The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-05-19
BUSINESS TIDE
STILL RECED|NG
Trade is Not What it Was
Last Year.
WORKS ARE STOPPING
They Say it is to Reduce the Excess
sive Output.
PRICES ARE REDUCED ON MANY ARTICLES

Prices so High as to Check Consumption
Spring Dizziness or the Begin
ming Of Reaction?
(By the Associated Press.I ~~
New York, May 1S.-R. G. Dun and
Companys Weekly Review Of Trade to-
morrow will say: sH@&~(
Business is not what 1t was year
ago, but men do not agree in defining
the difference. The working force, then
increasing fast, is now decreasing. Works
are stopping to relieve excessive output
in manufactures of paper, cotton, wool,
leather and some forms of STEEL while
prices are suddenly reduced for the
same purpose in lead, wire and nails.
What seems to some merely spring dull
ness others think the beginning of re-
action. The remedy for one difficulty
does not fit the other, and there is more
need than usual for close attention to
the meaning of events.
"1n place of the wild speculation in Sc
surities which swelled exchanges year
ago, there has come such liquidation
that twenty preferred industrial stocks
have sold this week at prices averaging
1914 pei share, though the same stocks
sold in April last year for $99.63 per
share and twenty common have sold this
week for $3.50 which sold last year at
S7699, double the price. Yet many of
these companies have earned and paid
good dividends and all have enjoyed
year of extraordinary business. The in
dustrials have reached the lowest average
.sx,l.~
most active railroad stocks, though de-
pressed about 81 per share since early
in April, are higher now than in most of
January or February; are higher than
early in December and higher than
year ago.
Business in some lines has been cur
tailed by the holding of prices so high
as to check consumption. The closing
of works by the steel and wire COM
pany, following by the reduction of $40
per. ton in prices of it's products, the
CLOSING of many paper mills because of
over production; the sudden reduction
of seventy cents per 100 pounds of lead
from the price to which it was raised
late in December; the report that tin
plate works may be closed while for
similar reasons, create a feeling that
some business no longer has the guard
ing and guiding influence of prices an
swering quickly to the demand for con-
sumption But progress toward healthy
adjustment has been rapid within the
past week.
transactions at Pittsburg in Besse-
mer pig seem to be largely at 'guaran-
teed prices so that definite quotations
are avoided, though much Bessemer from
the East is offered at very low figures.
Grey Forge is shade lower there and
local coke at Chicago while No. l Lehigh
is quoted at $21.5O here. Bars sell at
Philadelphia for LIS, while the Pittsburg
Association re-affirms it's quotation of
two cents which is shaded Plates also
sell there at II cents, with LIS quoted
at Philadelphia. The demand for struc-
tural and other products has been much
reduced in part by building strikes.
''Woolen manufacturers are not meet
ing very satisfactory market at the
advanced prices lsl1ed, and until change
appears in that aspect the holders OF
wool will need patience.
Cotton has broken in price and may
go lower as the time comes for new
crop prospects to have weight, but the
decline of an eighth to a quarter in brown
sheetings and drills has been largely due
to opportunities in the export trade
which have been promptly met. Large
sales for shipment to China have been
effected, said to cover $4,000 bales, and
for the first time since August the Amer
lean outlook in that direction is cheer
ing.
1.-THE movement of grain continues
large, corn still rivaling wheat in guam
tity exported. Atlantic exports of wheat
in three weeks of May have been, flour
included, S232,041 bushels, against T.
O16540 bushels last year and Pacific ex-
ports of corn in the same weeks have
been 10,3S2,958 bushels, against 6,914, $50
bushels last year. Wheat advanced over
a cent and corn shows no change for the
week, but in both grains the prospect for
the coming crop is excellent.
Failures for the week have been III
in the United States against 147 last year
and 80 in Canada, against II last year"
OPPORTUNITY IS THE CREAM OF
TIME"
Now is your opportunity. There is no
time when the system is so much in need
of good medicine, like Hoods Sarsa-
OHrilla and tinon p,ho ic CO