Apiil 14, 1894
Record and Guide.
571
ESTMUSHED-^ MAR.CH21«>-1868,
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Vol. liii.
APRIL 14, 1894.
No. 1,361
For additional Brooklyn matter, see Brooklyn Department immediately
following New .lersey records (page 5961.
The Duty of the Oitizen,
It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that
a man means well to his country; it is not enough that in his single
person he never did an evil act, iiut always voted according to his
conscience and even harangued against every design which he appre¬
hended to be prejudicial to the interests of his country. Tliis innox¬
ious and ineffectual character, that seems formed â– upon a plan of
apology and tUsculpation, falls miserably short o.f the mark of
public duty. That duty demands and requires that what is right
shoidd not only be made known, but made prevalent; that what is
evil should not only be detected, but defeated. When the public
man omits to put himself in a situation of doing his duty with effect
it is an omission that frustrates the purposes of his trust almost as
much as if he had formally betrayed it. It is surely no very rational
account of a man-s life thai he has always acted right, but has taken
special care to act in such a manner that his endeavors could not
possibly be productive of any consequence.
I do not wonder that the behavior o.f many parties should have
made persons o.f tender and scrupulous virtue sometvhat out of
humor with all sorts of connection in politics. T admit that people
frequently acquire in such ctmfeilerac'ies a narroio, bigoted and
proscriptive spirit; that they are apt to sink the idea of the general
good in this circumscribed and partial interest. But irhere duty
renders a critical situation a necessary one, it is our busiuess to keep
free from the evils attendant upon it, and not to,fly from the situa¬
tion itself . If a fortress is seated in an unwholesome air an officer
of the garrison is obliged to he attentive to his health, but he must
not desert his station. Edmund Burke.
THE way the stock market has taken the bad news of the
week, the sti-ike.s with accompanying violence, the stomis
and the un siitisfactory condition of geueiiil business has been
very encouraging to the holders of seeurities whose confidence
was particularly sustained by the strength and advance in the
face of the large gold engagements. In fact prices have not yet
reached a point where the ordinary bad news can hurt them. It
is still not difflcult to find in the list stocks and bonds sell¬
ing at low prices, which, notwithstanding the conditions, give
good i)romi,se of maintaining the fair return they now make on
the investment. 'While such is the fact the news must be very
bad indeed, to drive prices down far. Atchison securities
promise to become the immediate feature. It is reported that
the plan for putting the company on its feet again is about to be
announced. The break in the drought in Kansas is directly
beneficial to the compauy, because it has so much mileage in
that Stiite iind it is not unlikely that the practical iissuriince of
the crop in that State will be taken as a fitting occasion to
restore the company to credit. The most reason.ible explanation
of the nearly four millious of dollars gold for shipment in one
day, is that remitters have been liolding back expecting to see
a fall in Exchange, and failing that have been obliged at last to
ship gold. 'With the present narrow limits of foreign trade and
the .absence of otlier causes that m-dinarily tend to e(iualize
balances betweeu this country aud Eurojie, it maj' be that remit¬
tances against travelers' drafts, which ]iromise to be very con¬
siderable this year, niiiy cans'- the exjiort of gold to assume very
considerable proportions before it cetises. Foreign buying of
our securities, should it assiiiiie greiit iiroportions, vrould ott'set
this, but at jiresent this ciinnot be relied on to check the export
of gold. The depression of the world's business is causing
the return to London of a great deal of capit.il, and
as a consequence the gold in the Bank of Engl.and
has increased in the jiast year more than that of all the other
great state European banks put together, and the bank has iilso
an unprecedeuUy high resiiive. The development of the Taritt'
discussion in the Senate still favors the market movements o'
the Industrials. Secretary Carlisle's sounding of the market on
its capacity to take more government bonds, favors the idea that
there will be no tiirift' legislation this year. General business iu
almost every department can be best characterized by tho word
slow.
