June ?,, 1898





Record   and   Lruide.





8t7







B^ISJrtst AlfolHEMES Of Ct^ER^ l^TCflf ll

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Published every Saturday.
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J. 7. LINDSEY, Bitsiness Manager,

"Entered at the Post-offlce at New York, N. F., as second-class matter."





VOL.  U.





JUNE 3, 1898.





No. 1,3! 6





ALL tbat can be said of the stock market is tbat each week
brings us nearer to the end of a process of liquidation whose
extent cannot be measured. Tbe most anxious glances are now
cast towards the West, so much depending on the crop con¬
ditions, and the results of the Fair, in which tlie
city of Chicago itself has bo much at stake. The way in
which Chicago took hold of the Fair and has carried it up to the
point of the financial test lias been a matter of general admiration.
There is no question about the success of the Fair as a great exhi¬
bition compared with its predecessors, but what the money market
wants to know is, will the pecuniary return be iu proportion to the
effort and outlay? First results have not been encouraging, and
Chicago is feeling the strain of waiting. If precedents count for
anything there is good hope for the Fair's financial success. The
early months of opening of thegreat Exposition have not been the
beat, but no doubt is telling and will contiue to tell on Chicago
properties. In other directions there is still a want of certainty
of the carrying through of large undertakings, and consequently
quotatiors suffer, notably in the instance of Richmond Terminal
and Reading; but it ia highly probable that the worst has been seen
in both these cases. While the great exchanges for securities and
commodities are suffering, it is encouraging to note that in small
lines, that attract little attention outside of themselves, good
reporls are made, both of business and prices. There is, too, the
thought that it is in times when the outlook is gloomiest that the
improvement is nearest. Here and there can be seen things that
are cheap and that should attract, if peoi^le only have the courage
to buy.





THE reports that have been circulated this week to the effect
that the Pennsylvania irou and steel manufacturers have
decided that a reduction of wages is absolutely necessary to a con¬
tinuance of business is, we believe, the precursor of a movement
in the same direction which must yet take place in very many
branches of industry. During the past few years wages generally
in this country have been forced up by the trade unions with too
little regard for any considerations beyond the immediately selfish
one of getting all that the employer could be forced to yield under
fear of boycott or strike and the loss attending a sudden cessation
of operations. There cau be no doubt that in many cases wages
far above the warrant of conditions have been thus extorted, and
though for a time this could be endured, all that was needed to
l)ring about the inevitable readjustment wa.s such slack times as
■we have been having for the past twelve months. Indeed, the ex¬
isting dullness is in no small measure due to the unreasonable con¬
dition of the labor market, which in part has been bolstered up by
the excessive protection of the McKinley tariff. Tbe unhealthy
stimulus, the impossible promises of.that ill-concocted piece of leg¬
islature, is largely responsible for the undue advance in wages.
It undoubtedly threw a great deal of what we may call imagina¬
tion into our commercial life. It begat loose calculation, a ready
extension of enterprise in more or less unprofitable directions, an
impairment in many quarters of that reasonable conserva-
tivism and commercial frugality which is essential to
steady prosperity.; Naturally, Labor was in demand, aud naturally,
too, Labor made all it could of the opportunity. Opposition was
slight. Wages rose with these general results—the prices of domes¬
tic commodities stiffened and advanced while abroad (the higher
tariff excluding to some extent the foreigner's goods) wages fell
until the increased "protection" ofthe McKinley law was neu¬
tralized and importations on the old scale recommenced. Our friend
the Tribune was unable to see that its jubilation over the reduction
of wages abroad was the joy of misunderstanding, for every decline
of wages in Europe brought the foreign manufacturer nearer to our
own market despite the higher tariff. Of course, with large impor¬
tations and the coming of slack times the question of wages waa





bound to receive some determined consideration from the manu¬
facturer and employer. Reduction became inevitable, and it is
very likely indeed that in the time immediately before us the work¬
ing classes will have to forego some of the adva,nce8 they have been
able to make in the last few years. Trades unions are always less
effective with a falling market than with a rieing one, and we shall
not be surprised to see for a time avery decided diminution of their
power in the industrial world.





