May 24, 1890"





Record  and  Guide.





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De/oTED to f{Vi ESWE . BUlLDIf/O Ajf,Ct(lTECTJl^E .KoUSEUOLD DEGDF^^TlOli.

BusiiiEss Alto Themes of GeHeRA^ 1;Jt£i\esj
PRICE, PER VEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.

Prthlished evei-y Saturday.
TELEPHONE,          .          -          -          JOHN   370.

Commiiuications should be addressed to

C.W. SWEET, 191   Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Busineos Manager.





Vol. XLV.





MAY 24, 1890.





No. 1,158.





It is a rea! misfortime for the bull market, about whicii of late so
much has been written, that during the last week it has had no
better pap than that which was offered it by the Richmond Terminal
people. Unless the quality of the food gets better the outside public
will soon have a bad case of indigestion, and stocks will rattle down
at as lively a pace as they ever mouiited upwards. There
is, however, a much better outlook ahead. It would seem
to be a certainty that next week the "Western rate troubles will be
settled, particularly as Mr. Gould holds the key, which he is likely
to ttu-n very suddenly; but if one is to believe the Chicago
dispatches there is every probability of an Eastern trunk line
war. Congress is sure to pass a silver bill of sorae kind, and it
looks as though it would be an extremely liberal one.
There seems to be some difference of opinion as to the effect of the
Silver bill on our gold exports. It is assumed in London that the
total ot our silver exports will be replaced by gold, plus the gold
which would be sent in the ordinary course of affairs. If, however,
they act on any such assumption it maybe confidently asserted that
they reckon without their host. The coinage of silver in this
country and the issue of silver certificates has heen accompanied
not by loss but byan increase in our amount of gold. Disregarding
any such possibility, then, as a cloud on the future course of prices in
"Wall street, it is perhaps better just at present not to expect too much
of an immediate advance. The rate situation in the West is not all
that it might be. A Chicago newspaper says that the lines east of
that city are on the verge of an upheaval, which promises to dwarf
the passenger rate war of the Western lines. Commission paying
has been growing to such proportions that scalpers have taken
advantage of it to cut the rate to New York. If this be true, it
would possibly act as a severe check to the market—one which
could be counter-balanced only by the possibility above referred to
of Mr, Gould settling the rate difficulty on the Westei-n lines. On
the whole, while the market cannot be considered an undoubted
purchase, it would be just about as dangerous to sell it.





We print on another page a series of interviews regarding the
advisability of tbe city's owning and operating whatever uew rapid
transit facilities Time and our political masters at Albany may
vouclisafe to us. It will be seen that nearly everyone of the gentle¬
men interviewed is opposed to a complete cession of any transpor¬
tation franchise to a private corporation, and several indorse tbe
more radical view expressed two weeks ago in these columns, that
the city itself is the only owner that can be safely trusted with the
management of so great a ptiblic necessity as rapid transit facilities
must be in a city conditioned as New York is. The principal objec¬
tion urged against the city's bailding or operating new lines is that
our politicians, who would have charge of the matter, are too cor¬
rupt to be trusted with any further powers or duties. It must be
admitted that there is some force in this, though at the same time
it is hard to refrain from commenting on the character of a com¬
munity that persists in tolerating a government which it dares uot
permit to deal with new municipal necessities as they arise.
Moreover, th6 objection is an objection in so far only as
our present corrojpt government is irremediable, and indeed
those who m-ge tliis objection plainly imply that at best
good government in New York City is a remote possibility.
This view, however, is too pessimistic, and though it is far from our
intention to extol the system of spoils and plunder that is dignified
by the name of government in this city, it has been shown in cer¬
tain directions that average or even good results are not altogether
impossible under it. But of more importance than this is the daily
increasing bodyof facts^demonstrating the success, not absolute but
relative, of municipal management of public works throughout the
country when those works must be, from their very nature, monopo¬
lies. Government here is no worse than in Chicago, Philadelphia,
Eichmond and other cities. Yet there the municipality has success¬
fully undertaken works, such as the supplying of gas and electricity,
with results that are ou the whole more satisfactory to the public
than those produced under private ownership, yet in this city people
probably   wordd   oppose   municipal   control   of   the   gas   supply





for the very reason given for the opposition to the city's owning and
operatiug new transportation lines, viz.: that our officials are not to
bs trusted. We believe that any one who will carefully weigh the
many considerations iuvolved in the matter will be in favor of the
city's owning, if not controlling, any further transportation lines
that may be'created.

