Febrnary 24,1894





Record   and   Guide.





289







ESTABLISHED-^ fl\M^.CH 2li!> 1868,

Dev&teD to Real Eswe . BuiLoif/c AR-crfiTECT^iRE .KousEifou) DEGcmjTiod,
Bi/siiIess Atfo Themes OFGEffei^^ IKtef^esi.
PRICE,  PER   YEAR   IN   ADVANCE,  SIX   DOLLARS.

Published every Saturday.

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Communioationa shoidd be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street.
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" Entered at the Post-offlce al New Tork, N. T., as second-class matter."

Vol. LIII.             FEBRUARY 24, 1894.            No. 1,354

For additional Brooklyn matter, see Brooklyn Department immediately
following New Jersey records {page 311).

AN interesting question is raised in accounting for the world¬
wide bu.sines.s depression tbrough which we are now pa8.s-
ing, and th:it is how far the peace that has existed throughout
Europe for nearly twenty years has contributed in bringing
it about. War is a great destroyer ; not only does it draw away
hundreds of thousands, and in biter times millions of able-bodied
men from the industrial populations, whose loss is felt for many
years, but it consitines so much of the product of times of peace;
towns and cities are sacked with a resulting sum
of destruction to buildings, plants, machinery, crops
and stores, enormous in its proportions. The replace¬
ment of these necessaries so destroyed must have a tend¬
ency to keep up prices, .iust as the world, when at pe;ice, is sure
to produce more than it can consume and the surplus must be
sold for what it will bring, thus inevitably lowering prices.
Offsetting thia of course is the loss of consumers from death
and disease engendered by war, but that cauuot eiiiial the loss
of supplies, and conseiinently war is a great factor in main¬
taining prices. No oue is inhuman enough to advocate
war as a cure for business depression, but in a scientific
examination of the causes of that depression it ought not
to be lost sight of. Coming to the matter of the condition of
business itself at this moment, it cannot be said that the
week has produced much if any improvement. On tlie Stock
Exchange commission business is as near to dead as it c.in be,
and iu railroad securities is likely to continue so until there are
Iirospects for better earnings. The continued report of decrease
after decrease is too depressing to permit of a rise in prices.
Any one who buys railroad stocks uow must do so with
the expectation of seeing unfavorable earnings probably
until the summer. Comparisons are now and will
for some mouths to come be made with the period
ot active business which preceded the opening of
the World's Fair; when Juue arrives will begin a
comparison with the b.ad times that still continue. In the dry-
goods trade buyers continue to hold oft', and while the week is
equal to that proceeding it, it makes no showing as compared
with the same time a year ago. And so it is in most other lines.
In iron and steel there is a sign of a little improvement encour¬
aged perhaps by the low price of ores.





BUSINESS men in Great Britain find promise of better trade
iu the returns of imports and exports for last month, both
of which increasetl .somewhat. The condition of the silver mar¬
ket and the prospect of a general election in the near future
limit improvement to a moderate recovery from great depres¬
sion. The Bank of England has responded to the demand for
extended discounts by notifying bill-brokers that instead of
discounting 1.5-day bills only it will take 30-day bills <it its
published rate. The new French 31.2 per cent rente have become
very popular, gaining in one week the recently paid coupon. It
is needless to say that money is plentiful and cheap at Pans, as
it is at all great money centres. No decision hits been come to
as to the amount of the duty to be put upon imported wheat.
The difi'erence between the prices at which wheat can be imported
and grown in France estimated at 6G per cent on the price of the
grown wheat is the extreme suggested. Russia, however, has
informally entered a protest against a lieavy import duty on wheat
and in vit w of the peculiarly complicated political relations of the
European powers, this is likely to have some weight in, at least,
moderating the duty. \V hile attempts are being nuide to protect
the home wheat grower, crop reports are very favorable. The
agrarian opposition iu Germany to the treaty with Russiii bids
fair to fail under the more prevalent idea that the treaty will
stimulate manufactures and trade generally, besides bringing
the j-elatioos of the two countries on to a more amicable footing,





