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May 12,1894
Record and Guide.
74^
'ft FSTIBI KHpri
established"^ 4WPH sw"
Dev&tED to Real Estaie . Builnif/o ^cKiTECTunE ,KoUse:i<ou) DEGOl^Tm*,
PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.
Published every Saturday.
Telephone,......Cortlandt 1370
OommnnlcatiODS should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street.
J. 1. LINDSET. Business Manager.
Brooklyn Office, 276-282 Washington Street,
Opp. Post Office.
" Entered at the Post-office al New York, N. Y,, as second-class matter."
Vol.
LIII.
MAY 12,
189-1.
No.
1,365
I'or additional Brooklyn matter, aee
following Neic Jersey records (page 778
Brooklyn Department immediately
WITH SUPPLEMENT.
THE week has developed nothiug to change the business out¬
look. In dry-goods, iron and the other great departments
of manufactures there is about trade enough, in conjunction
with the constant hope of manufacturers that an improvement
in demand may spring up to maiutain prices at tlie basis that
has prevailed for some time. The government crop report failed
to influence either the cotton or grain markets, principally
because other reports contradicted it, and the government report
has for some time ceased to havo any weight as against private
expert and State otticial reports. The stock market is probably
the dullest of all the markets of the country. Even professional
operations, based ou the news from Washington, are small, aud
of investmeut buying there is none either in stocks or bonds.
What news there is favors the bears. The tieiuoralizatiou
of rates everywhere, with consequent declines in railroad
earnings, gold e.xports and labor troubles operate against i)rices
of railroad issues, and while the Industrials can be influenced
by tarifl:'news from time to time there can be no solidity to any
advance that is made in them for the simple reason that
representing purely trading concerns they cannot be doing well
when all the rest of the country is doing comparatively nothing.
In this counection it is of interest to notice the statement made
by the Uuited Stiites Cordage Company to the New York Stock
Exchange, which shows that the working capital of $3,000,000
raised by assessments on the two classes of old stock has already
diminished by $.500,000 although the new company is
but now issuing its securities. The continued outflow of
gold threatens the Treasury gold surplus seriously and if
sentiment in regard to that matter has not changed it will
soon be necessary to make a new issue of bonds in
order to avoid greater mischief. Among the causes of the gold
shipments, there is one that has apparently escaped notice
entirely and that is the falling ott' in immigration. Every immi¬
grant landing here enriches this country by the ainount of his
pecuniary resources, every cent of which heljis to change the
unseen balance of trade. Eighteen months ago, we produced
a series of calculations showing that each immigrant had money
resources of .ibout twenty dollars, and it will be seen that with
immigration at a standstill there is also a great falling ott' in
the foreign money coming into the country that goes directly to
offset demands on us from abroad.
AS the details x)f the subscription to the new City of Paris
loiin come to hand, the speculative element therein
accounts for the extrjiordinary oversubscription, amounting to
nearly eighty-four times the face of the loan. Forty million
dollars were asked for, and subscribers for four bonds or under
were to be served without reduction, the deposit on favored
subscriptions was $10 per bond of $80 nominal and $70 net, no
further payment being required until November next. The
bonds rose to a premium of from $3 to $4 before issue, conse¬
quently on a deposit of $40 from $12 to $16 could be made
immediately by assignmeut of the allotment as soon as made.
Thousands who could not pay for the bonds outright joined in
the subscription solely to realize the premium, and that in a
great measure accounts for the fact that the subscriptions
reached the almost incredible total of $3,394,000,000. Others
were doubtless attracted by the lottery part of the loan, which
provides for the distribution of $160,000 annually in four
drawings. Had there been no premium and no lottery attrac¬
tions the loan would certainly have been oversubscribed by
bona fide investors, simply because it presents a better use for
money than could be obtained at the banks, but probably not
more so thau other municipal and apvemment loans have been.
