Although merchants' stocks have in some particulars not moved well because of the warm weather, the general retail turnover this Christmas season has proved most satisfactory.
It now remains to be seen whether the recent rise in the stock market really "discounted" a manufacturing recovery, or whether it was merely the result of efforts to "stabilize" business, whatever that generously vague phrase may mean.
Building construction, owing to the unusually mild weather, has gone ahead at an unusual rate for this season of the year, and should form the backbone of the...