The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-07-14
PTlMlSTlC VIEW
 OF BUSINESS IS SPREAD OVER NATION


 An optimistic note for the business. manufacturing and banking world has been sounded after g careful sur vey of the nation. It has been found country see good times ahead and that an immediate future for their product is seen both by manufacturers and merchants while bankers are also optimistic
 The enormous crops which will be marketed this year are counted upon to reinvigorate trade. It has also been found that general business. while hesitant~ has equafled or exceeded the same period of last year in many lines, though the cry of hard times and ca larnity howIers has tended to Keep the true state of facts from the public.
 The New York Times one of the most conservative of the standard. business papers of the East, Monday, presented the result of a nationwide inquiry into business conditions dur ing a period ending June 80 as com pared with the same period of last year
 with a. diversihcation of date glean- ed through special correspondents all overet the country, and the elimination of local influences from the data com piled. a note of confidence is found to be uppermost in all sections.
 The Times says, in part:
 The. record king crops that are now assured constitute the chief ele- ment in these conditions With a grain crop valued by the Government at $3, AIS. 100000 and with cotton showing rapid improvement. Except in the Southwest, where both corn and cotton suffered last year, the crops of 1913 were big, too, and the farmers were enabled to pay their debts. This 5liquidation has been in progress ever since, and with a. still finer crop this year the expectation is that the far nler, now out of debt, will have much moneysto spend on the things he needs or wants.
 The general feeling of confidence is mest marked among the business men. Except in spots, they report no falling off in the business of this year from that of 1913, and in some, eases they report an improvement The railroads, as a rule, also expect a big increase over last years business when the crops begin to move
 It will be no news to anybody that the steel industry has been in a de- pressed state during the period under consfd deFation. It's business has been about 70 per cent. off in volume. Two thirds of the decrease in volume is at tributed by experts to the lack of rail- road buying.
 The pig iron industry has dropped
  shows no signs of Improvement, but l the steel trade tooka turn for the better just as it entered the new half year. The Steel Corporation showed a gain in unified tonnage on June 80 for the first time since February This change is reflected in the optim- ism of the equipment concerns and the car builders, who look for inme2 diate Improvement in their business. Steel trade conditions for the elaps-
  The automobile industry is quite as much of an extreme case at the 5oth- err. Manufacturers report business booming. Some of them have al-il ready sold out their output for the coming season. Others are sruslafne up new factory buildings. ss
 Cotton mills have been somewhat buster this year than last and the sugar industry shows consid erabaIe The hardware busi- ness. got more or less into the dol- drums a full year ago and is just be- ginning to work out of them. so that prospects are favorable. Tke boot and shoe. trade shows a loss of about Is per cent
 With the hardware men, they are interested in the fact that building permits throughout the country showed a gain in June for the first time this year. In the anthracite coal trade there was a slight reces- sion during the six months, but June showed the other way.
 Throughout the discussi on the new laws enacted or to be enacted by Congress crop up repeatedly. This is especially true of the bankers. who are characteristica1ly more conserva- tive in their analyses of the situation than the manufacturing and mercan- tile interests. The bankers, howev- CT, are without pessim and in many parts of the country predict a prosperous fall and winter. Up in the Northwest, where the wheat grows, they describe the prospects as "brillfant.''
 Where conditions. have been below last years the bankers attribute them, except where local circurn- stances govern, mainly to legislation in Congress and agitation outside of it. They do not complain of the Jaws that have been passed and, in fact, name the new banking act as a factor making for better business, as soon as it is in operation.
 Adjustment to these new laws, in- .cluding the tariff, is cited as neces- sary process that makes for hesita- ton. The tariff, however, figures very little in the reports from indus trial centres. Practically none com plains of it's effects so far, though some, think it is factor to be reck- oned with after it. has been longer in operation.