The reduction in Russian import duties on coal, manufactured
iron and steel, machinery, etc., under the treaty are consider¬
able and are calculated to more thiin offset any injury done to
the agriciilturitl iuterest. In matters of this kind the probable
tot.al benefit is looked at more than the loss in any one item.
It is anticipated, too, that the putting in force of the treaty
will result in Berlin again becoming the centre for Russian
fiu.ancial operations in which considerable profit would come
to the banks there. But the Reichstag has to pass upon the
treaty yet and meantime money is idle and cheap and trade
dull. Vienna has seen a reaction in prices. The Austro-
Hungarian Bank's shareholders h.ave ratified the plan
stated here some time ago for putting into circulatiou
the new gold coinage of the Empire. Both the capital of the
Empire and that of the Kingdom are regarded suspiciously from
other points in view of the fact that they have not liquidated
while all others have. Attempts have been made to break Aus¬
trian and Hungarian securities in other markets, but so far with¬
out success; but this does not lessen the suspicion with which
they are regarded. The clearing of the Europ(^aii political sky
gives some encoiuagement to Italian financiers as it makes a
wholesale reduction in military expenditures more probable than
has hitherto seemed possible. The relief thus gained would help
the work of putting the finances of the country ou a more stable
basis than they now are, though it would not solve the whole
problem. The tax-gatherer in Spain is becoming as obnoxious
as he recently was in Sicily and Southern Italy. As yet this
dislike has been confined to demon.strations ouly, but the fact
that the government is holding troops in readiness to quell any
disturbance shows how heavil.v the people are burdened and
how .iust their complaints are. The Argentine Hou.se of Deputies
has voted to increase the honorarium of its members from $700
to !f;i,000 a month, besides increasing the salaries of .iiid.ges and
other ottici.als and the grants for religious and charitable pur¬
poses, while their country is still bankrupt and unable to carry
out the modified arrangement made with its creditors.





THE .iubiliition over the conviction of McKane is an empty
business. These spasmodic triumphs of popular vengeance
may perhiips serve justice in some degree, but they have also
something in them of the nature of t.yranny aud violence. Cer-
tiiinly they are not the expression of a calm deterniination of the
people to preserve tlie purity of government iu all its branches.
They are not the results of the ordinai-.v vigilance and workings
of the Law. The.y are essentially extraordiuar.y and fortuitous.
McKane, indeed, broke the law; but the law broken was
scarcely oue of the really active statutes of the land. In all
political matters, the public conscience is extremel.v lax. Party
villany is tacitly jiermitted even to extreme len.gths ; so that it
may be said that McKaiie had in a sense a popular warrant for
the crime he committed. To siiddenl.y su.speiul this understand¬
ing, and change, as it were, the rufts of the giime, must in all
fairness be regarded by the candid as slightly arbitrary and
unjust. McKane may rightl.v demaud wh.y this sudden rigor
towards him. Prob.ably there .are ver.y few of our "bosses"
and the legion of .scurvy politicians who could not be
convicted of even worse crimes than his, were onl.y a popular hue
and cry raised against them. Indeed, now that all the story is
out, McKane stands forth as a very decent indi-vidual for a
" bos.s" and a politician. It is true he played his own dirty polit¬
ical game irrespective of the public interests, but did not the
entire countr.y permit him to do so for years ; did not both the
Republiciiu iiarty aud the Democratic party at dift'erent times
kno-wingly participate in the result of his audacity ? Isn't it
rather absurd to preach about " the Law" .at this late day ? What
has the Law been doing since McKiine's .anthorit.v first became
paramount in Gravesend ? And what will "the Law"' do now
■with the scores of other rascals who far more richly merit the
penitentiary thau McKane 1 Clearl.y these periodical outbreaks
of virtue on the part of the public are miscarriages of justice.
The cant about the "public conscience" and the "purity ot the
ballot" to the tune of which the sacrifice of the scapegoat is per¬
formed is hypocritical and sickening. And as a chorus to the
farce we have those two Dromios of cheap vulgarity, the Herald
and the TFoi-^f?, braying as to which is to be credited with having
secured the con-viction ! The purification of politics, indeed,
seems to be rn iridescent dream; but what is to be gained by
adding ciint, h.-ypocrisy and cheap fake newspaper advertising
to the dirty mess ?          ______

THE public is more to be congratulated upon the appointment
of Senator White to the .Supreme Court bench than is that
gentleman himself. This is not becau.se the man is too good for
the position or the position for the man, but because the dispute
over the choice for this office was in danger of becoming a
scandal aud of occupying time that had better be given to more
important matters, important as the selection of a fitting person
to fill so high an oflice is. For a time it looked very much as
if the President had forgotten that the Senate was a part of the
appointing machinery, expressly created to limit as far as pes-