March 26,1898





Record and Guide





545









ESTABUSHEir^MM«;H2lii^ie66.

Devoted ip Real Estati . BuiLOiffc AjiC^ iTEtmjRf .Household DEoo^noi*.
BusiiJeS3 ;uJdThemes OFGeHer^I !^^tf^E:sl,

PRICE     PER   YEAR     IN   ADVANCE     SIX   DOLLARS.

Published every Saturday
Tklepsonb,            ....            OoHTLANivr   1370"

iCommunleaUona should he addressed to

C. W, SWEET, 14-10 V«fley StreeL

■J. 1. LUNBSEY, Business Manager.

••Entered at the Post Office al New York, N. Y., as second-class mailer."





Wol, 1^1.





MARCH  26,  1898,





No.  1,567





UNTIL tliere is a change in the political situation there can
be no change in the attitude of the security market,    flo
lar security holders have no reason to quarrel with the course
of prices.    It has naturally been a declining one, but has resisted
rail onslaughts to bring about slumps.    While there is really no
market for long stock, short selling is discouraged hy an obsti¬
nate under-strength that makes covering diflcult and unproflt-
able.    The reason for this is that outside conditions are healthy.
There is hesitation in every direction to make new moves while
diplomacy is holding us in such a condition of uncertainty, and
one after another of our prominent men make speeches to pre¬
pare the public for the worst that can happen; but the country
has back of it a few years of probably the most careful and con¬
servative husiness conduct in its history, and the weak  spots
are therefore few and far between.   There is positively nothing
the matter with the position of business, except the uncertainty
that surrounds our relations with Spain, and, of course, our cur¬
rency incubus.   These are serious enough, but the   fact   that
they  are  not complicated   by  over-trading  and  speculation  is
something to be very thankful for.   The public is told every day
that war is inevitable, but the financial world has received di¬
rectly no such intimation, or if it has, it has received it with
the    most   surprising    coolness.      As    previously    stated,    the
country has been told by careful men to prepare for the worst,
but we are at liberty to  accept that for what we consider  it
worth.    Modern diplomacy has been known to do such wonder¬
ful things in the way of avoiding war, and it has hardly yet been
employed in our case, that it is toO' soon to accept such state¬
ments    at face value.    Both parties have all  along looked at
the Cuban question from their own point of view, but both Spain
and ourselves may yet have delicately forced upon us the views
of other nations  that  may give each  a  new aspect of  things
that cannot be disregarded consistently by peoples claiming to
be civilized, and may lead to an amicable and honorable settle¬
ment of om- differences.    However, any settlement, amicable or
angry, is a long way ahead;  meantime the condition of uncer¬
tainty must continue,   and    uncertainty    means    business    ob¬
structed and prices lowered.





The City of Paris has been authorized hy Parliament to borrow
$33,000,000 at 3 per cent, for railways. The appointment of Count
Thun to the Premiership has not smoothed away the internal
political differences in Austria, but it has somewhat disorganized
the several parties, and created a situation, from which it is
hoped that a sufficient force can be created to arrange and pass
the States Treaty with Hungary. A recent Hungarian loan of
thirty millions of florins was subscribed twice over, more than
half in Vienna alone. The financial condition of the Government
of Brazil continues to afford reason for great anxiety and de¬
presses Brazilian securities in foreign markets. Argentine im¬
ports in 1897 amounted to $98,289,000, gold, and exports to $101,-
169,000; the former a decrease of $13,875,000, and the latter a de¬
crease of $15,633,000. Of the imports,Britain sent $36,392,000;
Germany. $11,114,000; France and Italy, $11,000,000 each, and the
United States, $10,101,000. Of the exports, E ance took $22,999,-
000; Germany, $14,047,000; Britain. $12,985,000, and the United
States, $S,321,000. France's and Germany's takings of wool place
them as the foremost buyers.





