â– ^"^ '^" ESTAEUSHED^'/^CH2lii"^lfl68.
DtVo-fEfi TD Real EsUTE . SuiLOIf/o ^RClfIXECTURE.KoUaOiOLD DEGORJIlOtS.
BusK^Ess Alto Themes of GEtten^. iKCERF^f-
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS
Published eVery â– Saturday
Communications should tie addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New YorR
J. T. LINDSEY, BuainesH Manager
Telephone, Cortlandt 3157
'Entered at the Fast Office at New York. N. Y.. as second-clans matter."
Vol. LXVIII.
NOVEMBER 30,1901.
No. 1759.
IF one disregards one or two specialties and analyzes the
movements of other securities, one is compelled to come, to
tbe conclusion, that the stock market is being manipulated in
order to carry out heavy realizing sales. Taking for example
the stocks in which the largest transactions were made, it wil)
be found that thirty shares had sales of 10,000 or over on one
two or all three days that preceded the holiday, and the trans¬
actions in these thirty shares were S2-2Cths of the whole husi-
â– ness done. At the end of the three days, fourteen of these
shares made losses, flfteen gains and one was stationary. The
losses ran from 31^ in Copper down to "^Jk in Union Pacific; the
gains from 3 in Sugar to Ya in Leather. Yesterday's movements
of prices harmonized with those of the flrst three days of the
week. What is most remarkable is the small gains made in
most of the stocks in which the business done was largest. New
York central on 128,235 and Pennsylvania on 2f6,557 shares ad¬
vanced only % each. Southern Railway on sales of 127,0f^0 shares
gained y^. The only stocks out of the thirty whose movements in¬
dicated anything like a wholesale demand, were Sugar, Manhat¬
tan and Southern Railway preferred. In all the rest in which
the buying was large enough on any of the three days to bring
them into our list, there was more or less loss or only frac¬
tional gains. The steel stocks showed some spirit yesterday,
and it will be very surprising if these do not reflect better than
they have yet done the phenomenal activity t.nd strength of thS
iron and steel market in all its branches.
ONE or two items of news of especial interest to us on this
side of the Atlantic come from the other, amidst the
continually reiterated complaints of depressed business and fears
of a distressing winter for the industrial centers, where the un¬
employed are in large pi-oportion. The Berlin correspondent
of the London "Economist," attributes the renewed dulness on
the Bourse there to the cessation of English and American
buying of German industrial stocks, which had been going on
in moderate volume. The Frankfurt Zeitung says inquiries are
still received from American speculators as to whether the
time has arrived to buy these industrials, but the answers are
generally in the negative. Prospects for reduced dividends be¬
ing in evidence, it is thought that these shares will go still lower.
The information that there was buying of these shares this
fall helps to explain the gold exports of last week, which have
been puzzling people ordinarily well informed. Not only this,
but the circumstance would indicate an immense broadening
of Americau investment and speculation, undreamt of a few
years ago. There certainly will come a time when the indus¬
trial position of Europe will brighten again, perhaps when our
own is becoming obscured, and we may hear in our own mar¬
ket, in a not very distant future, what now would seem ex¬
traordinary, of operators being short of home industrials and
long of foreign ones; later reversing their position as changes
of fortune are achieved by the industries of the two continents.
The American, participation in foreign speculation is certain to
come in proportion to its participation in foreign trade. Talk¬
ing of that, the same mail that brings us the interesting facts
given above, brings us also some information of the latest
claimant to participation in the favor of the foreign consumer,
namely, American coal. The Cologne Gazette says this article
costs $6.96 per ton delivered on Rhine boats at Rotterdam, and
is of a quality equal only to that sold by the German coal syn¬
dicate at $5.52; therefore, it argues, that the latter has nothing
to fear from the former. Other papers contest the correctness
of these flgures and point to the fact that German purchases
of coal continue to be made in the United States as showing
that, if the syndicate want to retain the home market, they
must reduce their prices. It is admitted that, if American coal
is not yet felt as a competing factor in Germany itself, recent
heavy arrivals at Genoa have reduced German sales there, and
the fear is expressed that the American coal will in the near
future compete with all foreign coal in neutral markets. In¬
deed, one of the great Rhine Westphalian operators is quoted,
though not by name, as saying that in ten or fifteen years Amer¬
ica will supply almost alone, all JMediterranean countries with
iron and coal. The direct interest of this to us is, that it ex¬
plains where a good deal of our increased production is going,
and why our i;oal stocks advance in the market. To the for¬
eigner it ought to suggest one of those "straddles" we spoke
of above, because he might save himself from loss by buying
iron and coal stocks in this market and selling in his owu.
