May 15, 1886





The   Record  and Guide.





635





THE   RECORD   AND   GUIDE,

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Vol. XXXVII.





MAY 15, 1886.





No. 948.





Now that the striking craze, so far as relates to the transporta¬
tion system, of the country, is over, there is a better feeling in
Stock Exchange circles as well as in general business. The feeling
of timidity amongst capitalists is wearing away. Eailway receipts
are improving, and there is less disposition amongst the working
classes to interfere with the orderly operations of industry. It
looks, too, as though we will not ship a great deal more gold this
season. The removal of great operators from the stock market
probably helps price.s, as manipulation has less to do than natural
causes in affecting values. Of course even a combination of great
operators could not put stocks up when they ought to go down, or
vice versa; but ifc was in the power of the leaders to advance quota¬
tions unnaturally or depress them unnecessarily. The most serious
feature in tho business situation is the lower prices of grain and
cotton. Not since the opening of the civil war have our agricul¬
tural products sold so low at this season of the year.





The busy season at the Real Estate Exchange is drawing to a
close. Before the fall season commences something should be done
to induce the auctioneers to hold their sales at different intervals,
so as not to interfere with one another. There is no reason why all
the auctions should be afc twelve o'clock sharp. This absurd
practice grew oufc of the fact that when New York was a small town
the courts ordered the sale of real estate on the court-house steps at
noon. This practice continued until New York grew into a great
city; but there is no more reason why houses and lots should be
sold at one particular hour any more than stocks, cotton, grain or
petroleum should be bought and sold only at the noon hour. It
often happens that an investor wishes to purchase property at two
sales, but now he is prevented from doing so, for the reason that he
cannot be in two places at once. Miscellaneous stocks and bonds
have always been sold on the Exchange at a different hour from
real estate, and ifc would be quite feasible to have separate times
sefc apart for the various kinds of realty offered. For instance,
there might be a call for unimproved property, then for dwellings.
Down-town invesfcment realty could be sold by itself; also
country properfcy. All the present business could be easily done
between twelve and two o'clock, for ifc has been found that the
average length of sales is not much over seven minutes. If the
present absurd practice is kept up of selling all the property at
once the Real Estate Exchange must be enlarged next year or the
year after. But with a division of the sales ifc will be possible to
transact twenty times the business accomplished under the present
arrangement.

----:----•--------

-Another movement is under way to purify city politics. Ifc is
proposed to organize a Citizens' Committee of One Hundred, who are
to represent the reform sentiment in bringing a pressure to bear on
both parties to make good nominations. There are some excellent
names among those who are in this movement; but ex-Sheriff
Jimmy O'Brien, ex-Senator Bixby and ofchers like them are not the
kind of people to inspire confldence among respectable voters.
The Philadelphia Committee of One Hundred became all powerful
for a time, because the members pledged themselves not to accept
office or to work for personal friends. There is no such self-abne¬
gation shown by those who are in this new reform party, and its
probable results, should it succeed, will be in putting certain of its
own members into power. It will be remembered that in the
famous Committee of Seventy some sixty became office-holders or
candidates for office. It is suspicious, also, that this new party has
no programme except to purify politics by putting good men into
office, which probably means Messrs. Bixby, O'Brien & Co.





The River and Harbor bill appropriates some |15,()00,000 for
improving waterways and adding to the safety of our harbors on the
sea-coasts and the lakes. This represents two years' work, for there
was no appropriation lasfc year, and as a consequence work under
■way that was absolutely needed was stopped to the great detriment
of the regions affected. No River and Harbor bill can be entirely
•unobjectionable. Some few items must be inserted to satisfy local
interests!   It is one of the defects of the composition of our House