All the great French railroads show au increase of earnings in
the first quarter of the year over the same time in 1893. The
railways of Great Britain, Germany and Austria are also increas¬
ing their receipts. In the present world-wide disturbance of
labor -the report fi'om London that socialistic murderous rant
is rewarded with corporeal punishment at the hands of the work¬
ingmen to whom it is addressed is the cheeriest thing possible ;
besides the encouragement to be found in this attitude of any
body of workingmen, the picttire of a would-be destroyer of
organized governnient squealing for the despised police to protect
him from a good and deserved thumping is a joke of the richest
hue. The idea of a cable across the Atlantic and Pacitic Oceans
via the Canadian Pacific railways is expected to take definite
shape at a conference to be held at Ottawa some time next month.
The enterprise is intended as a blow at the existing ocean cable
monopolies. The tax .and other legislative restrictions on bourse
transactions in Berlin is said tobe the cause of sending a great
deal of business to London, Paris, Vienna and Brussels which
would otherwise be transacted by the Berlin bankers and brokers.
These drawbacks also att'ected the subscription to the imperial
three per cent loan of $40,000,000, which, however, was sub¬
scribed three times over notwithstanding the inditt'erence of the
speculators. Business throughout Gennany continues to be gen¬
erally dull. The i)roduction of German sug.ar is 12.9 per cent
greater for the tirst four months of this year coiupared with a
like period of last year. Rtiins in Austria and Hung.ary have
materially imjji'oved the outlook for the grain crop, wheat
especially is said to be iu exceptionally flne condition ; hay that
had been despaired ot now promises a good harvest. The
arrangements for the commercial treaty between Austria and
Russia are proceeding satisfactorily.
Private Pronerty.—IX.*
By Richaku T. Ely, University of Wisconsin.
THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OE PRIVATE PROPERTY.
(ContinueiJ.)
THERE is one most important class of enterprises with respect
to which it is necessary to follow either the tirst or the second
line of development to which reference has been made. Either
they must become public property in every respect, or it is
necessary to develop to the utmost extreme the social side of
private property. Tiiese enterprises are the well-known natural
monopolies, which have been so often and so well discussed in
The Record and Guide. They are railways, telegraphs, tele¬
phones, electric lighting plants, gas plants, water works, muni¬
cipal rapid transit systems and the like. As the control
and the protection which competition attords the public
are wanting, they must be regulated by public author¬
ity and regulated either as public or as private
property. Experience during many years iu many
lands has shown that we have no other alternative. Dift'erent
countries are inclined to follow dift'erent methods. The German
method is public owneiship with the public control, which
naturally and spontaneously results therefrom. The other
method is the French method, which .allows private property in
these undertakings, but which carries public control so far that
private property loses ijiauy of its ordinary attributes. England,
in recent years, seems inclined to follow the German method,
which we might perhaps call the Teutonic method. The United
State has, until very recently at any rate, beeu inclined to
follow the French method. Perhaps at the present time no
country goes further than the United States in interference with
private property of this sort.
What shall we say with respect to these two methods? Neither
method is altogether easy. Modem life has many serious prob¬
lems, look at it as we will. No conceivable plau of social organi¬
zation can enable us to escape these entirely. The tasks which
modern civilization sets are extremely complicated, and their
solution requires the best eft'orts of the best minds. While the
first line of development, namely the substitution ot private for
public property with public management, oflters ditticulties aud '
has itself mauy imperfections, it would seem to be much
better than the second line of development, so far as
enterprises are concerned which require an extreme
amount of control, that is to say, interference with
the management of private property. There are many reasons
for this. Special skill and enterprise are likely to be on the side
of the private enterprises which are always corporate in char¬
acter. This must be so, as speciiil skill aud experience are
acquired in the miinagement of these enteriirises. It is always
likely then that the public would be worsted in its eft'orts to
control through its own agents private property of such inagni¬
tiide and importance. Take the case of an electric company
which supplies services like light and transiiortation iu cities
throughout the country. This company has its trained aud skill¬
ful attorneys who become acquainted with every detail of the
business and give their whole time to pleading its cause. They
â– Oonmeuoed In Mo. 1,357. Copyrighted by tbe Bbcobd and Qdidb.