rpHE issue of new capital in London forthe first quarter of the
*â– - current year exceeded that of the coi-responding period of
last year by $12,500,000. That is undoubtedly a sign of renewed
activity, but how deep is the depression from which emergence
is now being made is seen from the fact that notwithstanding
tho increase over last year the new capital of the first quarter of
1894 is only about one-third what it was in the same time in auy
of the three years prior to last year. The figures for the flve
years are: 1894, $.51,325,000; 1893, $38,850,000; 1892,
$15.5,620,000; 1891, $153,225,000 ; 1890, $152,245,000. The
new Canadian Tariff'Bill is gi-eeted with satisfaction in Englaud
ns au acceptable break in the protectionist policy of the Dominion,
It is reported in connection with the withdrawal of Italian silver
coins from circulatiou in France that the government of
the latter country, although it has provided for the
exchange of the Italian coins, ma.v increase its own silver
currency by from 10,000,000 to 12,000,000 fiaiics. Paris is to
be congratultited if it is, as is reported, to have underground
rixpid transit. This question has always been raised whenever
an international exposition has been decided on, but the differ¬
ences between the State and the City of Paris as to what was
required, the former desiring strategic connections with the
gre.at lines of railroads of the countrj', and the city being
unvrilling to facilitate emigration to the suburbs, as well as the
great difficulty of raising the necessary capital bave always
hitherto proved to be insurmountable. The continued belief in
Germany in an early return of general prosperity is strengthen¬
ing all the markets there, even prices for manufactured iron are
advancing. The same remark applies to Austria. Great public
works are the order of the d.ay in Europe, among them it is pro¬
posed to clear the ch.annel of the Danube, so that in ten
years ocean steamers can unload in 'Vienna. The
final oflicial forecast of this year's Indian cotton crop
estimates the yield at 2,349,500 bales of 400 lbs. each against
1,913,700 billes in 1892-93. The area under cultivation
increased 15.7 percent. The depression in business has sent
the young men of Westei-n Australia prospecting for gold; as a
consequence exports of the yellow metal from that province in
the last three months of 1893 were $926,600 as compared -with
$505,200 in the same lime in the preceding .year, and the pros¬
pects for still better results this year are good. Reports of
increases of gold production come from so many sources that
the world's output in 1894 should pass the record of any
previous year.______________
DESPITE the fact that progress has been made this week,
the probabilities that the Chamber of Commerce Rapid
Transit Bill will be passed by the present State Legislature are
still very small. The city .authorities have publicly placed them¬
selves in an uncompromising'position of hostility to the measure,
iuid we take it for gi-anted that this opposition will be decisive,
in view of the undoubted copartnership that exists between the
leaders of Tammany Hall aud the gentlemen now in control of
the State Republican machine. 'Were there a strong, emphatic,
pronounced public support given to the Chamber of Commerce
bill this opposition might be less potent, but -with the people of
this city as apathetic as they are, there is no impeciimeut to
playing the game of "politics" fiw " all it is worth."
----------â– ----------
INDEED, why shonld not the selfish, personal considerations
of politicians itile in a matter where the citizens of Ne-w
York show themselves totally indifferent to the promotion of the
Larger interests of the Metropolis? We publish elsewhere In
this paper a review of the Real Est,ate Market, which in mauy
particulars is markedly unsatisfactory. It will be seen that iu
the upper wards ou the East Side—on the 'West Side and in Har¬
lem—real est.ate is far from being in a flourishing condition.
This is partly due, undoubtedly, to the present unpropitious
state of general trade, but it is indisputable that the existing
intolerable condition of Rapid Transit has contributed not a little
to the dullness and the weakness prevalent. The upper part of this
island, to say nothing of the great wards beyond the Harlem, into
which population should be spreading, is in a state of arrested
development. Even if general business were booming it would
be quite impossible for there to be in that region really active
buying, buildiug or renting. The channels for jirosperity are
choked. Exp.ansiou and enterprise on an important scale are
impossible. With thousands of people, the inconvenience and
barbarism of the iouriiey uptown detracts, to state the matteriu
figures, full.v 25 per cent from the desirableness of i-esidence
anywhere above 59th street. There can be no doubt i hat rather
than endure the trip thousands wlio would otherwise be living
in the region around Central .Park hu've estabiisbcd themselveB