EAL  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





YoL. XXY.





NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1880.





No. 624





Published Weekly by

Cbe Eeal €statBEetorb l^ssonatbu.

TERMS.
OIVE YEAR, in advance.. ..SIO.OO.

Communications should be addressed to

C.   W.   SA^^EET,

Nos. 135 AND 137 Broadway





THE RIVERSIDE AVENUE.

We have taken some pains to get an answer to
the question often asked, whether the contractors
on the Riverside avenue are authorized to keep up
barriers to exclude carriages from fche avenue,
and we fiud fchey are nofc.

The terms of the contract provide that the
work shall be completed within twelve months
from the date of the contract, and this time ex¬
pired years ago. There is no provision in the
contract giving the contractors any authority fco
keep exclusive possession of fche work.

Under these circumstances, the city ordinances
apply to this case (Rev. Ord. 1866, ch. 14, p. 227
—230). These ordinances provide that until a
pavement is finished and fit for use, passage may
be obstructed for the space of one block at a time,
and for not over two days after the street is
finished.

Anj^ person who wishes to drive over this Riv¬
erside avenue;;may approach it, and, if his pas¬
sage is obstructed, he may by an arrest of the
person who obsfcrucfcs him have {a defcermination
of fche legal quesfcion, which would settle it for
al! other passengers; or, a similar result might be
obtained by making a complaint to the Chief of
the Bureau of Obstructions, who would have
power to remove the barriers.





THE SITUATION REVIEWED.
The general outlook for the business of the
country continues safcisfacfcory. We are nofc
likely to see this year so mai'ked an advance in
prices as was witnessed last year. In the Stock
Exchange, especially, the year 1879 will be
memorable for the great advance in markefc
values which occurred in the Western and South¬
western stocks. The history of Iron Mountain.
Kansas Paciflc, Missouri, Kansas & Texas, Atchi¬
son, & Santa Fe and, nearer home, the coal
sfcocks, is not likely to be repeated this year.
There has been a levelling up of mai-ket values to
a point which some operators regard as danger-
ows, but which clearly cannot "be duplicated in
the stock market, at least, during the present
year. No doubt there are bargains yet for those
who arcon fche inside in the sfcocks and bonds of
the roads so far neglected, for, as we have repeat¬
edly pointed out, the process is going on continu¬
ously by which the minor roads are all being
taken into the transportation system of the
country. Even the express stocks and the palace
car sfcocks have felfc the " boom," and Pullman,
for instance, which at one time sold below 80 is
now in demand at 120. There has been no actual
consolidation of the palace car companies, but it





is inevitable that it will take place during the
course of the coming year.

Nor is it likely that any sucft advance in prices
as has been witnessed in the iron trade will be
repeated this year in any one department of
industry. The chauge from extreme depression
to great hopefulness has made the history of the
iron trade during the past year phenomenal.
But gradually the movement is extending into
other departments of commercial business.
Stocks always feel the firsfc flush of excitement,
then the general merchandise of the country and
finally land and labor. It is evident that there
has been so great an enhancement of values that
the retail dealers have been pufcfcing up their
prices. This, with the increased demand for
labor, has led to a movement among the working
classes for better compensation, and not a journal
can be taken up without some notice of strikes
and efforfcs by workmen to advance the market
value of their labor. For every such case which
gets into the press, there are thousands where the
employers have voluntarily advanced wages. It
must be borne in mind fchat fchere can be no real
or permanenfc revival in business until the spend¬
ing classes, the millions who labor, are in receipt
of better wages. However much individual
employers maj^ deplore the necessity of increas¬
ing tbe compensation of their working people it
must be remembered that it is the small dealers
and stores which are fche little streamlets which
finally feed the greac tides of commerce. It was
the drying up of these little rivulets, the cutting
down the wages of the operators, which gave us
fche dull fcimes from 1873 to 1878.

