Real  Estate   Record





AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.





Vol. XXYII.





NEW YOEK, SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1881





No. 691





Published Weekly by Tlie

Real Estate Record Association

TERMS:
ONE YEAR, in advance.....$6.00

Communications should he addressed to

C. W. SWEET. 13T Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.

It seems the famous Arcade scheme is to
be revived. Melville D. Smith, its origina¬
tor. som.etime since secured the charter of
the Beach Pneumatic Tube through Broad¬
way, and has had that document so altered
by the Legislature that it enables him to in¬
troduce all .the old Arcade features. The
Governor has approved the charter as
amended by the Legislature. If Mr. Smith
can carry out his programme, we wiU have
an underground Broadway, 80 feet wide,
lighted by day with patent lights and at
night with the electric light capable of ac¬
comodating through and way trains, as well
as all kinds of vehicles, and which would
connect the Forty-second street depot with
the Battery. If carried out it will make
Broadway the most valuable thoroughfare
in the world, for the hotels aud great stores
will cluster on the street which has a monop¬
oly of ^delivering goods and passengers from
steam cars at their basement steps.

This enterprise must not be confounded
with the Central Underground road, of
which General McClellan is the nominal
head. The last has been on foot for a great
many years, and every few months the
daily press tells the wonderful things it is
going to do. But so far all its performances
have been in the newspapers. It is rumored
that the Vanderbilt interest is back of this
new Arcade scheme, but it is so immense an
undertaking that we would prefer to see the
list of incorporators and the amount sub¬
scribed, before taking it for granted that
such a road wiU be built.





Certain amendments to the mechanics'
lien laws have been under consideration in
the Assembly, wl ich, if passed, and approved
by the Governor, would doubtless put a stop
to any new building enterprises in this city
until the next Legislature would again
amend the law. Had these amendments
passed, every claim of the laborer or me¬
chanic would have taken precedence of a
mortgage or any other means of raising
money for prosecuting the work uf building.
Of course money could not be borrowed, as
the lender would not run the risk which the
law would impose. Happily the most dan¬
gerous amendments have been eliminated,
and the act, if it passes, leaves matters about
as they were. It puts, however, tbe burden
of proof upon the mortgagee. There will
be a sense of great relief when this Legis¬
lature adjourns, for whUe it is in session
there is danger of the passing of enactments
which would affect most injuriously the bus¬
iness interests of the community.





The situation in the labor market is caus¬
ing serious disquiet among builders and
those who have large contracts ahead. The
unpleasant fact stares contractors in the
face that there is a scarcity, not only of
skilled, but of all kinds of labor. In some
cases hodcarriers get as much as $2.50 a day
and bricklayers are making their boast that
they may yet demand $5 a day,' The build¬
ing activity is extraordinary and the outlook
is entirely favorable, except on this one vital
matter of the price of labor. Persons mak¬
ing contracts ahead, should consider this
matter. It would, we judge, be wise to take
large contracts ahead for building materials
at their present rates. There is every pros¬
pect of an enhancement in values during
the coming fall, for while consumption is
enormous, supplies axe light and as the
price of labor is rising in every department
of trade, there is a fear of an enhancement
of values. It is an undoubted fact that there
is a scarcity of not only skilled, but of com¬
mon laboi in the building trade.





WHO   GETS THE WEALTH?

Henry George has written a very remark¬
able work, entitled " Progress and Poverty."
It has already passed through several  edi¬
tions,  and has been translated into French
and German.    Political economy as taught
in England and France has never been pop¬
ular   in this   country, and the   American
writers who   have upheld  the doctrines ex¬
pounded  by  Bentham,   Cobden,   Mill and
Bastiat have not had lai'ge followings.    Mr.
George's   work   criticises    unsparingly the
underlying principles of the political econ¬
omy taught in the schools of the Old World.
This part of his work seems   to us striking
und valuable.    His remedy for the ills of so¬
ciety is not so happy, nor will it meet with ac¬
ceptance,  but the point  he particularly in¬
sists upon is vital to  real estate owners   or
those who expect to become such.   Accord¬
ing to Mr. George it is written in the book of
fate that the owners of the land must in time
monopolize  the wealth  of the State.   He
alleges that, as society progresses, rent swal¬
lows up the profits of   production,  reduces
the wages  of labor to a minimum, and, in
time, takes to itself the natural increase of
capital.   In other words,   that as all wealth
is derived from the land by labor, as the pop¬
ulation becomes denser   the competition for
land results in the gradual absorbtion of all
the wealth of  the community by the  land¬
owner.   Where land is abundant and popu¬
lation sparse, wages are high and the rate of
interest   generous.   But the  more eflScient
labor becomes the better, it is organized, the
poorer the pay, and where wealth is concen¬
trated in the largest.masses the rate of inter¬
est rules low.    The carpenter in the mining
region to-day earns six  dollars a day ; one
per cent, a month for the use of money is not
considered excessive, but three per cent, per
annum is all that money is worth on call in
this city, while the carpenter is satisfied with
three dollars a day.

Mr. George's cure for the iUs of society is

that all the taxes should be levied on real es¬





tate, so as in time to confiscate it for the
benefit of the community. He would have
the Government the only landowner. This
idea is not new, for it has been advocated by
Turgot, Quisnay, and Herbert Spencer. But
to get rid of private property in land is so
purely theoretical and fanciful that practi¬
cal men need not discuss it.

But is Mr. George's leading idea true, that
the landowner is destined to absorb the wealth
of the world ? Undoubtedly private property
in   land   in a   growing community is the
surest and safest of all investments.   Stocks
may go   up or   down, but as   population
becomes denser, the average price of land
steadily rises.   This is proved by the past
history of the country.    True, railroads, by
rendering large sections of wild lands avail¬
able, have equalized values, and have ren¬
dered some Eastern farms temporarily of
less value than they were.   But the average
of price has been a rising one, even in the
worst of times.    From this it follows that
where land is bought at its market value and
held, it is the most certain of all investments.
This has proved true in all settled countries
like Great Britain.    It is the great landlords
who are the richest and most powerful.  The
most solid fortunes in city, State, or nation
are those which are based on realty.   The
corporate enterprises of modern times, in¬
cluding the handling of great national debts,
have gathered a large share of the wealth of
the community into the hands of bankers
and large owners of corporate securities.   In
the middle ages and down to recent times, it
was  the merchants   who made the   most
money.    But the telegraph is rapidly taking
away the pi'ofits from trade by equalizing
prices the world over.   Where are now our
merchant princes?   Our very rich are the
bankers and railway manipulators.   A. T.
Ste vart was only a great shopkeeper.   It
was as a retail dealer that he was best known
to the world.    But may we not be passing
through a transition era, when the  excep¬
tional wealth of the railway manipulator will
find its way in the pockets of the owner of
realty ? This is clearly the view of Mr. Henry
George, and he looks ^for the time when
the  landowner will be recognized as the
master of labor and the controller of the
available capital of the community.





THE SITUATION IN THE STREET.

The stockmarket has some very peculiar
features. After the great spring rise, it Avas
but natural that there should be some hesi¬
tancy in the market. Many of the operators
were off to Europe, others sold out and there
was a general willingness that prices should
go off. There is every reason to believe it
would have fallen off much more, were it
not that the bears overdid the business. All
the active members of the board were selling
short and they succeeded in depressing New
York Central, Lake Shore and Erie. But
the rest of the market was stubborn. The
outside stocks were marked up and Jay Gould
and Woerishoffer kept their specialties well
in hand.   The current belief in the street