April 18,1885





The   Record  and  Guide.





419





THE   RECORD   AND GUIDE,

Published every Saturday.

IQl Broadwav, IST. '^.





TERMS:

ONE YEAR, in adraucc, SIX DOLLARS.

Communications should be addiessed to

C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.





Vol. XXXV.





APRIL 18, 1885.





No. 892





Opening of the New Real Estate Exchange.

The verbatim report we give elsevi-here of the speeches made at
the opening of the Real Estate Exchange will be found very inter¬
esting reading to everyone who owns or deals in real property.
The report will be a valuable one in years to come, as the future
history of the Exchange will be judged by the purposes of its
founders and officers as expressed in these addresses.

All the speakers seemed impressed with the conviction that the
Exchange was to be something more than a mere trading mart, a
place for buying and selling real estate. The organization, it is
expected, will undertake to exercise a direct influence upon state
and local governments so far as they affect the interests of realty. It
will endeavor to reform our land transfer laws and prevent waste of
tlie public monies ; but, while enforcing economical practices, wiU
have sufficient public spirit to favor desirable improvements and
guard the health of the community, even if that good work
demands large expenditure. Taxpayers have the reputation of
being parsimonious, of opposing all legitimate expenditures for
worthy objects for fear of assessment, but the Real Estate
Exchange could never afford to take this position. It would lose
in the estimation of the public were its main objects merely to
relieve property-holders from necessary taxation.

But the busiuess features of the Exchange are not to be ignored.
It will bring buyers and sellers together. It will fix commissions
and agents' charges and eventually reduce them to a minimum. In
the fullness of time dealers will care less Tor high commissions and
pay more attention to increasing the number of transactions. The
'• nimble sixpence" will be preferred to the "slow ahilling." Dis¬
putes which now cause litigation with a consequent waste of money
aud time will hereafter be settled promptly and inexpensively by
the Arbitration Committee of the Exchange. Brokers and ageuts
will gain in public estimation by being represented by an organiza¬
tion which must enforce discipline and maintain a high standard of
professional honor. The formal opening of this institution will, in
the opinion of its promoters, mark a new era in dealings in real

estate in the metropolis.

,--------.»--------

Tlie rules aud regulations of the new Real Estate Exchange and
Auction Room (Limited) may seem formal and dry to the general
reader, but they will be perused with eager interest by every agent
and dealer in this city and its neighborhood. For the first time com¬
missions and charges are officially announced. In fixing tliese rates
the officers of the Exchange called to their assistance the leading
outside brokers and dealers. All the auctioneers were convened at
first and the commissions were submitted to them. Amendments
and changes were suggested and were accepted, if deemed wise, by
the Board of Directors. There was also a meeting of agents and
and brokers, other than members of the Exchange, and an under¬
standing was arrived at with them before the rates we publish were
definitely agreed upon. It is just barely possible that people who
buy and sell who are not auctioneers, brokers or agents may think
the charges too high. If so they can doubtless make their opinions
felt at some future time. The tendency on all the exchanges is
towards lower commissions, but at any rate buyers and sellers
hereafter will stand on an equal feoting. The charges will be the
same to every one. The regulations we publish will certainly be
amended from time to time, and will doubtless be of a different
character five years hence from what they are now. The rules will
be altered and modified as will be required by the future exigencies
of the Exchange.





So much has been said in the daily press about Buddensiek and
his buildings that further comment on our part would be super¬
fluous. The vital point in the matter seems to have been over¬
looked. Bad and dangerous buildings are rendered possible under
our present building laws. These are so framed that there is little
responsibility on the part of the builders and no security for the
public. "Snide" builders who operate as Buddensiek is said to
have done can so arrange matters that it is impossible to bring the
fault home to any one. It is said that this particular builder
represents a syndicate of people like himself, but their affairs and
contracts are so manipulated that it is impossible to hold any of





