AMERICAN SPECULATORS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIV, Issue 198, 30 July 1924, Page 7

AMERICAN SPECULATORS.

JOCKEYING PRODUCE MARKETS. Ottawa, July 28. A telegram from Montreal says the rise in the prices of farm products continues unabated, cotton increasing 22 dollars per bale, representing a rise of 220 points over the week-end. This ascendancy, however, was checked by the cotton Exchange ruling which halts trading for tho day whenever the daily fluctuation totals 200 points, Cotton for October delivery gained over four cents over the week-end, reaching 30 cents per pound. This caused Consternation in foreign markets and spinning centres, which fear the effect of prohibitive price levels on domestic consumption. Meantime United States wheat continues io Lover at 134 cents, whereas at Winnipeg it is 50. The latter price is being now investigated by Canadian Government officials, who declare . that speculators circulated alarmist reports regarding the condition of Western Canada’s crop in order to reap enormous profits resulting from last week’s rise. Optimism likewise caused other grains to rise sympathetically. Maize, which is largely fed to live stock, reached 111 cents, bringing a consequent increase in the price of live stock, notably hogs, which reached ten dollars per hundredweight within a fortnight.

The Republican leaders are jubilant at the revival in the agricultural markets and are becoming convinced that the Presidential compaign should stress the economic factor —namely, good times, hoping thereby to gain the confidence of the farmers, who lately have been ominously dissatisfied. The Democrats, however, secretly hope their rivals will adopt this slogan, believing it easily probable the so-called prosjwrity came largely to speculators and isolated farmers. The Democrats, furtherfnore, cite the gloomy figures of lowered industrial production and the decline in factory employment. —(A. and N.Z.)