The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-05-01


 all conditions. if it must be thrust up on us. we can at least take comfort
 from the brighter side of the situation
 War talk and far news will now take 1 the place of the pessirnistic discussions sregardings proposed legislation att Washington and unsatisfactory bus | mess conditions generally The un- | 7happy effects of war are many but | here at least is one grain of comfort ! land it is reasonable to expect that, having ourss attention for a time di-I verted from Washington and having the attention of Congress directed to- ward something else than business regulation. will bring about 2 health fer business tone and a better bust mess ditions x
 "A prominent hnancierr recently sum
 med. up the situation in these words: Money is easy but credit is not, Ii. could not be more effectfvely put, Con
 ditions have been such that It wa8 nee essa.ry to scan credits with unusual care. and yet money has been quite |seasySin most, parts of the country and too large an amount of it has baen wholly idle. War moves and opera tions will naturally serves to make money move and while it's increasing activity will tighten up the market Somewhat this kind of a. fl igntening |sof the money market is beneficial to all alike
 The increase in Bank Clearings for country shows the beginning of a rel action in business The beginning is small, the increase in c1earings be- ing somewhat less than per cent for the entire country. although over 2I per cent for the country outside of New York. Even this much inn provement is welcoraed by business in terests as indicative of a better tone. These increased clearings are largely traceabIe to mercantile operations, be- cause, although bond sales were 60] million dollars on the New Y ork Stock Exchange for March ass compared with 40 millions for the correspond~ ~ ing month last year, stock sales am ounted to only 5S65 thoS1sand shares compared with 72s0 thousand shares for the same month last year, l so that the increase in bond sales was 1 practically offset by the decrease in stock transactions and the slight in l crease in clearinEs was. therefore. not traceab1e to increased financial trans actions
 AIssues Of new securities during I March amounted to 130 million dol
 liars as compared with I 8 millions. I d1ring March of last year. New srail oad securities issued increased I abSut 32 million dollars while indus l trial issues. were 20 mil lions less than the S[COTr6SDQnQ1uRI month a. year &kQ N Dividend and interest payments for April will amount to 164 million dol-s I lars compared with IT 1 millions year ago. The entire apparent de- l cline is not real because of special ac-a 1cufnulated dividends paid during
 March. 1918. by one large industry l The disbursements for April are made l up of s7s mi lion dollarssi i F Interest and l 86 million dollars in diVidends In April 1913, dividend advertisements l itota1ed4 94 mill ion dol lars and inter- 1 est payments nearly IT millio On l the whole, the showing in dividend pay yn1ents for the first four months of 191 4 totaling 296 million dollars com pared with 287 millions for the same l period last year, is surely gratifying
 l The number of concerns failing in l business during March was unusually l large. numbering 1413 The nasbilt ties, however, of these concerns to-
 tailed only 22 million dollars conn pared with 24 million dollars for the 120z concerns which failed in March, 1 1913. There were only 30 failures of I consequen 0during March, this nlra-i her contributing 10 millions of theEto-s tai liabilitfes of failed concerns. A I large number Of. small concerns which have been doing business on a shalxy foundationsfor long time have
 been forced to discontinue busin ness this year, while the 100 failures l which have contributed the major ] portion of the total liabilities of all
 failed concerns, mean in many cases, read justment and better busin ness 4 condition In considering business Il failures, it is well to keep in mind that sometimes a receivership means a I conserving of the company's prop Ities and business for the bona hde creditors and often means the re-es- l tablish1nent of the business on a. bet. ter basis than before.
 
 1 held at about 80 per cent of capacity .l the total output being 2348 thousand si tons compared with 1889 thousand. tons the previous month and with. 27e4 thousand tons for March last. I year. Since the first of the month; production has been reduced to about 6s per cent or capacity. The book ings of the merchant furnaces so far for the year are easily double what they were g year ago and at least 25s per cent more than for the same pe-, | riod of 1912. Orders during March
 were light, but taking the entire year to date, bookings by the merchant fur.
 naces have been exceptionally good. | The unified tonnage of the Steel corporation at the close of the month 1 was 4654 thousand tons compared with 7469 thousand tons on the same l date a year ago. The pul1-down 1 from 5O2e thousand tons of unified
 orders at the close of February was
 brought about by shipments of over
 38 thousand tons daily during March, q while bookings only came in at the
 rate of 24 thousand tons per day.
 Bookings during February were con-
 siderably in excess of 40 thousand tons
 per day and, therefore, the decline in i orders during March was not expected. Copper production for March
 amounted to 145,652 thousand pounds | compared with 136, ,0O0 thousand
 pounds a year ago. Even with this
 increased production, deliveries ex-
 ceeded production by nearly Is mil
 lion pounds, and the visible supply de-
 creased during the month. We used L-69 million. hounds at hona and fazuort-