FOREIGN exchanges are also awaiting the settlement of the
Cuban trouble, and also the outcome of differences
among the European powers in China. France is evidently not
willing to risk war with Britain over the Niger territory; and,
if it is true that this matter has been arranged, it is highly
probable that the China matter so far as France is concerned
will be pacifically settled also, otherwise the Sokoto incident
would have been kept open by prolonging negotiations to in¬
fluence the other. This fact adds importance to the announce¬
ment of the cession of Ta-]ien-Wan and Port Arthur to Russia,
,and leaves the latter power and Britain to settle matters be¬
tween themselves. The ugly feature is that Russia has de¬
manded and received a cession of Ta-lien-Wan after Britain's
request for privileges there had been denied. How will Britain
take such an insult? Somehow ultimate events do not prove
that Russia dominates in the far East to the extent that we are
too often led to believe. Witness for instance the withdrawal
from Corea under pressure from Japan and Britain. Will we
ultimately see a similar failure of her diplomacy at Pekin? We
probably will if France fails her ally there. Much attention has
been given to the recently issued report of the Bank of Spain,
which shows how iast year the bank had to support the royal
treasury and sacrifice its commercial business, but also paid the
largest dividend in its history, namely, 24 per cent. Financing
an embarrassed government may be a very profitable thing
sometimes, British trade reports for the flrat two months of the
year show considerable declines in botb exports and Imports.





MONEY,





I





IT is not to be supposed that a condition of uncertainty
that has practically paralzyed business on the Stock Ex¬
change and is adversely affecting trade in every direction, ex¬
cept in the line of war supplies, would leave the realty market
untouched. No one is unreasonable enough to expect that. It
is taken for granted that the dread of possible war has had its
influence there as well as everywhere else, and when the matter
is considered, it is not a question of whether a change has been
produced, but of the extent of an admitted and expected change.
Consequently we are alarming nobody and making no contri¬
bution to a commercial scare, if we refer to the subject and
point out how far the resources of the realty market are cur¬
tailed by a situation that is not without its anxieties for the
coolest heads, or even for those who are confident that diplo¬
macy will flnd a way to arrange differences with Spain, without
need of employing any part of the mountains of war material
that are now being so ostentatiously purchased.

We all know that capital is proverbially timid, and we know,
too, that it will leave one place to go to another if in the one
tbere are better opportunities for proflt than in the other. These
■ two things seem now to be operating to make money scarcer
to-day in the realty market than it was a week or two ago.
The statements made by a number of the principal loan brokers
of this city, and given in another column of this issue, show this
to be the case, in spite of their brevity and the caution that
evidently animates them. It should be pointed out that one
of these brokers, and one whose field of operations is large, has
not found any hesitation among his clients to make loans be¬
cause of the war scare, though the other four show that caution
is tying money up and making the negotiation of loans more
difficult than it was. So far our records have not shown any
diminution of the amount of money loaned on mortgage in
this city; on the contrary, both in number and amount there
has been a large increase. According to our last issue, since
.January 1st last, 3,704 mortgages have been made for a total of
$51,556,380, after leaving out two to secure bonds, one to the
amount of $11,000,000, made by the New Amsterdam Gas Com¬
pany, and one for $7,000,000, made by the Third Avenue Rail¬
road Company. The comparative figures for the same time last
year were 3,588 mortgages for $42,198,397. Not only is this com¬
parison favorable in bulk to the current year, but also in the
average mortgage loan. Nor can we discover, by looking over
our weekly tables of mortgages published since the Maine dis¬
aster, that lenders have been more unwilling to place their
money on mortgages since the news of that most deplorable
event was first announced, the ratio of increase since the middle
of February having been more than maintained.

To enable us to judge of the effect of the political situation, we
have then the brokers' statements previously referred to. and
from these we gather that, there is everywhere more caution
becoming apparent and a more careful scrutiny of the loans
offered than is usually the case. The great loaning companies
seem to have withdrawn none of their funds from the realty
market. We hear of only one, and that a Jersey institution,
whose loaning policy has been modified because of the political
situation. Private loaners on the other hand are refusing loans,
or, which is about the same thing, declining to entertain propo¬
sitions for loane until the situation becomes more settled. There
is. too, a tendency on the part of capitalists to keep their funds
in hand in the expectation that it will flnd more profitable em^
ployment In the security market than it can now do in the realty
market. This makes a situation in which the poorer loans are
likely to go begging, and it la one that should be taken into
account in laying out new building enterprises,   Wtille tbere Is