The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-09-01
DESPITE OUTSIDE |NFL LUENCE, STOCK MARkET IS FIRM
General Business Continues To Improve And Street
 Is Optimistic
By WALTER S. BROWN Editor New York Commercial

(LeaBed Wire to The AEe-herald)
 NEW YORK, August S1.-Notwltn- standing the tense situation created by an impending coal strike, and with the unsettlement due to condi- tions in the Ruhr, to say nothing or the final development of the trouble between Italy and Greece, the stock market has continued to display firm undertone which has lent color to. the belief that the long overdue bull movement had set In. Wall street has turned optimistic In sharp contrast to it's pessimism of the pre- ceding weeks and months. General business has continued to improve, and the outlook for the steel industry is more encouraging than it has been at any time since the slump set in.
 The present writer has been re- garded as somewhat stubborn in hls belief that the let-down was not jus tified by basis conditions, but this is now being borne out by the facts. It has been demonstrated in the past year or more that this country has not had to depend upon outside mar kets for its own prosperity, and that it was 8 pretty sizeable task to take care of the wants of 110,000.000 per- sons. There is practically no unem- ployment.
 slump Meant Nothing.
 The so-called slump" of the sum mer months has meant nothing in the laying off of employees, such shut downs as there have been being rela- lively unimportant. The result is that the buying power of the coun- try has not diminished to any ap- preciable extent, but on the contrary, is now increasing as farmers are coming into funds through the sale of their crops. The slump. therefore. has been only in the nature of a de- crease in the unified orders on the books of the various industrial con- cerns. There has been greater tendency on the part of distributors to replenish their stocks only in ac- cordance with actual demand. This has prevented an accumulation of supplies so that bank loans are kept down to the minimum.
 The particular trouble with the farmers just now is that obligations are maturing that were made during when land values were highly in- Hated.
 Variation Against Farmer.
 Considering the price of wheat, for example, in relation to the purchas- ing power of the dollar, there is a wide variation that is decidedly against the farmer. Wheat in 1914 sold at S1.00 bushel with the dollar worth 100 cents in purchasing power. When the price of wheat was fixed at $2.20, the value of the dollar was only 50 cents. and the relative value of bushel Of wheat, was only S8 cents. Wheat is again at $1.00, but the dollar is worth only 63 cents, and therefore, wheat is worth only 63 cents in comparison with 1914 prices and values. The farmer was in luck in 1918 when it came to pay ing off in 1914 obligations because he was paying only 40 cents on the dollar. In 1923 he is out of luck be- cause he has ouly 63 cents to pay his $l.00 debts and must add, there fore, 37 cents to every dollar of these later obligations. It is where these obligations have become due and payment is insisted upon, that real distress exists, but it is a conditi ton that is by no means general. Trade reports indicate that farmers are spending hberally. which accounts for the fact that in the agricultural centers there is more optimism in re gard to general business conditions than there is in the east