The sudden drop in the prices of clothing and dry-goods, which was experienced in the United States in the last week of May and which subsequently spread to Great Britain, was regarded by the American press as more or less of an expected symptom in general trade conditions. Exchanges to hand show that retail stocks had been accumulating, the demand for higher priced goods had fallen off and wholesale prices had sagged. Retail stocks accumulated because had they gone on the market at normal rates the profiteer would have missed his big profits: the demand for higher priced goods fell off because low prices were high enough in all conscience, and wholesale prices sagged with a falling demand. What does it all prove but that the profiteer has had control of the markets and over-reached himself? It does not mean that prices will necessarily stay where they fell, and to the economist a gradual decline would be preferable to these sudden and spectacular changes. However that might be, it afforded some small relief to the hardly used, salaried man, and he is grateful nowadays for small and even temporary mercies.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.