually
floated, coming to public view this
week. Whether this tendency has as
yet reached its elimination cannot, of
course. be easily predicted, but in some
lines of industry the announcements of
projected consultations would seem
to have loft little room for further
operations of this kind. Outgrowths as
these great combinations are of i'm
mense industrial changes in many lines,
they possess special interest in the
world of trade and finance, because of
the immense aggregations of capital or
industry involved in their projection or
their carrying ont to successful finish.
The volume of current clearings points
to the share taken by financial interests
in these great enterprises, because the
volume of trade, though at maximum
for this period of the year, will not
alone explain the heavy gains over pre-
ceding years. Features of this are
found in record breaking totals of daily
clearings at the metropolis and at many
other cities, and the record for April
points to heavier average daily clear
ings than we're reported even in the
month of March, which holds the
record for heavy aggregate bank clear
ings. While wholesale trade continues
of between seasons volume, very
general evidence is forthcoming that
the aggregate is in excess of last years
undeniabIy good proportions, and retail
demand is of an encouraging character.
That the volume of fall business booked
is in excess of the average is very
generally conceded. In industrial lines
activity is most marked in the delivery
of goods on ORDERS.