The Debt 3 imit Again.
P there is a scare on the subject of tbe d^bt limit, as Comp¬
troller Coler says, he himself is responsible for it. Last
week he allowed himself to be quoted as saying that when
Mayor-elect Low took office, the appropriations would reach
the limit. This coming from the head of the financial depart¬
ment of the City Government was, naturally, accepted as an
accurate presentation of the case, and it was fair for anyone
to comment on the probable consequences. Naw the Comp¬
troller complains because tbat was done and talks about the
subject being an elastic one, whatever that may mean, aud
says the new administration will be better off than the old one;
that the city's credit is better to-day than it has ever been, etc.
Prom all this, it looks very much as if the elasticity is in the
Comptroller's lingual apparatus. It is not a question of whether
this or that administration will begin their work with a few
millions of dollars more or less to their credit, or of the city's
standing as a borrower. The great and important question is
whether the restrictions put upon the city's borrowing capacity
by the Legislature—necessary and wholesome in the past—have
not become irksome and injurious to tbe city's prospects to-day?
This is the question we are anxious about. The city's credit
is all right and would be if its bonds outstanding were twice
as great as the-y are to-day. The only people who are timorous
about that are the bond brokers, and they ouly because they
fear a scarcity of bonds to sell.
It is to the question we have outlined that we want an an¬
swer. No sane person acquainted with the circumstances, will
contend that the want of money, which, but for the legal re¬
strictions, might have been had by borrowing, has not been
the bar to many needed improvements in the past four years.
Then, how are we to prevent a recurrence of similar trouble
in the future? Comptroller Coler says exclude from the limit
bonds issued for self-sustaining work; we say let much of the
work now done, by the city, and which could be done by private
capital, be done by private capital; now Tax Commissioner
Feitner, throws out the suggestion, which is a good one and
worthy of consideration, that the real estate valuation, from
which the debt limit is measured, should be made to include the
exempt real estate owned by the city. By this the real estate valu¬
ation would be increased, according to tbe Tax Department's es¬
timate of the value of the city's realty, by $358,109,500. This would
give the city new power to issue bonds to the amount of $35,S10,-
950. There is something entirely appropriate in the city's real es¬
tate being included in the security for its bonds. This is a simple
proposition capable of easy comprehension and, therefore, likely
to flnd ready approval with the public, whieh the other sug¬
gestions may not do because of their complexity and the dif¬
ficulty of removing prejudices that stand in the way of the
adoption of either of them.
But, as this is an important subject, let us follow it a little
further, and ask, suppose either the bonds for self-sustaining
works excluded from the debt limit, or private capital called in
to assist public developments, or the city's real estate included
in the valuation for debt purposes, what then? Will the time
not come when the relief so oDtained will prove to be inade¬
quate. If this is so, would not another expedient have to be
found later on? Is not the true remedy for the condition of
affairs, of which complaint is made, after all, simply the one of
raising the limit itself? A restriction suited to small cities
proves to be irksome and injurious to large ones, yet a restric¬
tion is necessary to curb possible extravagance, then why not
raise the limit for the large cities. In tbat case there would
be no need of excluding any class of bonds, nor would the pre¬
judices of the public against dealings between the city govern¬
ment and private capital have to be overcome; relief would be
found simply through the application of the familiar princi¬
ples and machinery that have heretofore governed the creation
of public debt, and our development could proceed along line's
already laid down.
I