New-York tribune., 1900-05-08
PRICES MAY I.

Prices have begun to decline, and with much
indication that the reaction from last years eX-
cessive rise is not merely temporary. but has
come to stay. Many things pointed in that
direction before the month of March had closed,
and though the general rise of prices was small
early in the month and the range at the close
was very little lower than at the highest point,
March Is. the yielding such in many lines
10 show a strong tendency to correct exces-
sive advances which had become seriously en-
barrassing to business. In April that ten
dency was more manifest. In every class of
products excepting in meats it is clearly shown.
Breadstuffs a shade lower in spite of higher
prices for corn. Dairy and garden products de-
cline. as they naturally do, with the approach
of spring, and in the sugar and liquor class
there is also small decline. Wool is about two
cents pound lower than in January, cotton has
yielded q trifle, and while prices of staple goods
are slow to change, these are sold far ahead,
other products of the textile industries have be-
come quite irregular in price. Hides and leather
are little lower than in January, and silk and
india rubber have yielded.
The effect has been most striking in the
metals and minerals class. All the efforts of all
the combinations have not availed to prevent a
decline averaging nearly per cent for the en-
tire class, although lead, copper ard tinplates
refined oil has fallen from 90 to 9.Oj cents, and
anthracite coal from 81 % to SIS 60 here. The
average for several varieties of pig iron shows
fall of not quite per cent, but the average of
quotations for iron and steel products. although
some are immOvably held, has declined 1913 per
cent. Lumber does not yield yet. and linseed
OIL glass and paper are higher with lime I'M
changed: but bricks, turpentine hemp. fertiliz-
ers and number of drugs are lower. In general
result the ratio of all prices, reckoned according
to their relative importance TO the prices of the
same articles in January, 1860, was S0.O3 per
cent on April I, and has declined TO 1915 per
cent on May l, a fall of 2.3 per cent.
1t will be interesting to observe whether the
prices of commodities in Great Britain show the
same yielding tendency. The tables of 1.-The
London Economist" which in spite of their de-
fects have been more generally accepted than
any other as an indication of the course of
British prices showed q remarkab BILE advance in
March, of which part evidently due to in
fiuences growing out of the South African war,
and may therefore not react yet. In the
metals and minerals class especially the work of
repairing the ravages of war and correcting de-
fects disclosed hy war may cause an unusual
demand, continuing for years to come.
In a recent bulletin of the Department of
Labor Professor Faulkner who assisted the
icelidle IN us elaborate In
vestigation of prices in 1891, endeavors TO carry
forward the comparison. 1t is perhaps enough
that his figures would make American prices
last July with reference to the prices of 1860
about 10 per cent higher than tb2se of Great
Britain, according to The London Economists
table. Before tho rise of last fall It certainly
could not be said that the cheapening of prod
ucts by invention and progress in manufacture
and transportation during nearly forty years
had been less In this country than in England.
The defective method Of comparison adopted by
the Senate committee. which rendered its great
labor of comparatively little value, has also
rendered the figures of Professor Faulkner mis-
leading as TO the later record But he was not
far out of the way In reckoning that the rise
from the lowest point in 1897 to JULY 1899 had
been about 16 per cent. Complete tables to
date show that there has since been a further
rise or over II per cent to April L. 1900 so that
the small decline in April has cut off only a
fraction of the advance in the previous nine
months. After rise of more than a third in
two years and nine months a considerably
greater yield would only serve to bring prices
nearer to normal basis.