Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-03-03

Babson, today released the third IN
stallment of his Annual Survey of
Business Conditions in the United
States and Canada. He herein
treats of what he ais the Indus
trial West'-that great section i'm
mediately tributary to Chicago in
Guiding Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Mis-
souri,, Michigan and Wisconsin.
'These states were once wholly ag-
ricultural, but are rapidly changing
i.>o an industrial section. New fac
tories are springing up every day
the younger generation are leaving
farming for building, manufacturing
and trade. Yet the total area un-
der cultivation continues to hold it's
own.
Every section of America" says
Mr.. Babson, has it's best barometer
of business. For New England it is
the number Of spindles in operation
for Pennsylvania the lumber of
blast furnaces, for New York the to-
tai foreign trade, etc. The best bar
ometer for the Industrial West is
the total car loadings at Chicago.
These since January /, 1928 are
running we'll ahead of the cores
ponding weeks of 1922-and COM
pare well with the total car loadings
for the entire country. For the cur
rent month of 1922 the net car load
ings were about 100000. For the
current month of 1928 the car load
ings will show figures over Is per
cent. greater, possibly final figures
will show an increase of 500, 900 cars,
Moreover. of this increase only Co.,
600 were of an increase in coal load
ings. In other words-if the car
loadings of the current month are
100000 only about 5000 of these
will be coal cars compared with over
100000 coal cars loaded during the
same period in 1922. This shows
that the great increase is in build
ing materials, live stock, merchan-
disc, etc.-there being no appre-
ciable change in grain car loadings.
1t is true that these figures apply to
the entire country; but proportions
ately they also apply to this section
of which Chicago is the center.
THE middle cities and states are
recording increases of fror 10 to 35
per cent over a year ago. South
Bend, Indiana leads compared with
last year, but Des Moines, Iowa; Pc
oria, Illinois and Kalamazoo, Mich
igan are closely catching up. In
dianapolis and Terre Haute are not
doing as we'll as they should do ow-
ing to some unknown reason. The
largest cities of this section-such
as Chicago, st. Louis, Detroit and
Milwaukee-are reporting about the
same as last year. Some think this
is due to the natural lag of the large
cities; but others believe that the
medium sized cities are due for a,
much larger proportional growth. 1
am inclined to this belief. If so, the
the best opportunities during the
next few years will be in the me-
dunn sized cities which have better
available labor, lower rents, and
pleasanter living conditions. The
heavy increase in railroad freight
rates and the development of good
roads should also help the medium
sized city.
1.-THE automotive industry which
is largely located in this section
continues to thrive. Many talk
about this industry reaching a point
of saturation. OF course, it will
some day; but when that time
comes it will require fully as many
persons as are now engaged in the
industry, to supply the cars and
parts needed for requirements in
order to keep the market saturated.
It is true that some of the smaller
companies will be forced out of bust
ness and all companies will tend to
build lighter and cheaper cars, but
the industry as a whole will con-
tinue prosperous for many years to
come. This means much to Mich
igan. Illinois and Indiana. 1928
will be good automobile year.
'This section tributary to Chi
cago is also proflting from the great
residential building boom now on
throughout the country. T have al
ready referred to the cause of this
boom-namely, the exodus of people
from the cities to suburbs and the
country due to the convenience Of
the automobile. The first industries
to benefit from the building boom
were the cement and brick peopJ4,
then the lumber and steel interests
began to prosper Now the copper,
paints. and other industries are
picking up. This sequence is inva-
riably true--although when the
boom eliminates and the turn down
ward comes. the cement and brick
people will be the first to feel the
decline. The new roads in pro-
cess of construction are also tenn