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June 2, lyoo
inX'()l?D AND (;UIDE.
961
ESTABUSHED'^^i
DEvfeiED p RiEAj- Estate . Buildij^g AjjcKitectui^ ,h{oiiSEHoiD DEOCffiun^
Bt/sotess AibThemes of GeSerA 'KrEfifai.
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS.
Piiblislied every Saturday.
TsLBPHONE, Cortlandt 1370,
Communications should be addressed to
C, W. SWEET, 14-16 Veeey Street.
/, T. UNDSEY, Business Manager.
•Entered at the Post-Otf'ce at N^to Tork, N. 7., as second-class maltn."
Vol, LXV.
JUNE 2, 1900.
No. 1681.
OUR view, that liquidation in the Industrials had reached a
point where it could hardly go farther, found confirma¬
tion in the advances made by that class of security in the Stock
Market this week. The movements in these stocks were accom¬
panied by good buying in other directions, including bonds, with
the result that the market for a couple of days has had a more
cheerful appearance than it has seen for some weeks past. A
series of advances In the price of refined sugar up to a point
where it can be manufactured at a profit and the consolidation
of the smaller refiners, who oppose the American Sugar Refin¬
ing Co., into one company, though not taking in the Arbuckles,
the most formidable of the recalcitrants, are accepted by the
Street as signs of the settlement of the sugar war. The advance
in the price of sugar may be explained by the fact that the pre¬
serving season, when the demand for sugar is greatest, has be¬
gun, and the fighting refiners may have entered into a truce so
as not to lose all the profits of this demand. The consolidation
of the smaller outside refineries into one company may be for
convenience of delivery to the Havemeyer interest; but though
not unnatural to be inferred, if so, the fact has not been an¬
nounced. Part of the advance in stock prices this week has Been
based on the theory that with the close of the Boer war, appar¬
ently so near at hand, the British public will enter the specula¬
tive markets again and among others will begin to buy our se¬
curities, A professional and speculative advance in the Euro¬
pean stoek markets may reasonably be expected as soon as the
British are in Pretoria, though why it should wait for the ac¬
complished fact when accomplishment is apparently so certain,
does not appear. It is, doubtful, however, if it would be more
than a professional and speculative movement and highly proba¬
ble that the public who are necessary to make such a movement
a success, will have something else to think of. As our readers
are aware, our theory is that the activity engendered by this
war prevented a serious decline in the volume of business in
Great Britain, that was due by all the rules that can be applied
to measure the length of a boom. The British government has
been pouring out money by the millions, not only to provide for
the wants of their armies in the field, but to replace the waste of
materials and supplies that is always greater than consumption
in war, and in this case must have been in larger proportion
than ever. So that it is not a case of the cost of an army in
peace offsetting the cost of one in'war, but a great falling off in
the expense of the one as opposed to the other. This means
that the contractors and the thousands of workers who have
been employed to supply the army will now find much less to do
and that the volume of money in circulation wiU be lessened;
and through the usual chain of consequences bring an overdone
business again face to face with the situation from which it was
saved by the Boer invasion of Natal. Something will come from
the repair of damage to property by the belligerente, but that
will not come for some time, and when It does will be small in
comparison to the outlay that hostilities compelled. It Is signiS-
cant of this that London was a seller instead of a buyer in our
market the past two days.
\X 7 ITH all our talk of government by the people, the actual
V V government and conduct of affairs is carried on by a
very few people and the rest is all pother and shouting. This
fact found illustration at the hearing given the Borough of Man¬
hattan on Thursday last by the Charter Revision Commission.
The attendance was surprisingly slim, indeed made up almost
entirely of a few public spirited men, aware of the immense im¬
portance of securing a workable charter, who were there to
make suggestions in either representative or individual capacity.
