Grocery chain-store sales on a dollar basis, unadjusted for seasonal variations, advanced continuously from January through July, dropped sharply in August, and then advanced again to the close of the year. The gains in retail food prices from April to December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics index, amounted to 15 percent, as compared with an advance of 8 percent in sales.

Mail-order and store sales of the two leading mail-order houses increased markedly throughout most of the year. The dollar volume of December sales, amounting to approximately $62,000,000, was 20 percent greater than in December 1932, and 5 percent better than in December 1931. (See chart 21.)

INDUSTRIAL VERSUS FARMING REGIONS

All of the available regional trade statistics seem to point to the fact that toward the close of the year trade in urban industrial

Chart 21.-Sales of two mail-order houses (Montgomery Ward & Co. and Sears Roebuck & Co.).

regions was less satisfactory than in the major agricultural areas. The Federal Reserve Board's indexes of department-store sales, for example, showed the dollar value of sales in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York regions in the final quarter of 1933 to range from 3 percent less to 1 percent greater than in the last quarter of 1932. On the other hand, comparisons of the sales during these two periods in the Chicago, Kansas City, Cleveland, Dallas, and Atlanta districts showed gains of 10, 10, 11, 13, and 14 percent, respectively.

EMPLOYMENT IN WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE

Wholesale and retail trade normally provides employment for about an eighth of all the gainfully occupied persons in the United States. The industrial recovery program, therefore, had important effects on this activity, first under the President's Reemployment Agreement and later under permanent codes. Monthly average employment in wholesale trade in 1933, according to the indexes of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was as a whole slightly less than in 1932, but the trend was upward during the latter two thirds of the year, and Decem

ber employment was 8 percent greater than in this month in 1932. At the same time, wholesale-trade pay rolls for the full year 1933 were also below the level of the preceding year, but the December payments were 3 percent greater than in 1932.

Retail-trade employment in 1933 was slightly greater than in the preceding year, the comparative December figures showing a rise of 11 percent. Pay rolls for the year as a whole were less than in 1932, but the December comparison with a year ago shows a 9 percent improvement. The turn in the trend of pay rolls in both wholesale and retail trade came in the summer of 1933.

BUSINESS FAILURES

Business failures in wholesale and retail trade, as reported by Dun & Bradstreet, declined sharply in 1933 as compared with the high peak reached in the previous year, the decline in the number amounting to 36 percent and in liabilities to about 45 percent. While the weaker firms had already been pretty well weeded out by 1933, the favorable showing was a reflection of generally better business, especially in the last three quarters of the year. The liabilities of failing concerns in 1933 were only 5 percent greater than in 1929.

FOREIGN TRADE

The foreign trade of the United States declined steadily from 1929 until the close of the first quarter of 1933. The monthly data, adjusted for seasonal variation, of the value of both our exports and imports during this time, as well as the monthly data from 1924 to 1929, are shown in chart 22. The quantity of our exports and imports for each year 1919-33, inclusive, as shown by index numbers, is given in chart 23. It will be noted that the quantities of exports and imports increased almost every year from 1921 to 1929, and declined sharply during the 3 following years, the exports in 1932 being only a little more than half the volume for 1929 and the imports being about 60 percent of the volume for the earlier year.

In March 1933, the adjusted indexes of exports and imports, based on values, stood at 28 percent and 26 percent, respectively, of the 1923-25 average. The trend of trade in both directions was reversed in the second quarter, and by December the export index had advanced to 48, compared with a low of 28 in March, and the import index to 42 from the April low of 25. For the year 1933, the value of exports increased 4 percent and of imports 9.6 percent over 1932. The gain in exports was the result of price increases, since the volume of our foreign shipments was about the same as in 1932. The change in imports, however, represented a gain of approximately the same percentage in quantity as in value.

Significant differences appear between the first and second halves of 1933. The dollar value of exports, after allowing for normal seasonal increases, was about 35 percent greater in the second half than in the first half of the year, while the seasonally adjusted value of imports was about 53 percent larger. Unadjusted for seasonal variations, the value of exports was 50 percent greater and the value of imports 45 percent larger in the second half than in the first half of the year. On a quantity basis exports gained 27 percent and imports 20 percent in the second of these two periods.

The depreciation of the dollar in international markets tended to give a progressive advantage through the last 9 months of the year to foreign buyers in our markets, except insofar as the prices of our export goods rose sufficiently to compensate for the decline of the dollar. The prices of exportable finished products, such as automobiles, obviously were not immediately affected by the depreciation of the dollar, and foreign buyers received in effect a substantial reduction in price. By increasing the price of imported goods, in terms of the dollar, the depreciation tended to restrict imports.

In the May-through-August period, the depreciation of the dollar apparently had effects contrary to those first noted. Importation was seemingly encouraged during this period, in order that payment might be made before a still further depreciation in our currency should take place. Exports were perhaps checked for a similar reason, foreign purchasers believing that in view of the rapid depreciation of the dollar it would be advisable to postpone purchases.