The age-herald., 1900-07-14
GENERAL REVIEW
 OF WEEKLY TRADE
 ~a.gsg An Improvement in Demand Qlg7 Gradually Becoming Visible COTTON CROP HAS SUFFERED The Effort of the Pig Iron and Steel Concerns to Control Prices Has
 Proven Abortive- Quota
 tions Again Slashed
COTTON CROP HAS SUFFERED

New York, July 13.-Bradstreet's tomor- row will say:
 While trade is still only of midsummer volume, the beginning of improvement in demand is apparently becoming visible The E improvement is still one of tone rather than of actual demand, but with, seems prob- able yield of 540, 900 bushels of wheat, the new record breaking yield of corn and a very large product of oats the Western crop situation contains many encouraging features. The Southern cotton crop has ( undoubtedly suffered and the condition is { approximately low for this season of the 4 year, but the acreage planted was large one, and prices so much higher that a satisfactory financial return is confidently looked for. In addition, railroad earnings point to the maintenance of the business of the country a large volume in excess of last year.. The effort of the pig iron and steel con- cerns to control prices if really made, has proved abortive, and another wholesale E slashing of quotations is to be reported this week. Production however, is falling off, and increases of furnace stocks, though considerable, would seem small if renewed activity occurred It is hard to see how lower prices can E be expected and it is said that present quo- . tations attracting some business, par z tcularly at Chicago The situation in cot ton goods Is embarrassing one for the e manufacturers. Raw cotton, old crop, this week has shown the highest price in ten ' years, but nothing like proportionate ad- vance is being secured in many finished products. The export trade with China has been checked several mills have been shut down and short time during the sum- mer has been practically agreed upon by F the Fall River patent cloth mills. rather better tone is noted in the dry goods mar ket at New York, with symptoms of an { eXandng demand, chiefly, however, for sea-N sonable goods. Concessions in prices have induced rather freer buying of wool at some S centers, and the tone of the London sales is \ firmer, but goods make this show little animation.
 The industrial situation is rather better, as result of agreements upon wages by 4 a number of iron and steel manufacturing concerns and their employees. Lower prices for lumber are apparently inducing activity in Berlin, though how much is due to this or how much to the settlement of 7 labor disturbances is hard to measure. Business failures in the United States for the week number 221, compared with 146 last week, 174 year ago, 23S in 1S9S 241 \ in 1897 and 255 in 1S96 Failures in Canada for the week number ! P, as compared with 25 last week, 27 year ago, 2S in 1898, SS in 1897 and SS in 1896. DUN's REVIEW New York, July 13-R. G. Dun & Co.'S weekly review of trade will say tomorrow If the great increase in failures to $100570,- 134 in the first half of 1900 against $49 664 661
 last year and especially to $43 S93, ,079 in the second quarter against $21 ,695 635 last year. gave no occasion for diligent search fail ure returns will be worth nothing But today it is shown that thirty banking fail ures for $25S22,6 6S2 against thirty-one last 2 RI nfa6 fnr <zfI the difference; that 265 brokerage and real | [ estate failures for s2,122,346 against 145 last year, only $12, 215 accounted for an- other part and that in building and lumber working and trade of large failures dis tinctly connected with those in real estate explain much more difference between manufacturing and trading failures last year and this.
 The Iron Age makes the output of pig iron 2S3413 tons weekly, but the decrease of 16,O00 tons has by this time been ex- ceeded other furnaces having stopped this month and repairs of works and wake | scales may yet occupy some time. The increase of S6958 tons in stocks unsold implies a decrease in manufacture more than double the decrease in output and works of great corporations who are waiting for a decline in wages just when the workers have looked for increase. | Open markets are now admitted at Pitts burg, where quotations have been for some time nominal, and Bessemer pig is offered | there at s16 Structural makers decided \ not to reduce prices, but steel bars there and plates at Philadelphia have sold at $1.15 in some cases. The sheet works open Monday with large orders. Coke works, about 19 per cent. idle, have no demand \ now, and in contracts 1t is said that even $2.50 would be shaded
 Cotton speculation has held the price 100
 high for the comfort of foreign spinners {
 who have not provided for all their wants,
 but the arrangement by the Fall River
 committee to close for month or more
 large part of the New England mills will
 clear away dispute about the market for
 goods. The woolen business is no better in
 condition, with some mills closed in part
 wholly, owing to the uncertainty of de-
 mand Wool is growing weaker and is even
 offered by some Western holders at prices
 which were refused not long ago; but the
 mills do not yet know what goods they will
 be able to sell, and from temporary idle
 ness there seems for some escape.
 Prices of shoes are not quotably weaker but large portion of the makers appear i
 disposed to make concessions already men,
 tioned as frequent. So light is new busi-
 ness that the jobbers also seem to have modified their views. Leather grows weaker ill tone, though kid has held steadily owing to the decreased
 production. Splits were little lower, but
 much upper leather is comparatively steady. The end of the crop year has brought the
 usual estimates which command not more confidence than usual. If the country can | get out of crop officially called 547, ,OOO 900
 bushels all it wants for food and seed and | 200, 0O0,0O0 bushels for export, with consid- |
 erable left over in sight, it is the easy in | ference that anixety is needless. This does not evidence as yet and for | | some time to come cannot be that injuries | sustained have been as great as some SUD- | , | pose, so that alarm is not more necessary | than it was last year. Failures for the week have been l96 in |
 | the United States, against 169 last year; | | and 26 in Canada, against "A last year.