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August 35, 188:
The Record and Guide.
623
THE RECORD AND GUIDE.
191 Broadway, N. Y.
TERMS:
ONE TEAR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS.
CommunicatioDS should be addressed to
C, W. SWEET, 191 Broadway,
J. T, LINDSEY, Business Manager.
AUGUST 25, 1S83.
Tiie great auction sale of dry goods on Thursday last was largely
attended, but tlie pricea brought were below coat. We have had
liquidation iu the stor^k market for two years, and it is now under
way in the mercantile world. It is fortunate that all our troubles
do not come at once. There was no speculation in dry goods wken
the stock boom was under headway, and the alight advance in
stocks since this sale would seetn to inrli^te that the " street" was
of opinion, tha': the share market could not go much lower now
that the wave of depressed prices had passed to other departments
of business.
For the next year, Western Union promises to be the liveliest
stock on the list. More money will be made and lost in it than
in any other security on the market. It will be the football of
every reckless stock-gambler who enters the arena. Already there
are several national organizations wliich aim to become its rivals.
Then it is as ceriain as auy future event can be that immediately
Congress meets there will be a swarm of schemes lor national¬
izing the telegraph. The "street" will be full of rumors—now
that Congress will aulhorize the purchase of all the lines, then
that appropriations will be passed for the construction of the gov¬
ernment telegraph. This will [iiake the stock sensitive and active,
more particularly if Jay Gould is away on bis yacht cruise. But
the final issue will be some control of the government over tele¬
graphic communication, which is so indispensable to the social
and business interests of the modern world.
Unquestionably the root of all our business troubles has been the
overbuilding of railroads. Panics are due to the creation of debts
which cannot be paid, in other words, to enterprises which over
mortgage and burden the future. We have commercial cntaclasms
every seven or eleven years; at one timo because of extended
crtdits in the mercantile world, in another because more land is
bought than can be paid for. But our present difftcuUles are
clearly due to the creation of railroad debts far in advance of the
country's ability to make profitable. We bave added $1,743,000,000
of stock and bonded indebtedness in two years. These are the
figures given by "Poor's Manual." With little help from abroad
in these two years we bave provided all the material and equip¬
ment for 28,500 miles of road, which is 10,000 miles more than Great
Britain has constructed in fifty-eight years, 11,SCO more than the
total French mileage, and 7,000 more than that of Germany. In
1879 tbe railroad tax ner inhabitant, that is the total monies paid
for passenger fares and freight was $10.86, Last year it was $14.38
per inhsibitant, an Increase of nearly 35 per cent. We have run too
fast a race and are out of wind; that's what's the matter.
The so-called Real Eatate Exchange is another instance of theplay
of Hamh^t without Hamlet himself in the cast. In oth«r words,
it is a real estate organization without real estate operators. It is
composed of cotton and mining brokers, au auctioneer or two, and
several gentlL'men who do not seem to bave any particular busi¬
ness. It is repudiated by Pine street, and is regarded as a fraud by
many perhaps over-suspicioua persons. It talks of goiug into tbe
title-searching business, which means that it is to be made use of
by some lawyers for turning a penny, honest or otherwise. But it
probably foreshadows a real Real Instate Excliange, but that child ia
yet unborn. If it comes into the world, it will need no certificate
to pr >ve its vitality, for it will promptly take rank with the leading
eschangea of the metropolis. The real estate interest is a very
large one, and some time or other this city will do more than a local
busmess, for here is the national headquarters for the purchase and
sale of realty in all parts of the country.
Where did the Times pick up the fool who so frequently airs his
ignorance of financial facts on the editoral page of that journal? On
Thursiay last " he went " for Treasurer Wyman because the latter
oflered to exchange silver certificates for gold, totally ignorant of
the fact that over §70,000,000 of the gold in the Treasury is repre¬
sented by the silver certificates in the hands of the people. Yet
this practice of paying in gold for silver certificates which has been
going on since the latter was legalized is pronounced by this Times
booby as " amazing " and "dishonest." General Tbomaa Jordoa
or some of the merchants who prefer handy certificatta to clumsy
coin ought to explain this matter to Mr, George Jjnes ao that his
paper may be as well informed in finance as it is in its other depart-
menta.