them to a legal responsibility. Efforts are made every year to
amend the building laws, but the " snide" builders are always able
to kill tho amendments to the present law. A very excellent
building law got through the Legislature in the spring of 1884. It
had the countenance of all the honest interests in the building
trade, but to the surprise of every one President, then Governor,
Cleveland vetoed the bill because of some alleged defect in its
phraseology. The word title was used when it should have been
act or something of the kind, and New York has been cursed with
a thousand ill-built houses in consequence of the verbal scruples of
the executive. The same law substantially has been before the
Legislature this year. It was introduced early in the session and
had the endorsement of the Peal Eslate Exchange. There was no
reason why it should not have been passed in February, but it will
probably be kept to the end of the session to see how much the
" snide " builders are willing to pay to kill it. True it has passed
the State Senate under the popular wrath over the Sixty-second
street disaster, but there is time enough to defeat it before the Leg¬
islature adjourns.

•--------•-----—

The Merchant Marine of the World.

In view of the probability of a foreign war attention is, of course,
directed to the ocean and the possible changes which may take
place in the trade of the world if hostilities should extend from
land to the sea.

Before the Civil War two-thirds of the foreign trade of the United
States was carried on in American vessels. In 1884 five-sixths of
our foreign trade was carried on in foreign vessels, and over half of
the foreign trade is in the hands of owners of English vessels. The
SuH recently published some statistics on this subject, from which
we extract the following :

The sea-going merchant fleets of all nationalities aggregate about 56,000
vessels, and about 23,000,000 tons. The tremendous preponderance of
England in tho carrying trade of the world aud the order in which compet¬
ing nations foUow her long lead are shown in this table of approximate

flgures:

Vessels.         Tons.

Great Britain................................. 22,.500      11,200,000

United States.................................    6,600        2,700,000

Norway......................................    4,200        1,500,000

Germany.....................................    3,000        1,400,000

France.......................................    2,900        1,100,000

Italy.........................................    3,200        1,000,000

Russia........................................    2,300           600,000

If the comparison is confined to steamships, which now carry so large and
so important a part of the commerce of the world, the supremacy of Great
Britain is exhibited in a still more striking way :

Steam Vessels.       Tons.

All nations....................................  7,764        9,232,000

Great Britain..................................  4,649        5,919,000     '

Prance .......................................     458           6<i7,000

UuitedStates..................................     422           601,000     •

Gerra:.uy......................................     420          476,000

Spain..........................................     282           8a5,000

Italy..........................................     ia5           166,000

Holland.......................................     127           15.5,000

Russia........................................     194           149,000

England's steam tonnage is almost ten times as gi-eat as that of her
neai-est rival, France. It is ten times our steam tonnage, aud forty times
Russia's. The British flag covers nearly two-thh-ds of all the ocean steamers
afloat.

The increase of the steam tonnage of Groat Britain is, of course,
largely due to the fact that the facilities exist on the Clyde for
building cheaper vessels than in any other locality in tho world.
The depredations of the Alabama and the other English manned
and armed Confederate privateers swept our merchant marine from
the ocean. We lost our share by these hostile acts of a foreign
carrying trade worth $150,000,000 pe)- annum. Urged on by the
marine insurance companies and a few private claimants the
United States condoned this destruction of her commerce for the
paltry sum of $15,000,000, which was the award given us at Geneva.
We did more. We bound ourselves by solemn treaty not to do
what Great Britain had done to us, that is, wage naval war under
another flag. Were it not for the understanding involved in the
Geneva award we could do to Great Britain what that nation did
to us in the civil war—prey upon her commerce.

But after all perhaps we could not take advantage of the situation
even if there were no understanding. Great Britain would stand
no nonsense from us, but would promptly seize our sea-board cities,
which are utterly defenceless, and which could not, under a year
at least, be put in a condition to beat off a foreign fleet. Our
government in the acceptance of the Geneva award as well as in its
obliviousness of the peril of our sea-coast cities, lias shown neither
sense nor foresight. We ought to get our share of the carrying
trade of the world, and a foreign war was our great opportunity ;
but we could not take advantage of one were it to take place.
---------•--------

As a matter of course the position taken by ex-Mayor Edson
when he appointed a successor to Hubert O. Thompson has been
sustained by the courts. The persons really in contempt are the
judicial officers who issued an injunction commanding an executive
officer not to exercise an appointing power conferred on him by law,