The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-12-01
BIRMINGHAM TRUST MONTHLY LETTER ON
 TRADE CONDITIONS
Ninety-Five Per Cent of Country Oversold-Pros- perity Only a Matter of
 Good Planning

The general letter on trade condi- tions and a business forecast for the month of December, 1915, issued by pany, follows in part:
 A general casting up of the situ- ation at this time indicates that per- haps 95 per cent of the businesses in this country are sold up or oversold and therefore on a profit paying basis It is likely that all or part of these profits for a time must go to offset previous losses, but before the elapse of many weeks these businesses will be paving their usual dividends and many more than at present paying ex- tra dividends. This leaves per cent of businesses generally either doing a hand to mouth business and just about running even or running behind
 While it is an unfortunate condition which makes even per cent of our business interests suffer~we must re- member that even in our most pros- porous times We have never before reached stage in which as large a portion as 95 per cent of businesses Were enjoying their rightful measure of such prosperity.
 As there has been much discussion of the possibility of materially increas- ing our exports to neutral nations and particularly of building up a larger export business with South America which we will be in position to hold after the close of the European war, it would perhaps be well to single out fJ6 iIrid n1 4 We may thoroughly understand that we have made little or no progress in that direction. The figures which follow are hard to understand in view of the up- set condition of Great Britainx and the scarcity of labor in that country even In the arms and ammunition factories. During October England exported to the United States 3S31 thousand yards of cotton fabrics and during Septem- Der 5079 thousand yards During the same months Great Britain exported to Central and South America 31, GOO, 900 yards of cotton fabrics in October and 13,000, 900 yards in September While this evidences a large falling off when compared with previous years it is clear that England does not intend to lose her grip on her export trade. She is exporting 25,000,000 yards of cotton cloths per month to China at this time Whether or not We can increase our exports to China is an open question, but the South American markets are surely open to us and with the es- tahlishment of our branch banks in those countries the first and most im- portant step has been taken.
 BIG TRADE BALANCE
 Our exports from the 13 principal customs districts for the four weeks ending October 30 were $315, GOO. 900 and our import s123 000,00O, leaving us favorable trade balance of $192, 2,00o,- 900. These 13 customs districts usually handle 90 per cent of our export trade and it is fair to assume that the 10 per cent yet to be reported from the smaller ports will not change the com 'parative figures. Our favorable trade balance at these IS ports for the five weeks ended October 30 was nearly $22S. 100000 Our October imports were not far from the average of the past 10 years, so that our tremendous fa- vorable trade balance is brought about through a largely increased export, the major portion of which is fortu- nately manufactured goods.
 Financing by corporations amounted to $210,O00,000 compared win $70 900, . 900 in October of last year. Approxi- mately s4O,0o00O0 of the amount was