The better feeling iu all parts of the community
comes from two sources. The rich have become
richer, the stocks and evidences of debt in their
possession have very greatly increased iu value
during the last year and a half. This makes them
feel not only like living better but gives a reason
for new enterprises, which did not exist before
resumption. Every land owner who has had five
to ten di illars per acre added to the markefc price
of his possessions, every holder of Western or
Eastern railway shares, which have doubled in
value during the past year, all persons inter¬
ested in iron mines, mineral projierties, etc.,
feel so much better off that they do not
hesitate to engage in new businesses and
are more liberal with their employees.
Thus, the great capitalist class have been
stimulated to increase their ventures, to take new
risks, to build houses, open factories, project ex¬
tensive improvements because of the assurance
that there was a margin of profit in every useful
business that could be entered upon. This feeling
among' the wealthy class has reacted upon the
working people. They have had abundant em¬
ployment and better wages. The money they
have received has been spent for clothing and
personal comforts, and this has been felt through
all the channels of trade. There are fewer idle
people to support; there are more active workers;
there are greater profits in business, and hence we
may expect for some time to come fchat fchere will
be increasing demands insuring befcter wages for
the working classes, to which the employers will
be forced to respond, to their own ultimate bene¬
fit as a class.





We will see a great deal of railroad building
this year, especially west of the Mississippi. Ifc
will be parfcicularly acfcive in the mining regions
of this country. Before tbe close of the year
1881 there will undoubtedly be three more lines
to the Pacific, one on the thirty-fifth parallel and
another running through Texas to El Paso and
connecting with the Southern Pacific Pcoad. By
that time, also, the Northern Pacific Road will be
almost built so as to connect Lake Superior with
Pugefc Sound. This will give four trans-con¬
tinental railways, and the only question is
whether there will not be some crippling of enter¬
prise in the East due to the heavy demands made
from building up the region between the Rocky
Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. What, with
new mines, new railways and other permanent
improvements, there will be an immense absorp¬
tion of floating into fixed capital west of the
Missouri River.

We are also entering upon a debt creating
period. From 1870 to 1S78 was the period of
liquidation when we stopped all enterprises in
in order to pay our debts. But large as the paper
money debts were found to be in 1873, and which
ifc cost so much distress to liquidate, we judge that
the debts to be piled up within fche coming seven
years will be much larger in amount. We now
have telegraphs and gigantic corporate enter¬
prises under way, which will call for immense
sums of money that can be far more readily ob¬
tained now than in any former period in our his¬
tory. Of course, this means that when the time
comes there will be another crash. Indeed, a
panic in Anglo-Saxon communities simply means
a period of liquidation. The most consistent
theory of our periodical panics is that while
the natural increase of wealth in any com¬
munity is not more than two and a quarter
per cenfc. per annum, the interest asked for
money, in fchis counfcry ia befcween six and fifteen
per cejifc. It follows that the debts created by
the high rate of interest as compared with the low
rate of the addition to our wealth piles up ap in¬
debtedness which can only be settled by its re¬
pudiation and this brings about whafc are known
as commercial panics. France has no such panics,
because fche Frenchman does nofc incur debts.
England and the United States have them period¬
ically, because we discount the future and take
upon ourselves indebtedness which some time will
have to be repudiated. Lasfc year we began to
get into debt. This year we will add very largely
to our obligations, but there is no danger of a
crash for several years to come. The increase in
obligations will be probably more rapid than of
old, due to the greater rapidty with which com¬
binations of capital can be brought about, and
hence we do not think thafc the crisis can be pro¬
longed as ifc was in the paper money era. But
there is no danger this year, nor next year, nor
probably the year after. Everybody in the
country will be afc work, everybody will ap¬
parently make money and of course everybody
will be happy. As land and labor are the last to
fall in value, so land and. labor will be the lasfc to
rise in value. The labor strikes we have seen
show that the movement has reached the work¬
ing classes and the evidences are everywhere be¬
coming plain that land will soon rise largely in