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March 29, 1902.^
RECORD AJSFD GUIDE.
547'.
DiVoitD ro Real E>Twt. BuiLDifio AjipKrrECTUREjjoiJaEiiouiDEntiifnDd,
BUSltJESS AJioTHESflES OF GEtlER^..IlftEH^T.
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS
Pablished eVery Saturday
Comrounlcatloas should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New York
J. T. LilNBSEY, BusIueBS Manager
Telephone, Cortlandt SI87
'Enta-ed at ttie Post Office ai New York, 2V". T., as second-class matter."
Vol. LXIX.
MARCH 29, 1902.
No. 1776
JBING a holiday week, the movements of stocks have been
â– without much significaiice, further than that the market
has got hack again into routine ways and that prospects are so
uncertain that professional operators do not care to carry stocks
over an interval of three days during which there is no exchange
open, eitiier here or in Europe, to resort to in an emergency.
The market closed last week in liveliness under the impression
that with the return to town of certain deities of speculation
an advance in prices would he engineered. The deities came,
but not the advance, so tliat on the whole the week
was a very dull one so far as business in stocks was concerned.
Current news was interesting, but not encouraging, except in
probably the one item which permits indulgence again in the
hope that peace is about to be declared in South Africa; this
hope has, however, been so often raised only to be sunk that
no one will venture to shape business on it until it is made a
certainty. In our own view when this is done it will be fol¬
lowed by realizing sales on both sides of the Atlantic. Money
has shown a tendency to harden and exchange rates prefigure
a probable resumption of gold exports in the near future. There
is apparently no falling off in genera! activity. iVIore individual
railroads are reporting decreases in earnings than was the case
a year ago, bnt in bulk the earnings are keeping up surprisingly
â– well.
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THE low price of British Consols due to fears of a new
issue affords an opportunity to those who would like to
invest in this security to buy the goods cheaply. The time has
come when governments can borrow without drawing on the
supplies of money needed for business, and there are a good
many negotiations on the carpet. When these are concluded
there will be a rapid advance in Government bonds, Tbe sign
of its coming will be that money can be procured for long terms
at rates at about or something less than the interest paid on the
bonds. This, with the small margin on which banks are glad to
carry "Governments" in times of plentiful money, will make
speculation in them attractive, first, and least, for the difference
between cost of carrying and interest earned; second, and most,
for the premium on cost which the increased demand will
insure. European preference in dull times for something with
a lien is shown in the favor with which the U. S. Steel funding
scheme is received across the Atlantic, where the plan outlined
has been promptly endorsed by holders of preferred stock. In
the news from London, besides that relating to the "tobacco"
war between the home and the American trusts, we come across
another instance, presumably one of many yet undiscovered of
the reaching-out tendency of our countrymen. In this instance
it was not successful, or has not been yet, but it shows â– what is
going on and raises conjectures as to what will be the political
and fiscal effects of the mingling of the business affairs of the
two counti-ies should the process continue as it seems destined
to do. The instance in question is found in a report of the an¬
nual meeting of the Machinery Trust, a concern having a prac¬
tical monopoly of the printing machinery business in Great
Britain, at which the Chairman said, in urging an increase of
the capitalization: "There are important branches of trade now
offered to us from America which we cannot take up, and which
are hung up until we can finally say to them whether we will
provide the capital or whether we will let it go past us. A pro¬
posal was even made to us to take up a certain business, and,
failing that, we were asked if we would sell our entire under¬
taking over here, Well, we do not look with favor upon a pro¬
posal to be bought up by an American company. We think there
is sufficient money in this country and sufficient enterprise and
courage to meet the wants, not only of our own country and the
Continent of Europe, with our colonies, provided only that we
can establish a good case. * * * • Personally, I do not fa¬
vor at this stage or for years to come the idea of an amalgama¬
tion with any American trust, but I am cordially in favor of a
harmonious and effective co-operation with them. We believe
and they believe that we can command not only the trade of
England and America, but the Continent of Europe aud the col¬
onies, and nothing woiild be more pleasing to me than that the
two great English-speaking nations should dominate this greaJ
industry.".
The Amended Tenement House Law.
'ROM the fact that it was passed in the State Senate in com¬
pliance with a party order from him we may take it that
Governor Odell will promptly sign the Kelsey bill embodying tbe
amendments to the Tenement House law, and that the building
trade will now have a law under which they can profitably re¬
sume the construction of tenements, a business that has been
practically held up for a year. Under the terms of the
amendments as passed, owners of old tenements are
no longer compelled to give inner rooms direct connec¬
tion with an open shaft, or with a room directly open¬
ing into a street or a yard, but are rec[uired simply to make
a â– window opening into an adjoining room, which in a great
many cases exists already or can be easily inserted, or an alcove
opening equivalent in dimensions to the sash window. The
condition that school sinks shall be removed remains, but un¬
accompanied by the requirement contained in the Tenement
House Commission's first amendments that the water closets
substituted should be enclosed in a fireproof structure. Section"
34 of the present law regulating rebuilding of tenements injured
by flre is repealed and that section in the new law will relate
merely to heights and capacity of wooden tenements.
The most important amendments of the law controlling pros¬
pective construction wil! permit an additional story on both
non-fireproof and fireproof tenements; allow corner lots under
certain conditions to be wholly covered with the building up to
the first story, and in ordinary cases, also under conditions which
it is not necessary to specify, where stores are in buildings,
allow the courts to begin above the first story. There are many
other changes which could hardly be given without reciting the
whoie law but which will remove some of the difficulties archi¬
tects experienced in attempting to lay out buildings capable of
appealing to owners from the financial side. For instance, where
under the law of last year it was impossible to lay out a building
on a lot formed by the intersection of two streets at an acute
angle, owing to the yard requirement, a modification of that
requirement, that the yard need not extend across the whole
width of the lot, may give lots of this description a chance for
improvement. Altogether the amendments relating to new.
buildings are in the spirit of liberality, which, it may be added,
is the only spirit that can effectively control legislation for
building, as tae experience of the past year has shown, and it
is to be hoped that the constructive and supply trades will benefit
from them.
As to existing tenements, the Tenement House Commission
v^oiuntarily offered amendments removing most of the small re¬
quirements of the act of 1901, and the representatives of the
property owners have secured the removal of the most onerous,
that which would have required the insertion of an air shaft to
ventilate inner rooms, so that the only serious, one that remains
is that requiring the substitution of water closets for school
sinks. The Legislature has accorded justice in removing the^
first, even if only to the extent of cancelling an unsuitable solu¬
tion for what is a serious problem and leaving the way open for
the discovery of another that will not press so unfairly upon the
owners of the property affected as the law of last year did.
Altogether it may be said that in the matter of the amendment
of the Tenement House law Assemblyman Kelsey's Committee
have met the case iu a judicial spirit and dispensed justice with
an impartial hand.
EVERAL of the speakers at the dinner of the Real Estate
Board of Brokers reported last week referred hopefully
to the time, when the population of the Greater New York
would amount to more than half that of the entire state; and
they seemed to anticipate when this good time came that New
York could have her own way at Albany. But such an anticipa¬
tion is most assuredly a mistake. The reason New York is not
more infiuential at Albany, is not so much because the rural
counties have a larger representation, but because the city of
New York is never united upon what it wants. For one thing
the division between Tammany and the Fusionists is irrecon¬
cilable, and they almost always support at Albany totally dif¬
ferent, not to say antagonistic policies. For another thing the