The True Solution,
Ex-Mayor Grace contributes an article to Harpers' Monthly for
September on the defects of our municipal government and the
causes thereof. His views are well presented and timely, but he
clearly misses Ihe main point in attributing all our troubles to a
lack of local self-government. If tbe constitution were so amended
as to make Albany powerless in local affairs, then he thinks the
government of this city would purify itself. This has been said a
thousand times before, but somehow there is an uneasy feeling
abroad that the municipal millenium would not come immediately
our city affairs were handed over to the tender mercies of the
leaders of the various city political factions. It is local govern¬
ment more especially which has utterly broken down in thia
country, not state or national. Aldermen, aupervisors and other
local boards have proved so improvident in money matters that
every new slate constitution pn.hibits the creation of local debts
above a certain limit. The repudiation of railway obligations by
city and county authorities has been one of the scandals of the
last thirty years of our history. The New England town meeting
was the most perfect development of popular local government
since the decadence of the ancient Greek cities, but the machinery
which sufficed for the control of a town of limited numbers and a
homogeneous population has utterly broken down, when applied
to the mixed and multitudinous populations of large cities in our
time and in this country,
Ex-Mayor Grace has a glimmering of the roal diflficulty, when he
animadverts upon the usurpation of powers by the state legislatures.
It ia inevitable that rulers, [whether they be kings, noblea or
parliaments, will wield all the authority Ihey can command. Now
legislative government is irresponsible government, and we venture
to assert that the only cure for the political ills of our time is to
give additional power to executives, while restricting the author¬
ity of legislatures. In other words we want responsible govern¬
ment. If money is wasted or wrong done, we ought to be able to
make the person who did the mischief feel the full force of popu¬
lar displeasure. This we cannot do when it is a board or a legisla¬
ture that is the wrong doer. Our governors and mayors are gen¬
erally able and honest men, while our boards of aldermen and
legislatures can never be depended upon; hence what we need is
not local government so much as personal, responsible government.
Any new state conslitution or city charter which fails to exalt the
executive at the expense of the legislative departments of our
poIitiCMl machinery will fail to effect auy reform. The cry of those
who wish to improve our city affairs should not be for local govern¬
ment merely, but for responsible government, whether it be local
or general.
The Building Labor Troubles.
Even people who sympathized with the strike of the Weatern
Union operators, wben they considered it by itself, were very ap¬
prehensive about the effect which its auccesa would have upon
general business. Although the strike was not successful, the ex¬
pression of public sympathy in ita favor seems to have had the
effect feared. The disturbances in the building trades appear to
have been brought about by this expression of sympathy.
Thus far nothing very serious has resulted except the disclosure
of a very unpleasant temper on the part of the trades unions. The
demands which the trades unions made, aod in some instances en¬
forced by brief strikes, were of a kind unexampled, Thoy formed
almost a solitary inolance of a strike in trades which were at the
time in a condition of almost unexampled prosperity. The wages
of mechanics engaged in the building trades are not only higher
now thau they ever have been before, but tbey are higher than
labor of the aame grade of skill receives in any other branch of
industry. In fact the members of the labor unions have no griev¬
ance whatever, and do not profess to have any, ao far as concerns
their own condition. Every man who knows his trade is employed
and employed at better wages than his services have ever com¬
manded before.
The grievance of the unions simply is that other workmen who
do not belong to the union are also enabled by the building activ¬
ity of the city to uarn their own living and to get good wages. Thia
is the most absurd grievance that waa ever heard of as a justifica¬
tion for atrikea. It is not the workmen who work alongside of the
non-unionista who adduce it as a grievance, but a " walking dele¬
gation" of the unions, Tbe working delegation is very well satia¬
fled, as well as it may be, with things as they are. Whatever
trouble there has been, which fortunately has not amounted to
much, has been produced not by the workingmen, but by the
professional agitator^. _