Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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January 24, 1885 The Record and Guide. 81 The World of Business. The Business Situation. It is vastly iimro important to a busiuess man to know what is going to happen than w-hat has liappcneil, aud^whUe it is to be hoped that the lessons of the cUsastrous year 1884 will uot be forgotteu, it is now in order to in¬ quire if we have not a prospect of better things during the year on which we have just entered. It by no means foUows because the failures in 1884 were more muuerous than iu auy other year of our history, because many classes of goods are selling below the cost of production, and because a large number of laborers are out of employment that the present year is to be oue of depres.siou. The sitiiation is a very unnatural one and will certainly find its corrective before loug. The stagiiiition in business has been due to a sur¬ plusage of articles of comuiou use, wliich has resulted iu prices so low as to deprive producers of a motive for effort. The result is idle laborers, idle capital, and diminished purchasing power. Stocks of mauufacturod goods have iu consequence run down, and in some cases agricultiiral products have been as lavishly used as if the supply were unlimited. The consump¬ tion and export of our wheat, for instance, have been enoi-mous, and it is only within a short time that the people have begun to susjiect that there may be a bottom to the bin after all. The scramble for wheat iu this city Satm-day afteruoou is a sort of thing that is Ukely to hap|ien iu the mar¬ kets for other commodities before the year is out. When traders realize that, after an advance of 10 cents a bushel, wheat is still 10 cents below the average of the last quarter of a century, and when they see that other arti¬ cles have been ahnost as badly depressecl, they will begin to think that the buying side is the one to be on. It is not an advantage to any class of peo¬ ple except bear speculators for any article to sell below a price that will give to the producer a fair profit, ami it is therefore a matter for congratulation that w-heat has advanced, even though the rise has been somewhat terity.—Boston Globe. Tlie Denver ('onvcution on Silver Money. There will be a State and national convention of the friends of silver money held at Denver. Col, ou January 28. A letter from D. B. Harris chairman of the exeeuti ve committee promoting this movement, gives some adcUtioual information, aud urges the matter upou the attention of Texans with the observation that the stock-raising States find a mai-ket for a laro-e share of their sui-plus cattle iu the sUver-producmg regions, and the same sort of remark may be made as to the western grain-raising States and their cereal products. The committee has, therefore, made bcild to address the governors of several Western and .Southwest a-n States, itskiu