Business for the nation's storekeepers was better last week. Warm-weather buying gave a little fillip to retail trade, which has just about held its own since April. Merchants in the drought districts, however, were demanding 50% cancellation clauses in their contracts. Carloadings were still nearly 13% above the same week of the year before but loadings of less than carload lots, almost wholly consumer merchandise, dropped 20,000 cars from the week before. Ore & coke for the steel industry, madly piling up inventories in anticipation of strikes, accounted for no small part...
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