Dividends or No Dividends ?

DURING the past week a small paragraph has been going the
rounds of the press telling tbe public that the increase in the
assessed valuation of real estate in this city during the last twelve
months amounted to .?160,000,000, of which a considerable portion
was due to the greater value of property in the 12th Ward—that
is, Manhattan Island north of 86Lh street. As with so much pise
wliich the fif teen-dollar-a-week reporter is permitted to dole out to
tlie adult population of New York, the statement in detail is quite
incon-ect. There was no such increase as that staled, which is
something like two-thirds too large. The exact figures are not at
this moment obtainable, as the work of the Department of Taxes
and Assessments is not yet complete. Still the statement is true
to this extent—there is a large increase to record, and much of the
increase, whatever it may be, is due totbe development]of the upper
wards.

But thatis notour poiut. Year by year the value of real estate
in New York increases by millions. The process is a steady one
and few persons outside of the Tax Department pay any heed to
it. In referring to it now our purpose is to interject it into the con¬
sideration of the Rapid Transit problem, for it should be there—a
matter of extreme significance which hitherto has been quite
overlooked.

If any well-informed person will sit down for a moment witb pen
or pencil and outline New York's chief necessities inthe direction
of better transportation, he will find, we believe, when he has com¬
pleted bis work, that he has elaborated a scheme which cannot pos¬
sibly be a dividend-paying project. The Rapid Transit Com¬
missioners themselves made the attempt at the outset
of their labors, ami reache<l the conclusion that the idea!
system^that is, a viaduct road through the blocks—was
financially impracticable. Of course, we must take this to
mean simply that such a road would not pay dividends imme¬
diately: for New York certainly could afford to build such a road
if ability to spend were the only consideration. The Commissioners
made another attempt—for it was really the second—to devise a
dividend-paying system, and after sacrificing a great many of the
requirements of the ideal system, hit upon the underground road
plan. In the estimation both of the public and of tbe Commis¬
sioners themselves there was not a single requirement or stipulation
in that project which was at all superfluous or extravagant. The
character of the construction, the number of lines, the nature of
the service, the speed of the trains, the limit placed upon fares were
all dictated by the obvious necessities of New York's position. But,
when this second plan was put up for sale no responsible person
would give one cent for it.    It would not pay dividends.

The Commissioners then went to work again. They raade another
plan. They departed still further from the ideal. They agreed that
New York would have to get along witb very much less adequate
transportation than they had at flrst contemplated. They concocted
and offered a patchwork scheme to the Manhattan Company, a
scheme which certainly, if carried out, would give New York the
minimum of Rapid Ti-ansit possible. Yet what was the result?
Here again the lesson of the previous attempts was driven home.
Neiv York requires {placing the requirements at the very lowest) a
system of Rapid Transit that loill not yield an immediate dividend.
Now,if this be the case, and who maintains the contrary? are we
not acting very illogically in endeavoring to devise a Rapid Transit
system upon a dividend-paying oasis. What is the use of going to
any corporation for what we want ? No corporation can give it to us.
Our experience, lately, ebows it. Commercially speaking, it is
little short of burlesque to ask, as the Commissioners did, any
money-making concern to run express trains to the cily limits, some
fifteen miles, for a fare of five cents. Fifteen miles is one-sixth of
the way to Pbiladelphia, and the Pennsylvauia R. R. is not at present
engaged in transporting passengers to that city, at the rate of forty
miles an hour, for thirty cents. Indeed, no railroad company can
carry passengers, profitably, fifteen miles, even on a freight train,
for live cents; and George Gould, we believe, was acting only as a
business man in rejecting the "exfceniion proposals'" of the Rapid
Transit Commissioners as commercially absurd. Mr. Gould is in
tbe railroad business for dividends, and no man, no body of men,
can possibly give New York even a part of tbe service it requires
to-day and make dividends.

Only an imbecile can believe that a great new transportation
system can be built tbrough to tbe city line, furnish adequate
through service at 5 centsand pay dividends. Yet who will deny that
this is the very sort of service that New York imperatively requires?