One hus to recognize the' enormous part the automobile industry plays when he considers the enormous output for any year—no less than 8,600,000 vehicles during 1924. In 1023, owing to over-production selting from excessive optimism, this figure is 10 per cent. lower than the previous year. Disposal of cars has mot been all plain sailing, howe fever, and many companies" were jcompelied to cut prices in the last work on the new models. In. paseit, I may remark that many manu facturers, whose insufficient. know ledge years ago induced hem to regard China asa far bigger market than it can develop into for many years to come, have come to realize that the proportion of ears that China can take is comparatively small, There are some people in the trade, however, who look far ahead and declare that China will bbe able to consume a half a million vehicles annually. Such a view at the present time is. sheer faith triumphing over despair, for unfit China. ix disposed to undertake a practical rondbuilding programme fon-a nation-wide scale, she cannot ecome 'a large consumer of car although: Shanghai and some will undoubtedly: import more touch year to render the tref. pro-riem more acute, Copper indicates a greatly livened export demand. Prices, as your readers interested will doubte less know, stiffened towards the end lof the year, but the industry ix till hampered by competition from Ate Public utilities enjoyed one of the ext yenrs in their history, " with large" economies effected through several important eonsolidutions, particularly in the Middle West, Textiles—and Troubles Amerien had a bad year in te tiles. This was the "outstanding screvvpot, and Manchester and Yorke shire need not, so it seems at the Trresent time, fear any competition that United' States manufacturers can offer. The Amerien Woollen Company and the Amoskeag Manu facturing Company, the." largest woollen and cotton. manufacture found it necessary to curtail oper tions, and they were foreed to suspend the payment of dividends to boot. ture, on the other hand, is in the best' position it has held since 1920, ind the prospects are that the gross income from products from the land may rench the astounding figure of $12,000 million during the 1024-6 year. In the previous crop years that is, 19B8-1—the income was $500,000,000 lower, and in 1921- 22, the low point since the war, the figure was $9,500 million, Chemicals and - Packing—Under this head things have not been bright. "Conditions may, in a word, be said to be reflected in the receiver" ship proceedings against the Vit= ssinja-Carolina Chemical Company fand the Wilson Packing Company. This may not be much information for your British readers, but it is jas if it were said that Brunner, Mond Company and Cross and Blackwells had had the bailiffs in during the year,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.