----------»----------

The Special Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature
appointed some time ago to visit the aeveral cities in this country
which own their own gas plants, and to report on the practical
operation of these works, have—assuming that they were unpreju¬
diced in their investigations—demonstrated an incapacity to deal
with matters of public concern which even iu persons of less pre¬
tension would aeem startling. A glance at the part of the report
of the committee which pertains to the city gas works of Rich¬
mond is enough to show their inability properly to perform the
task assigned them. The committee give §33,065 as the apparent
cash balance derived from the gas works in the city treasury at
the endof last year. They are generous enough to add to this sum
135,558, or the amount of gas furnished <ree of charge for public
lighting, computed at 87 cents per 100 feet, making the total
apparent profit of the city gas works $68,593. But from this total
sum the committee think should be deducted ?90,000, or intereat
at 6 per cent, on $1,500,000, the estimated value which they place
on the plant, and $31,000, the sum which the city would collect
from the gas works were they private. According to the com¬
mittee's calculation, therefore, the City of Richmond actually lost
§42,405 last year by operating ita own 'gas plaut, as compared, that
is, with what it would have cost the city had the works been in the
control of private companies. Now, what is wrong with this cal¬
culation? In the first place, the net profit from last year's man¬
agement, as given in the report of the superintendent of the
works, was $58,390—over a third larger sum, that is, than that
stated by the committee. A senseless step next taken by the
committeee is to compute the value of the gas used by the city at
87 cents per thousand feet, the cost of city manufacture, instead of
at $1.50, the price charged for gas in Richmond and that which the
city would, at the least estimate, have had to pay rival companies
for gas. These two corrections bring up the real profit of the city
from its gas works to $123,094. The value of the city gas works
of Richmond is placed by Mayor EUyson at $800,000—a little more
than half the estimated sum given by the committee. To deduct
from the annual profit of the gas works intereat at 6 per cent.
on even this diminished sum would display an igncrance of facts
concerning the plant and its management. Why should interest
on the value of the whole plaut be placed to the expenditure
account of the city when the works have already been in gi-eat
part paid for out of their own annual profits. It must be remem¬
bered that when once a city comes into complete ownership of a
plant there is no longer any need of interest on the invest¬
ment to be earned. Then, too, the committee forget when they
deduct taxes which the city would derive from the gas works were
tbey private that under private control of gas works the tax is
some how always shifted to the community. For this reason it is
not clear that taxes to the amount stated should be deducted
from proflts of city gas works. This blundering committee came
withiu just about $150,000 of the truth.





Though Socialistic tendencies are so strong at present that Har-
court's " We are all Sociahsts now" is rapidly losing its exaggera¬
tion, very little attention is given to the direction the facts of
social life are taking—to discover whether their trend is towards or
away from Socialism. After all, this ia a far more important mat¬
ter than the extension of the Socialistic propaganda, the raaking of
proselytes, the speech of a Prime Minister, or the actions of an inex¬
perienced young monarch, for circumstances much more tban
theories and doctrine have been the preceptor of man, and the
world usually does, not what it considers abstractly the best, but
what it practically cannot well avoid doing. It prefers expediency
to experiment. Por an example of this we have only to turn to the
Free Trade movement iu Great Britain, which we see did not attain
any practical result worth speaking of until famine caused the
repeal of the Corn Laws, and led subsequently to tlie complete revo¬
lution of the commercial principles of the nation. In like manner
the fate of Socialism will be determined by the practical facts of
daily life rather than by tbe acceptance or rejection of a theory.





Que of the characteristics of legislation in recent years in nearly
every country where government is at all popular, is that it has
beeu to so great an extent essentially Socialistic, For instance, the
English Government has been compelled hy the hard necessity of
facts to adopt measures more or less Socialistic in dealing with the
condition of Ireland. It has been forced by circumstances to inter¬
vene between landlord and tenant to annul contracts, to "fix"
rents arbitrarily, and to lend State funds. In all countries every
increment to the political power possessed by labor has been followed
iu a short time by an extension of State activity.   Factory laws,