Year: 1875

poets of this important branch of trade,


compiled from the statements of leading


business houses to reporters of the HERALD.


The inquiries thus made within a few days
show an extremely satisfactory condition of
trade. The fall business doing by the whole
sale dry goods merchants is unexpectedly
large. Several of the leading houses ex-
press their surprise at it's extent, and say
that trade has not been so good for five years
past. But it is not only that there is a
livelier demand and that buyers are more
numerous. The most gratifying feature of
this revival of business is that, according to
the general testimony, the merchants from
the interior who have come here to lay in
their stocks are very careful and prudent
purchasers. They have made their pay
ments for spring purchases with unusual
promptness The losses by bad debts are
trihing and much less than for equal periods
during some years past. There is evidence
that stocks of goods in the country are low,
and buyers are taking advantage of low
prices to lay in new supplies. The business
appears in all its features to be in healthy
condition, and the more prudent and con-
servative houses begin to believe that there
is real and active revival Of trade, which
| means, of course, desire in the people to
buy, united with an ability to pay for goods.


Lower prices have no doubt their share in
this revival of trade, but it seems to be
special feature of the fall business that the
country merchants are selecting their stocks
with unusual care. The desire for economy
evidently continues in the country and in
stead of buying wildly, as in some years, and
taking the risk of being able to sell and to
make their settlements at the proper time


they now buy cautiously, expect to pay
promptly and ask for but moderate credits.
All this is very satisfactory. 1t argues pre-
cisely such return toward prosperity as will
put us on a sound basis.


We are evidently past the period of inflated
prices; the country has settled down to a
lower range products and incomes have be-
curious sign of the course of our business
and production under lower prices that our
export of cotton manufactures to China has
considerably more than doubled during the
past year. 1t amounted in 1874 to S2l8, 9S6,
and for the present year to S552 444, according
to an official report which we print elsewhere.
Of course even the larger sum is but a trife,
for China imports yearly not less than forty
five million dollars worth of cotton goods,
almost entirely from Great Britain. But it
is satisfactory to see even slight evidence
that some of our products are once more
finding markets abroad in increasing guam
titles.


The retail dry goods trade seems also to be
uncommonly active just now, and it has the
same characteristic features of the wholesale
trade-caution in buyers cash payments
careful selection by purchasers.


There are, in fact, not only here and in the
peculiar features of the fall business, but all
over the country, evidences that we are re-
covering, if not rapidly, yet soundly, from
the commercial and industrial prostration
which began in 1873 and that but one thing
such a continued arrangement of the cur
rency as Governor Allen and General Butler,
Mr.. Pendleton and Mr. Wendell Phillips,
General Carey and Mr.. w. D. Kelley threaten
us with-can prevent general renewal of
prosperity next year. 1t is not probable that
the country has yet recovered from the losses
of the past few years. In spite of good crops
sold at fair rates and of unusual economy in
expenditure we must continue for some
time to come to feel the burden of the
losses inflicted by the great railroad bubble,
by the Chicago and Boston fires, by the
waste and corruption in many of our city
governments, not to speak of the losses by
the war. The country is not rich enough to
be extravagant, but it is to-day undoubtedly
richer than it was in 1872, when everybody
thought himself fortunate. The people since
then have saved have paid off more or less
debt, and North and South, East and West,
are to-day in a sounder condition than per-
haps at any time since the war.


1t is true that confidence is still disturbed
capital remains timid, not only because of
the losses of 1873, but because Of the polti-
cal uncertainties. The greater and more con-
spicuous industries are still suffering. The
laborers in iron, coal, lumber; the oper-
atives Of the cotton and woollen mills are, to
some extent, unemployed. But an exam
ination of the multitude Of minor in
dustries, especially in the West, will show
any one that, in the main, there is a reasona-
BILE activity and prosperity The farmers of
the West and the planters of the South will
this year almost certainly receive satisfactory
prices for abundant crops, and these two
classes are not deeply in debt just now.
When they have sold their crops most of
them will have money in their pockets they
will be able TO buy supplies, to employ
mechanics, to make improvements. That is
to say, the country is beginning once more
to have a surplus over its bare living ex-
penses, and that means revival of indus
try and trade 1t would set us much
more rapidly ahead if only we had a


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