of Representatives that to conciliate a majority appropriations
must be made, some of which are not imperatively needed. It was by
picking out these out-of-the-way items and commenting upon them
which gave the public a false impression respecting the admirable
River and Harbor bill which ex-President Arthur vetoed. The Star
is the only daily paper in New York which advocates internal
improvements. With that cheap demagoguery which so belittles
our daily press, all our journals are in full cry against the bill now
before Congress. Yet it would be difficult to question the utility
of all but a very few items in the pending River and Harbor bill.
Our country is growing—it has a coast line demanding constant
care. It has internal waterways, the greatest lake ports in the
world, while the mighty Mississippi is what John C. Calhoun
declared it to be, an " inland sea." Individuals cannot undertake
these improvements, nor can the States; and unless the general
government takes the m.atter in hand they cannot be made at all.
But the press of our country is intensely local. The New York
papers object to appropriations for the lakes, the Mississippi, or for
the Pacific coast. The Chicago and St. Louis papers oppose harbor
improvements on this coast, and these wretched local jealousies
influence members of Congress. If the appropriation bill passes we
expect, of course, to see it vetoed by President Cleveland, who,
like his predecessors, will fix public attention upon trivial and
unnecessary appropriations so as to discredit a bill which, if
enacted, would be of the utmost value to the commerce of the
country.

--------------9-----------_

A motion is soon to be made in the British Parliament, asking
the government to call another International Congress to re-establish
bi-metallism. It is becoming clear, even to Englishmen, that the
distress in business the world over is due to the steadily enhancing
value of the gold unifc. This shows itself in the falling markets of
all countries and the accumulation of money in the banks, for no
one wants to produce when the article manufactured is certain to
sell for less than its cost. Then a cry comes up from India. The
fall m the value of the rupee, while it stimulates the exportation
of wheat and cotton, yet puts an embargo on all imports and
destroys the profits of trade, as is evidenced by the high rate of
exchange. Of course the trouble with England is that its money-
lending class, though small, is all powerful. A state of things
which adds to the purchasing power of those who hold cash funds
is for the benefifc of creditors, though it may be ruinous to general
basiness. Germany alone profits by the gold unit, for being out
of debfc, it can manufacture cheaper than any of its European
rivals and ifc is making steady inroads into the trade of England
and France.





So the Broadway Arcade bill has at length become a law. If the
money can be raised under the carefuUy-guarded charter which
has been passed we will probably have real rapid transit from the
Battery to Harlem before ten years will pass by. What a pity
Governor Hoffman did not approve of the Arcade bill which passed
the Legislature wiien he was Governor. By this time we would
have had underground transit the length of the island, and there
would have been no necessity for the Elevated roads. But " better
late than never." If the Arcade road is finally constructed ifc will
be the most beneficent city improvement ever carried out. It will
add very largely to the value of Broadway property, and will par¬
ticularly advantage the holders of real estate who have most
bitterly opposed the building of an Arcade road.





Not long since we pointed out that a revival of the native
American sentiment was likely to occur. There has been growing
for some time past a feeling of opposition among the working
classes to the competition of foreign laborers. The Anarchist out¬
breaks io Chicago and Milwaukee are calculated to strengthen this
feeling, for the working people see that this violence, on the part
of the Poles, Bohemians and Germans, has for the present put a
stop to their agitation for shorter hours and better pay. A New
York daily paper, which circulates largely among the working
classes, proposes that a tax of $300 be imposed on every emigrant.
This would be sufficient, it is supposed, to keep out the class of
foreign desperadoes who propose to murder all who employ labor.
We are trying to exclude the hard-working and generally inoffen¬
sive Chinamen, and there is no reason why we should not also
shut our doors upon the murderous cranks who come to our shores
from Eastern Europe.

The passage of the Inter-State Railroad law by the Senate appa¬
rently insures the final appointment of a commission to supervise
our entire transportation system. At first, of course, its duties will be
of a routine character, but the time is coming when the nation
will have a controlling voice in the management of our railway
system. At present all is chaos; but if the government is able to
give stability to agreements between the various companies, the
public, as well as the stockholders of the great roads, will be the
gainersi