Septemlber tS, 1891





Record  and  Guide.





287









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Vol. XLYIII





SEPTEJIBER  5, 1891.





No. 1,225





UNDER pretense of imminence and removal of danger from
frost, but really on some heavy realizing and correspond¬
ingly heavy new buying, the stock market has maintained its
advance and in some cases has made net gains in the past week.
Such a movement as this has not been spen for so long that it
puzzles everyone rot familiar with the history of this market. It
is a case where experience rather deters than helps to success. The
traders, the men who are in it all the time, who assiduously watch
the movements of prices and have eyes active to discover domestic
or foreign complications or extrications likely to niove quotations
one way or the other, have long since taken their profits and, with
the exception of the few who see the unusualness of the movement
and have bought again, have been working industriously for a
reaction. That stocks should have made the advances they have,
some as much as 17 or 18 points from tbe lowest on the last decline,
with Only a reaclive movement now and then of a point or two is
certainly unusual; but that, instead of giving ground for belief in
a certain heavy decline, ought to prove that the situation is one not
to be judged by ordinary conditions. The trader who applies the
rules good in times when the market fluctuates five or six points
one way or the other will lose his money. The present movement
resembles a political crisis, wben neither party will take hold of
some question vital to the public but only important to the poli¬
tician as a means of gaining or holding power, which the public
takes up and compels its representatives to carry. In the stock
raarket both hull and bear were quite content to send the ball back
and forth within a 5 per cent limit, but suddenlj it was snatched
from them and sent out of sight. We have passed so many feared
dangers without mishap that confidence grows apace. This month
has opened without disclosing that the government has any diffi¬
culty in dealing with the matured 4i^s. Money in spite of the
increase in the volume of stock business is easy, and
some passing of interest which was feared "~ha3 not
happened. There is a strong hope, too, that present
fears of trouble in particular cases may prove as lightly
founded. In reviewing the whole situation, and for the moment
the most just conclusion arrived at, would be that there is a grip
upon tbe market which can put prices much higher, but as the
movement so far can only be characterised as a speculative one
there is always a danger of scare and a consequent break. If the
demand for investment bonds had been maintained in the good
proportions of three weeks ago, there could only be one view of
the situation, but when, as now, good bonds are selling below, and
in cases very much below stocks, paying little if anything
more and sometimes not so much, there is always room to appre¬
hend a readjustment of the quotations. Viewed for the future,
there is no doubt whatever that a bull movement is only now in its
initial stage.

■-----------

THE foreign markets are at the present time quite devoid of new
features. It is not too much to say that almost the sole con¬
dition affecting prices is the condition of the cereal market. Any
speculation in which English operators are at present indulging is
carried on in American securities. Other issues are dull and weak.
In a similar way Berlin is occupied with the grain situation, and
its effects on Russian securities, which are of course weak and
feverish. Neither is there likely to be any change in this respect
throughout the fall. For a month past the political situation has
been far from assuring ; but now it is apparent that the winter
will be passed without any disturbaijce. With that much certainty
the foreigners must rest content.





/~VN Thursday evening last, the committee of one hundred
^-^ " champions of the people," as the Times calls them, minus
" quite a number," assembled in one of the parlors of the Hotel
Brunswick. The meeting was called only for the purpose of con¬
stituting an executive committee, which is to bear the brunt and





heat of the battle. This committee numbers nine of the champions.
Th8 meeting was so very free from incidents of importance, that
we should not deem it necessary to grant it any attention, was it
not that the future plans of the committee were revealed.
• They are 'going to make an onslaught on the Park Commis¬
sioners, and if defeated there, carry the case to the Legis¬
lature. Alderman Morris thought that the executive com¬
mittee ought to address to each candidate for the Senate,
the Assembly and the Board of Aldermen a list of ques
tions prepared to define the attitude of every candidate in regard to
this movement. We do not think that if Alderman Morris' advice
is adopted they will chose the path of wisdom. There is
no objection that we can see in committing the cnndidates for
aldermen to the displacement of the elevated tracks in Battery
Park, because the aldermen cannot do anything but pass resolutions
which nobody cares anything about. But in the Legislature there
is every reason to believe that the champions of the people will be
on the defensive, and that is something that champions should never
be. People who have been following the course of public senti¬
ment, particularly in the upper wards, are very well aware
that the Manhattan Company has been gaining rather
than losing ground this summer, for there can be no doubt thnt Mr.
Gould's agents have secured in their favor (by corrupt means, no
doubt,) the logic of events; while opposed to this there is nothing
but a mass of sentiment, partly due to misunderstanding, partly
peurile, partly contemptible. The logic of events has been saying
more and more clearly all summer tLat during the necessarily long
interval before the Rapid Transit Commissioners can get any part
of any route in operation, that the traveling public will need some¬
what better accommodations, and as the pressure grows more unen¬
durable the logic of events will speak stiU louder. We by
no means predict the triumph of the Battery Park " grabbers,"
but without doubt next winter their voices will be heard high
throughout the city. The champion's mouthpiece stated last week
that the obstacles in the way of the movement were the
" greatest possible." Now it is obvious that even according to the
words of the mouthpiece the conflict will be nothing better than the
old one between an irresistible force and an immovable body. But
what if this "greatest possible" obstacle should itself get under
way. Manifestly its momentum would be tremendous. Could the
champions withstand it ? We cannot say; but think of the possible
spectacle—champions put to rout.   It would be a sorry sight.





THE Socialistic programme, or rather programmes, so far as
drawn up, receive a good deal of vague sympathy and support
from people who are not so well off as they fancy they deserve to
be, because it is thought that a closer division of production by
polls instead of by merit, or what passes for merit, would give
everyone a very sufflcient competency. The Massachusetts Bureau
of Statistics has published some figures which run counter to these
anticipations. Investigations made by the Bureau show that the
average yearly wages of work-people of both sexes employed by
individuals and firms engaged in manufactures, amount to $362.23,
while the employers receive $517 each, which represents both salary
and profit. The average is lower in the case of corporations, for it
appears that the workmen engaged by them receive average wages
of $333.22, but then the stockholders realize only $379
on their investment. These figures certainly afford no
glimpses of the Socialistic millennium. Indeed, if these
figures be correct, it is hard to see by what process of equal
division the average earnings of work-people is to be much in¬
creased. We do not believe that very many people would give up
their chances of getting " what they can " for an assurance of their
"average," even with theu- share of the employer's and stockhold¬
er's net profit added thereto. These figures possess no scientific
accuracy and are little better than a guess based upon a mass of
data, for which the ^taxpayers in Massachusetts had to pay pretty
heavily. They are not, however, so far from the truth as to be
without a lesson for visionaries.





THE English builder, so far as we know, has never been a per
son of very much interest to his New York prototype.
Building is not an international affair, being on the contrary the
most local of the large industries of a country. Nevertheless, since
there are some men in London and elsewhere throughout England
who make money by speculative and contract building, their New
York brethren in trade may be interested to learn a little something
about their ways, particularly as that something is nothing to their
good. According to the report of the English Inspector-General
of Bankru{)tcy, the English speculative builders are men of a " bad
system." Taking the country through, the Inspector-
General states that while bankruptcy in those trades which
are based on credit is decreasing, that of the
non-trading class is increasing or remaining steady. In other
words, business proper in England is becoming more secure all the
time. There is, however, one trade to which this does not apply—
the building trade, itself ohe of the four largest classes of failures.