The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-01-27
EFFECT OF HIGH PRICES
CAUSED HESITATION AMONG
THE BUYERS.
AMONG
IRON AND STEEL PRICES YIELDING
The Cotton Manufacturer Meets but Moderate
Demand for Goods. Famine in India
VIII Reduce Sales Thare. Cotton
Has Risen 10 Eight Cents.
Has Risen 70 Eight Cents.

New York, Jan. OR. G. Dun 4
will say tomorrow:
No news is not always good news.
New business for manufacturers this
year has been light in some branches and
much below the production last month.
1t is perhaps too often forgotten that
industries start this year with larger
contracts ahead than ever before, and
when half the work of the whole year
has been ordered in advance there can
not continue quite the same activity in
new buying. The wooden manufacturer
has just opened a new season with the
largest transactions ever known in a sin
gle week, it is said but in most other
lines contracts previously booked would
make similar activity impossible. Yet
there IS seen enough of hesitation caused
by advanced prices to make inactivity
trying Distribution to consumers
throughout the country is rapid and
large, especially in quarters where it has
been feared retailers We're overbuying,
so that there is strong confidence in
the future.
Ut could not be expected that busi-
ness would adjust itself without any
embarrassment to such rise of prices
as has occurred Elrly in December
wool rose too high for prices then ob.
BILE for wooden goods, and weeks o.
dnllness followed
The boot and shoe manufacturer is
receiving small orders as jobbers pay
the prices asked only for such limited
supplies as are needed for sorting bu;
their urgency to receive goods hereto
fore ordered is marked. and shipments
from Boston have been $780, 1886 cases In
four weeks. about four per cent more
than in 1898 and 16 Per cent more than
III 1898 with greater increase over every
other year Leather is inactive and
slightly weaker in spite of heavy ex-
ports and hides are yielding at Chicag GO
with accumulation of stocks.
Iron and steel prices have been yield
ing for several weeks. and are a shade
lower for products than at any ether
time since the middle of September,
though Bessemer pig and billets are still
so scarce and firmly held that only two
sales amounting to 5000 tons are any
where reported.
The cotton manufacturer meets but
moderate demand for goods. and extern
sive famine in India is expeci ed to re-
the addition of 9G3,3S4 spindles at the
South in 1899 reported by the Textile
World. would imply heavier increase
than has been supposed in consump-
ton not by Northern mills. Scarcity of
water has curtailed the output for
weeks past. and yet prices are hardly
held, with distant contracts shade low
er. Cotton has risen to eight cents. al
though exports during the month have
been 274,000 bales smaller than last
year, receipts from plantations having
diminished about as much. Middling ul,-
lands are now sold at a higher price than
has been quoted since September, 1897,
and are more than 11ac higher than at
this time last year.
Wheat has advanced to 757Sc. with
clearer reason for such a sharp advance
Western receipts are small, ill four
weeks only 10,9S4.92S bushels, against
17.290.257 last year. butt the Atlantic
exports have been only 1887 Ala bush
els, -four included, against 17,037, $3.50