New-York tribune., 1900-05-28
vanish. And since so great an evil could be so
easily remeded, would it not be worth while to
MONEY AND BUSINESS.

is said from the start that everybody will be
paid a hundred cents the dollar. has in 1t
elements of the comic opera. Let 1T be a
warning; but Of what? Not to make too ac
curate estimates. or not to believe your own
estimates too long? One would suppose that
men like Ranger and Keene Letter and Price
would not need to learn in n severe school the
lesson that a movement based on facts becomes
the right thing to drop when 1t has to be sup
ported by circus advertising or floor manipula-
tion With more accurate judgment than other
people of the size of the crop according to cur
rent reports Price, Mccormick & Co. ran when
it time stay and stayed when it was
time to They have made present of mill
ions to the cotton growers of the South, but
have put the market into such shape that it
may cost the growers as many millions next
fall
Forced liquidation to a large amount rarely
passes like arrow through the air, leaving
trace Sixty railroad stocks closed on Satur-
day at average of $T1 81, 80 cents per
share lower than week ago. while forty in
dustrial stocks closed at an average of $50 Oh,
against $50 10 week ago. The lowest
known for the industrias, $50 81, Thursday,
the 17th is not far away; but if weakness goes
so far, why prices stronger after big fail
ure? The selling Of railroad stocks made more
difference, because in them there has not been
because the actual state of business throughout
the country has not been favoring exchange Of
productive stocks for barren gold With railroad
earnings in May S.S per cent larger than last
year, and 16.4 per cent larger than In 1895
every section sharing the gain over both years.
1t is not strange If men pay much for stocks
even days of depression as they paid year
ago.
Nor is IT found possible to extract signs of dis
etar
yielding of many prices in the chief industries
Last years demand and prices so far be-
yond all expectation that a return to normal
conditions Of business is the necessary first step
toward prosperity. The most encouraging feat
ure Of the case Is that the creation of many
powerful corporations. especially in iron and
steel manufacture, does not appear to hinder
that form of recovery much many have
feared. Before these numerous corporations had
a being, a false start in the great industrials
lifted iron and steel products about 60 per cent
in the fall Of 1895. and it took two full years to
get back to a more natural level. Last years
great rise due to worldwide changes but
the return to lower prices has made greater
progress in four months than it did before in
a year, and the prices now held without yielding
are of rails and structural shapes not controlled
by any corporation and of tinplates
trolled, while prices of bars and plates wire and
nails, and many other products have been
sharply reduced 1t is reported from Pitts
burg that the next step will be drop of $4 a
ton in Bessemer pig by the association. No. 1
Lehigh already selling at sol here. Large con-
tracts for export have recently been made on
terms especially advantageous to some of the
works most recently completed
The several leather combinations have not
prevented general decline IN prices Of leather
which has averaged over 2h per cent during
the last week and about per cent since Janu-
ary. The boot and shoe makers thus en-
abled to reduce by about 21A to cents a pair
the prices asked two months ago, and the fall
In hides at Chicago has been about 20 per cent
since the year began. 1t will be fortunate for
manufacture if this reduction ENCOURAGES
traders throughout the country to put in the
orders which have been for long time so large
ly held back, the shipments from the East
have fallen below those of five of the last seven
years.
Lead has been reduced by the smelling COM
pany 20 cents hundred pounds, or Is per cent
and the Standard Oil Company has reduced the
price of refined 81 70 hundred gallons, or II
per cent, since April. and anthracite coal has
also been reduced 60 cents, or IA per cent Silk
has declined nearly 81. and india rubber 1875
cents. The unsatisfactory market for woollen
goods has caused much irregularity of prices
though yet general decline in the staples
chiefly because prices Of wool have not yet yield
ed 10 per cent 1t takes longer to inform a mill
ion scattered growers what their interests re-
quire than to convince corporation like the
Standard Oil Company
Cotton declined less than half a cent. new
holders apparently persuading themselves that
after the chief bull firm has been forced into
bankruptcy it is just the time for other people
to succeed The commercial stocks of American
held abroad have decreased nearly 200 900 bales
this month. In spite of 227 962 bales exported
from this country in May thus far against
21O,433 last year. Further increase of mill
stocks abroad is clearly indicated as 1t was in
April, but the point is not far distant at which
the reduced consumption Of foreign mills will
be we'll provided for to the end of the crop wear
the consumption in northern mills is already
by mill holdings. The goods market has shown
some weakness, but mills have been wise In
making their largest concessions in the grades
Of goods most heavily exported.
The outgo Of wheat and also Of corn continues
in May thus far to exceed last years and the
forward movement from the farms in wheat
larger than last year and in corn nearly as
large. deprives the most ablebodied rumors
of much power over prices. The merchandise
exports from New-York have been 10 per cent
larger in May than In the same month last
year, while the imports in four weeks at this
city have been $40 653 $751; against S4O944 81
last year With about 50 0OO 900 thus far IN
cotton, the increase in value of merchandise ex-
ports promises another months aggregate ex-
ceeding 500. 100000. and running $4,000 600 or
more beyond imports. Meanwhile the volume
of domestic trade is sustained in the most re-
markable manner, excepting close to the sea-
board. In New-England and the Middle States