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Real Estate Record
AND BUILDERS' GUIDE.
Vol. XXIX.
NEW TOEK, SATUEDAY, APEIL 29, 1882.
No. 737
Published Weekly by The
Real Estate Record Association
TERMS:
ONE YEAR, ttt advance.....$6.00
Communications should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway.
J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.
After Mayl, The Real Estate Record
offices will be found in the Mercantile Bank
Building, 191 Broadway, corner of Dey
street.
The Forrestry Congress, which has just
adjourned at Cincinnati, was a notable
gathering and its work ought to result in
good to the community. The waste of
timber is simply criminal, and we are
already beginning to feel its disastrous
effects in freshets and droughts, as well as
the abnormally high price of lumber -where
most needed. Every energy of the nation,
the State and the locality should be brought
to bear to promote the growth of trees. The
sanitary reasons are as strong as the
economical, for reclothing mountain sides
and the banks of rivers with woods so heed¬
lessly cut down.
The croakers are pointing out that there
are too many railroads underway, and
especially that there are more than can ever
be needed reaching out from New York to
other parts of the country. The Philadel¬
phia roads have all an outlet in this city, the
Baltimore & Ohio is bent on securing a right
of way to New York, and the Ontario &
Western, Delaware & Lackawanna, and the
"West Shore & Buffalo will be feeders to the
metropolis. In the ancient world alFroads
led to Rome, and railway building in North
America ultimately is designed to reach
this port. There may be a waste of capital
in the stock of these enterprises, but their
construction will add to the value of realty
in New York.
It was during the paper money inflation
period that the experiment was first at¬
tempted of building immense and costly
structures for business and office purposes.
The Equitable building, the Drexel & Mor¬
gan building, the Tribune and "Western
Union structures, and the large concern at
the corner of Fourteenth street and Broad¬
way, as well as others, date from this very
costly period. It was predicted that they
would be financial failures, but it did not so
turn out, and upon the revival of prosperity
well posted capitalists eagerly entered upon a
career of building even more gigantic stmc-
tures. Hence theBoreel Building, "Fort"
Sherman, comer Broadway and Wall street,
the London, Liverpool and Globe BuUd ing
and scores of others, while last but not least
the great Mills building on Broad street.
These great edifices wtU certainly pay, pro¬
vided no catastrophe affects the trade of
New York. Plans filed in the Building De¬
partment continue to show the confidence of
persons of large means in big buildings, for
domestic as well as office purposes, instead
of little ones.
RECHARTERING THE BANKS.
Between now and the close of February,
1883, the charters of three hundred and
ninety-three national banks will have ex¬
pired. These institutions have a capital of
$91,985,950, and their total issues of notes
is $67,853,910. Unless an enabling act is
passed, all these banks must go into liqui¬
dation. They must be wound up and started
afresh. If the present Congress gives no
relief, it foUows that the circulation will be
withdrawn, about $150,000,000 of loans called
in, and a sufficient amount of assets sold to
create a first-class currency panic, when
stocks will be actually given away in Wall
street. The votes show that a decided ma¬
jority of the House of Representatives is
favorable to the banks, but that there is'
great difference of opinion as to the provi¬
sions under which the national banks should
reorganize. Our national banking system
came into existence while a gigantic civil
war was raging, and one of its main objects
was to create a market for the floating of
Government bonds. But the war closed
eighteen years ago, and it is realized that
new conditions have arisen which demand
some changes in the reorganization of our
banking system, and it is in this honest
difference of opinion lies the peril of a failure
of Congress to recharter the banks in such a
way as to prevent a violent contraction of
the currency.
Ex-Secretary of the Treasm*y, John Sher¬
man, is of opinion that every bank ought to
be reorganized after twenty years of exist¬
ence. There is danger that these financial
institutions may have skeletons in their
vaults in the way of worthless assets.
During the bard times a great many of bad
debts must have been made; two-thirds of
the business men of the country failed, and
these same bankrupts were in many cases
the managers of the national banks. It was
always a mystery how the national banks
managed to live through the crises which
ruined their customers. Perhaps if all the
national banks were forced into liquidation,
the mystery would be explained.
Until this bank matter is settled, an uneasy
feeling will prevail in financial circles. The
wise thing to do would be to extend the
charters of certain groups of banks in such
a way that no more than ten would be
wound up each month ; but they all should
be required to reorganize, and the limit of
their corporate life should not be more than
twenty years. It is a pity Congress could
not act upon this matter at once, for, if
settled satisfactorily, it would remove one
cloud, and a very lowering one, from the
financial horizon. We have not thought it
worth while here to discuss the question
of the substitution of Treasury notes for
.national bank bills. Whatever arguments
there may be in favor of that scheme, it is
not likely to be indorsed by either the Senate
or House, and if it should gef through Con¬
gress it would be promptly vetoed by Pres¬
ident Arthur. The hesitancy which has
been observed in the real estate market
within the last ten days is attributed in
certain quarters to tbe fear that Congress
may not act wisely in dealing with the bank
problem. A state of affairs that would
involve a great displacement and violent
contractions of the currency would be dis¬
astrous not only to stock values but to the
price of real estate, at least temporarily.
AGRARIANISM IN NEW YORK.
The real estate interest of New York is a
very heavy contributor to the revenues of
the New York Herald. The houses for sale
and to rent cover page after page of that
paper, daily. Yet this journal, so munifi¬
cently supported by the owners of realty,
has become the organ of 3 class of tenants
who are \jnable or unwilling to pay their
just rents. An anti-landlord cry may have
a meaning in Ireland, but it certainly has
none under our laws. What is a landlord in
the United States? He is simply a person
who, having spare means, has bought or
buUt houses which he rents to those who
wish to occupy them. The money is in¬
vested for the same reason that any other
property or commodity is bought, either for
use or to allow somebody else to occupy for a
consideration. The landlord, in providing
homes for those who have not got them, per¬
forms a social function honorable in itself
because necessary. In the laws of all coun¬
tries, provision is made for the prompt col¬
lection of rent, and the processes are neces¬
sarily summary, for if the landlord cannot get
the return for his money promptly, he will
do one of two things, he will raise the rent
to insTire himself against loss and annoyance
in its collection, or he will decline to rent
his houses. Any popular or legislative
action which prevents him from collecting
what is due promptly, would be a severe tax
on the renting community, for investors
would not build new houses and landlords
would advance the price of those in the mar¬
ket to make up for the delinquencies of their
tenants.
There is really no comparison between
farm land as rented in Ireland and house
property as let in New York. In the case of
the Irish farm, the value is given to it by the
labor of the tenant. The complaint has
been that the improvements he makes are
taken advantage of by the landlord to in¬
crease his rent, but the occupant of a house
in New York or Brooklyn, or of apartments
in a house, gives no additional value to his
holdings; indeed, as a matter of fact, the
tenement is more or less depreciated by the
fact of its occupancy, and, therefore, while
in the one case it may be cruel to evict a
tenant from the home which he in part
created, there can be no hardship in forcing
a person to leave a house or suite of rooms,
: the rent of which he is unable or unwilling