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Show Business Conditions in the U. S. i ,D-'i -j ,oa, ) v,s- wHr-T This map represents business conditions in every state in the Union "as set forth in th e MaJr -umber of Nation,'? Business, official publication oj the Chamber of CommejceofJJJ Washington A belated flurry of winter, delay in the spring buying of automobiles and the legislative situation at Washington Washing-ton combined to disappoint the rising hopes of the business community com-munity in March, says Frank Greene in his monthly review in Nation's Business, published by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. The roview notes a few cheerful developments. These included increased in-creased railroad earnings, a gain in shoe output and the firmer tone of the petroleum industry. Disappointment over March bus iness returns, Mr. Greene observes, was perhaps most extreme in wholesale and retail lines. Retail trade volume, he estimates, was probably 15 to 20 per cent below the like month a year ago. "In financial lines," he continues, contin-ues, "the decreases in banking suspensions did much to hearten feeling, but even here there were complaints that credit conditions had not improved as much as was anticipated. The stock market, which had hoped for early passage pas-sage of legislation designed to balance the budget, also found its anticipations outstripping performance. perfor-mance. "In industry, delay in the spring automobile campaign disappointed dis-appointed the iron and steel trades trad-es which lost a little of the modest mod-est capacity percentage reached earlier. Against this development, partly righted in early April, is to be set the firmer, even cheerful tone of the mid-continent petroleum petrol-eum industry, which saw prices advanced to a dollar a barrel. "March saw some strikes started against wage reductions in the Ohio bituminous coal field and April 1, the beginning of the coal year, brought considerable idleness in the Illinois field owing to failure of operators and men to agree on a new wage scale. An interunion fight in the anthracite coal field brought out a considerable consider-able number of men in March but this was settled early in April. "February showed a slight gain in shoe output over a year ago, and the first two months of the year gain of six per cent over the same period of 1931. Cotton-goods Cotton-goods stocks in February fell off from those of January by five per cent but easing of the price of the raw material caused some shading of quotations. This did not go far because of fairly consistent con-sistent curtailment of manufacturing. manufac-turing. Wool quieted in March, prices eased and next fall men's wear openings showed a slight reduction. re-duction. "The railways in February, on the basis of early reports, indicated indi-cated a doubling of net earnings in February over January. This was generally credited to the ten per cent wage reduction taking effect in that month. "Bank failures in March numbered num-bered only slightly more than 40 as against 115 in February and 342 in January. Bank clearings at our 200 leading cities declined 37 per cent from March a year ago, New York City clearings dropping 40 per cent and those outside of New York 32 per cent. "March weather was hurtful to exposed cross. A wide spread freeze hurt peaches, berries and truck well down to the Gulf and eastward to Florida. In the South west, dust storms due to lack of r.-.m. injvrerl winter wheat, but copious rams in the Northwest frjm Oregon and Washington east to the Dakotas helped restore moisture lost during the preceding pre-ceding two years. Early estimates as to the winterwheat crop point to a heavy decrease, perhaps 30 per cent, in yield from last year's peak. An enlarged area in spring wheat may partly offset this. "Business failures exceeded a year ago in each month of the first quarter and liabilities also' were heavier." |