A small part of this Indifference of the majority—of the great
public in fact—may be explained by the hour at which the hear¬
ing was given, one in which most people are doing the busiest
work of the day; but a much greater part is due to the ignorance
of our people generally of the subject of municipal government
and their disinclination to attempt to overcome the difflculties it,
or any other public question presents to the beginner. By con¬
trasts this brings outmore strikinglythepublic spirit of thosewho
did attend either to speak or hear what was said. The West End
Association by Cyrus Clark, their president, and the Real Estate
Board of Brokers, by their president, John F. Doyle, showed a
true appreciation of the importance of the occasion by appear¬
ing with detailed and comprehensive plans for the reform of the
machiuery of our city government. These plans recommended
a further centralizing of the governing forces, the abolition of
the borough boards and municipal ownership, the latter by the
West Bnd Association to the extent allowed by the present char¬
ter and by the Real Estate Board of Brokers to a much larger
degree. Mr. Doyie stated that there were no differences between
the two plans on which a meeting could not be effected. The
advocacy of borough autonomy with local responsibility for local
expenditures came from an individual, Wm. H, Rogers, who
showed the enormous burdens that consolidation had thrown
upon Manhattan, and claimed that the revision ought to afford
relief. The questions put to this speaker by several members of
the Commission, allowed the observer to infer that the subject
of borough autonomy had a large place in their thoughts and that
suggestions for meeting the difaculties that would have to he
overcome in instituting such a form of municipal government
might be favorably received. Some of these difaculties relate
to the distinction between borough and municipal functions, po¬
licing of the city as a whole and in the boroughs, the provision to
be made for municipal, as distinguished from borough improve¬
ments, and for the general government, etc. The reception of
the argument of the counsel for the Ramapo Company, that his
company could furnish water to the eity cheaper than the city
could supply itself, ought not to encourage him or his clients to
expect that the Commission's report will assist the adoption of
the much discussed Ramapo contract,
/—\ WING to the intervention of an extra holiday and to the
*">—' waning of the season for offerings of city property, busi¬
ness in the real estate salesroom this week was of a purely per¬
functory nature. Eighteen parcels put up as a consequence of
foreclosure proceedings, were, with possibly three or four ex¬
ceptions, struck down to the plaintiffs or parties iu interest; and
only one of three properties offered at voluntary auction was
sold. A similar condition of inactivity prevailed also in the
brokerage business. The best items of the week's news related
to private houses, including several in the middle residential
section below the Park, In the one conspicuous brokerage
transaction reported, an embarrassed builder disposed of his in¬
terest in a row of unfinished private houses on the West Side.
Excepting dwellings bought by home-seekers, the dealing was
composed wholly of small speculative operations of the kind to
which the market has for some time been accustomed. The
monetary prospect, coupled with the experience of normal
years, would suggest a temporary accession of activity in real
estate during the month of June, until the periodical movement
of capital towards the interior begins to make itself felt. On the
other hand, the unaccountable quiet of the recent past, which
cannot be ascribed to monetary conditions, induces the belief
that the tone of the realty market will not undergo decided
change before the Presidential election. If there is little desire
to buy, there is little pressure to sell. Owners universally antic¬
ipate an increment in the fee value of their property, as a con¬
sequence of rising rents and important public improvementa in
progress, notably the rapid transit railway; while Investors
and outside speculators, as opposed to professional builders and
operators, are merely waiting for some decisive evidence of con¬
traction in the extraordinary opportunities which have prevailed
for the employment of surplus capital In commerce and the In¬
dustries as well as on the Stock Exchange. Meantime, by next
fall the upward impetus in rents will have assumed a cumula¬
tive force as result of the paucity ot current building operations.
THE decision rendered this week by Justice Andrews In the
case of Ackerman vs. True, declaring illegal a bay window
extension on Riverside Drive, and awarding damages for injury
done to complainant by Its erection, will. If maintained, have
serious consequences for the owners of a vast amount of proper¬
ty In this city having projections of a similar nature to the one
complained of. This decision, however, seems to conflict with
that given by the Court of Appeals In April last In the case of
Broadbelt vs. Loew. In that case, too, the lower court held that