June 26, 1897.





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Vol. LIX.





JUNE   26, 1897.





No. 1,528





NEW BUILDING  LAWS.

The Record and Guide will publish a new
edition of the New York Building Laws and
ordinances as soon as official copies of several
recent laws can be obtained from the Secretary
of State's office. Those who are familiar with the
manner in which our previous editions of the
building laws have been compiled know what to
expect—a handy volume, with headings and mar¬
ginal notes, full indexes and colored engravings.
This is a complete and standard work, edited by
William J. Fryer, and is invaluable to architects,
builders and others interested in building oper
ations. The new edition will bring the building
laws up to date, together with the Greater New
York Charter provisions, which latter take eifect
next January. Orders for the new publication
may now be sent in to the Record and Guide,
Nos. 14 and i6 Vesey Street, New York, and
deliveries will be made at the earliest day practi¬
cable.

THE public and the press are becoming more and more im¬
pressed with the fact that our commercial conditions have
improved and are improving. A few months ago the few who saw
what was coming and lifted their voices in prophecy were
regarded with suspicion : to-day the suspicion would alight on
anyone who did not take a cheerful view of the situation. Gen¬
eral views are often unreliable, because they are only too often
the result of a good feeling that a period of Inflation has pro¬
duced. To-day it ia only apparent that we have emerged from
a period of depression and that good times are ahead, to cul¬
minate later on possibly in inflation, bat no want of conservat¬
ism has been apparent anywhere. As a matter of fact, in many
lines there is still considerable hesitation ; this the adjustment
of the tariff, which is now in siglit, may remove. Because of
this hesitation some doubt the genuineness of the bull move¬
ment in the stock market, but if there ever was a healthy and
justifiable advance it is that being made to-day in the prices of
securities, allowance being maae for the ability of Wall street
to discount coming conditions. The gain in prices is so far
almost wholly based upon profitable developments, the writing
down of interest burdens, dividends declared and prospective,
and matters of like nature. When the movement reaches the
new and helpless issues then will be the time for fear, but that is
a good way ahead yet. Seeing the process of opening out and
rebuilding in our trade and commerce that is goiug on there is
no reason why the present movement should not endure for
some time to come, with the usual and natural reactions, of
course.

------------a------------

THERE is current a report that the Bauk of England is about
to compete more actively for the London discount husi¬
ness. If this is so it will compel a change of policy in regard to
the quoted bank rate, which has for a long time been fictitious.
With the Bank of England looking for discounts it would have
to make its rate conform to that at which business was actually
done, and instead of a quotation away above the market—to¬
day it is 2 per cent, as compared with 1 per cent, or less out-
aide—the cable would bring us the rate for the pick of the busi¬
ness. This, we think, would be much more serviceable than the
aominal rate now made.   The English country banks which





operate on the quoted bank rate might complain, but would
either have to make a rate for themselves or conform more
nearly to metroi>olitan practice. The Bank of England is forced
into a more aggressive policy apparently by the impossibility
of employing its funds satisfactorily any other way. Console
have been for some time out of the question ; indeed it appears
that the high prices for these have induced some of the banks
to take profits upon them and take their chances of employing
the proceeds more profitably elsewhere. Investing institutions
are now holding much larger amounts of shares, stocks and
debentures and Indian and Colonial Glovernmentsecuritiesthan
they did ten years ago. By larger we meau that the increase is
greater in proportion to the increase in other lines. From this
it would appear that consols are being abandoned to savings
institutions, trusts and ultra-conservative investors, whose abil¬
ity to maintain present quotations may be fairly questioned.
The desire for larger returns on money has not been so pro¬
nounced for two or three years and it is becoming every day
clearer that the public is regarding the United States more and
more as the place where that desire may be gratified. This is
especially so since the announcement of Secretary Gage regard¬
ing the policy of the Administration on the subject of the
currency.

The State Board of Arhitration,

THE building trades though slow are not the last to rally
from the effects oE a financial crisis, inasmuch as low
prices of material have a tendency to induce idle capital to seek
employment in the improvement of real estate, a species of in¬
vestment which is at all times regarded as comparatively safe.
However, the temporary advantage of low prices may be more
than ofi'set by friet'on between labor and capital. At a time
like the present it is therefore of the utmost importance to the
community atlarge that labor disputes should he suspended in
building trades. Nevertheless, during the past year there were
uo fewer than seventy-one strikes aud lockouts iu those trades
in New York City alone, perhaps a majority being occasioned
by the failure of labor unions to agree among themselves as to
the division of work. Others, like the plasterers strike now in
progress, were based on demands for impossible concessions
from employers, which never for a moment left their ultimate
failure iu doubt. In short, unstable conditions of the labor
market are discouraging activity not only in the building trades
but iu other industries as well, and seriously retarding the re¬
vival of business.

It was to make impossible precisely such conditions as these
that the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration was estab¬
lished some ten years ago. In 1886, following the example of
Massachusetts, the Legislature passed a law creating a public
tribunal of arbitration, which was reorganized with increased
powers in the following year. This Board has proved a positive
failure. It has probably not efl'eeted the settlement of a single
strike of importance during the whole of its existence. At any
rate, it has achieved no end which could not have beeu accom¬
plished by private arbitration without the expenditure to the
tax-payer of about $20,000 a year. It enjoys the confidence of
neither labor nor capital, audits abolition was advocated in the
last session of the Legislature, Governor Black having called
attention to its uselessness in his annual message.

The secret of the Board's failure is not difficult to discover.
Iu the first place it is a political creation; secondly, it is in¬
vested with vexatious powers of inquisition without being able
to enforce its decisions. The Board consists of three members
appointed by the Governor for three years—one member from
each of the two leading political parties, and one from a "bona
fide labor organization." The Board has power to call for and
examine all the books, papers and documents of any party to a
labor controversy, with the same authority to enforce their pro-
ductiou as is possessed by courts of record. This is a dangerous
power to place in the hands of a public commission, and so long
as the Board cannot compel the parties to a strike to submit
their differences to it uor to abide by its decisions, merely serves
to create a fatal prejudice against the Board. Employers fear
the Board's power of inquisition, while workingmen despise its
impotence to enforce its decrees.

But i£ the State tribunal of arbitration is abolished what shall
take its place? Improvement in the relations between em¬
ployer and employed must, it would seem, be sought partly in
a more perfect organization of labor, partly in some form of
private arbitration. A large percentage of strikes is due to the
absence of a central authority among labor unions of sufficieut
weight to settle disputes between them as to the distribution of
work. Eurfcher, individual unions, owing to loose organization,
allow themselves to be led temporarily by turbulent minorities.
Trades unionism is recognized by law. But the law does not
yet insist on the principle that the right to organize involves the
duty to organize well. Organization for the control of the labor
market must be regarded as a busine**, to be safeguarded, like
other businesses, in proportion to the attendant social risks.   It