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Published every Saturday

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"Entered at the Fast 03ce at New Tork, N. Y.. as second-class matter."





Vol. LXVIII.





NOVEMBER 16, 1901.





No. 1757





THE announcement of the terms of the treaty of peace, made
between the lately belligerent railroad magnates, created
disappointment on the Stock Market, because they were not un¬
derstood. At first it appeared as if Mr. Hill had ouly succeeded
in bringing about that consolidation of Northern Pacific and
Great Northern that he. tried to efEect some years ago and was
prevented from doing by the threats of some of the attornies-
general of the northern states. As a matter of fact the agree¬
ment has a much wider scope than this. It brings into friendly
relations with the northern roads and the owners of Burlington,
the Union Pacific the owner of the Southern and Central Pacifies.
The agreement consummated taken with the alliances among the
trunk lines, makes for settled and conservative conditions in the
railroad world such as were never seen before. The object of all
this gigantic work is to produce a state of such stability that
railroad security values may be maintained within a compara¬
tively small movement either way year in and year out, and an
investment confldence created in them that they have never
known yet. Undoubtedly the agreement is well calculated to at¬
tain this object, but while such plans as these can only be made
in good times, they can only be tested in bad ones, and the sat¬
isfaction that is created by tbeir adoption is tempered by the
knowledge that they have still to undergo that test. However,
plans must be made before they can be tested, and, the market
.considered, the one just announced is a step towards holding
•quotations of those railroad securities that now stand high and
;advanciug those that do not. This will be surely seen later on,
, Much of the selling of this week was professional and perfunc-
;tory—that is on the time-worn theory that one should sell on
iappy consummations. It was assisted and encouraged by the
■gold exports and accompanying advance in money rates. It is
Intimated that as much more gold will go out next week as goes
this and some more the week after; then the European demand
is e.xpected to be met. This may be or it may not. Of late
years the movements of gold have been very uncertain, not to
say surprising.





FOE the next week or two the European markets will be more
than ever dependent upon the movements of money. Un¬
til the yearly settlements are provided for there will be no eas¬
ing of rates. The stress of affairs is shown by the maintenance
of a four per cent Bank of England rate and the low price of
Consols and other government bonds. When the best security in
the Old World goes begging at a discount of nearly nine per cent
It may he taken for granted that there is a decided scarcity of
money. This is furtlier shown by the heaviness of Imperial
German S's and French Rentes, both typical of investment safety.
The question is, will a day soon come when these will be taken
up for a speculative advance as they were ten years ago, or have
we come to a point where the demands for money are so great
and continuous that securities offering so low a return as these
do can never again sell at a premium? It is extraordinary that
Consols sell month after month at what formerly would be con-
rsidered panic prices and the explanation has not yet shown it¬
self. The cost of the Boer war is offered, but that is not satis-
■factory considering what is behind the security; and there only
remain's the suggestion that the expansion of the world's busi¬
ness in the past ten years so absorbs the world's capital that the
best and soundest of governments have to pay more for their
money than they did. When they offer a loan at a discount that
is merely another way of raising the rate of interest. Despite
the disturbed condition of the money market and the low prices
for Governments, the situation is not without its favorable feat¬
ures. Items of news or statistics crop up here and there which
relieve the gloom somewhat. For instance, the London Econo¬
mist points out that the general trend of prices in Great Britain
for October was slightly upward, after having been the other





way continuously for the thirteen previous months; the iron
and steel trades report more inquiry and so on, until it seems
that with the turn of the year, when those dreaded settlements
already referred have been made, there will be a more cheerful
prospect all around.





1





ii





Why They Weep.





"HE landlords are weeping and gnashing their teeth at the
prospective expense." This sentence was used gleefully
In the course of an address delivered one evening this week be-
for the Church Association for the Advocacy of the Interests of
Labor, and was supposed to represent the deserved agony of the
landlords when contemplating the pecuniary results to them¬
selves of the provisions of law which require old tenements to
be altered to suit the notions of sentimental philanthropy. It
seemed to be the idea that it was a mighty flne thing to take
money out of the pockets of the landlords anyway and the pros¬
pect of endless cheap charity thereby opened out was no doubt
particularly fascinating. The conduct of this association with the
name too long to be quoted twice, and those who think with
them recalls the story of the Scotchman, who was dining and
wining sumptuously and expensively in a public dining-room,
and who, thinking he saw reproof in the looks with which he was
regarded from the other tables, said: "My freends, 1 wush ye to
oonderstand that I'm no traveling at my ain expense." In the
same way it is well known how tremendously and lavishly char¬
itable people generally can be when its "no at their ain expense,"

But these good people who believe so heartily and thoroughly
in charity aud the relief of the poor when it can be done vicari¬
ously do not seem to perceive that they are talking rank social¬
ism. That is tne term usually applied to propositions for rob¬
bing the individual for the beneflt of the community, and they
are more to be expected from those who worship Johann Most
and follow the counsels of Emma Goldman than from
bodies that claira to be enlightened and honest. The tene¬
ment houses wbich they think so poorly of were built under
sanction of law and ought to have the protection of the state
contract. We wonder what they would have said if, instead of
being entertained by a picture of the landlord writhing in agony,
each of these people, who apparently enjoyed that picture so
much, had been asked to contribute from his or her own pocket,
from one to five thousand dollars to improve the surroundings of
the people who dwell in tenement houses. We fancy that then
the question would have assumed a new phase in their eyes.
Yet that is exactly what the landlord is not merely asked to do,
but ordered by law to do. Of course it will be claimed that the
landlord has duties towards his tenants which others have not,
and the money is to be spent upon his own property. Both of
these things are true. But every department of the city govern¬
ment has always been keeping the landlord up to his iuty
towards his tenants; then why, despite building, sanitary and po¬
lice laws amended session after session and made more exacting
each time, is the landlord found so derelict still, that he has to be
punished finally by an ingenious form of confiscation, making
him do and pay for a great many things which he does not think
necessary, and which the tenants themselves do not ask for, al¬
though as anyone who has had experience with tenants knows
hashfulness is not one of their failings—and the doing and pay¬
ing for which may ruin him?

Now as to the attitude of the landlord, metaphorized for the
sake of oratorial effect into "weeping and gnashing of teeth,"
that is a perfectly fair and natural one. It is the right of a cit¬
izen if he is oppressed by any particular act of the Legislature
to appeal for protection to the courts and to agitate for the law's
repeal. It was to afford protection against oppression that the
courts were created, and one of the duties of a legislature is to
undo unjust exactments. This is what the landlord is preparing
to do. His position is that what the new tenement house, law
asks him to do is unreasonable, both in its physical requirements
and pecuniary consequences; therefore, he proposes to resist its
demands. We have in these columns already shown pretty con¬
clusively what the consequences of the enforcement of the law
will mean to very many landlords whose all is embraced In a
small equity in an old tenement house. Any broker who handles
this class of property could give numerous instances of old peo¬
ple who have the modest savings of a long life of industry in¬
vested in a tenement three-fourths mortgaged, and who would
simply be pauperized for the remaining brief span of their exist¬
ence. It is not improbable that these people do contemplate the
future with misty eyes and set lips; and who, knowing all the
circumstances, can wonder.

But it is not on sentimental grounds that the law should be
resisted or amended into reasonableness, but because it violates
those principles of justice that exist hetween the state, and ths
Individual, and which are supposed to guarantee to the latter