Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view
About OCR text.
January 24, 1903.
RECORD AND GUIDE
137
iki^ P Pfti- Esrw^ • BmLDijfG Ap.a^nBmmE .HouseUoib DEocn^uiiMl.
Biraafess Alto Themes OF GoicR^ iKtaiFsi;
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS
Pttblis/fed eVerp Saturday
Communications Bhoull be addreBsed to
C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vcscy Street, New YorK
t. T. LIWDSEY. Buslneae Manager Teleplione, Cortlandt 3157
"Entered at ihe Fost Office at New Tork, N. Y.. as second-class maUer."
Vol. LXXI.
JANUARY 24, 1903.
No. 1819
The Index to Vol-ume LXX. of the Eecord and Guide, coverhig
ihe period between Julyl and- Deeemher -W, 1^02.will he ready
for delivery next ivcek. Priee, |1 On. 'Ihis Judex in its enlarged
form is note recogHi:::ed as indispensable to evvrij one engaged or
interested in real estate and huilding operafioiis. It covers all
transaetions — deeds, mortgages, lea-ics, auction sales, building
plans filed, etc. Orders for the Index should be sent at onee to the
oflice of publication, 14 and 16 Vesey Si.
OUR stock and bond market drags in a very unsatisfactory
way. Whether they fear that the Venezuelan incident
will develop mischievous tendencies, or that the interval be¬
tween the year-end and the spring demand for money will be
too short to give sufficient permanence to easy rates for their
purpose, the buying public holds aloof. Under such circum¬
stances values are likely to suffer, because, while the market is
left so entirely to professionals, action is likely to be more on
the short than the long side, and any unpleasant news is sure
to be used as an excuse for attacking prices. So far this week
there has been just enough support to prevent a break, and the
absence of anything in the shape of forced liquidation has de¬
prived the bears of material on v>^hich to work, A cleai-ing of
the Venezuelan situation should help the market. There is a
moderate amount of investment buying which would be greater
but for the scarcity of the goods. A considerable proportion of
this buying does not appear in the published returns, because It
is largely counter business. When a house has a block of in¬
vestments for sale it generally has a place for them, and does
not have to go on to the Exchange to dispose of them in ones,
fives, tens, and so on as was at one time necessary.. Conse-
qneutly sales made in this way do not get reported in the news¬
papers. This manner of doing business in investments is grow¬
ing, as the investment houses have got into the practice of keep¬
ing up active intercommunications through men specially en¬
gaged for the purpose of looking after bond business. It fol¬
lows that a good deal may be doing of which the'surface pre¬
sents no sign. Still, comparatively speaking, business i;i Wall
Street, taken altogether, is dull, revealing a lack of interest in
securities that is not of good augury. There is, however, noth¬
ing the matter with the general business situation, a fact by no
means inconsistent with dulness in the stock market. The
easier condition of money in Europe and the continued foreign
demand for cereals are reassuring as to the movements of gold,
and if the public could be assured that they have nothing to fear
from politics, home or foreign, and that money would remain
available even if rates should continue relatively high, they
would he buyers of listed securities.
IT is within the probabilities that the Bankof England discount
rate will be reduced before long. Money in London and
elsewhere in Europe is distinctly easy, and should this continue
the bank will not be able to maintain its present relatively high
rate in the face of competition from other centres. What de¬
lays the reduction of the rate is the necessity the bank is under
of making itself strong prior to the announcement of the coming
loan. Similar reasons account for steady official rates at other
points. While New York is speculating upon the likelihood of
American participation in both the British and the German
loans, London and Berlin are figuring upon their own likelihood
ot sharing in the new issues of capital that some of our great
railroads will make in the coming spring, notably Pennsylvania.
These expectations and the increasing ease in money are having
some influence upon the security markets; the effect is moderate
so far. but it is in the direction of better values. Opinion in
Europe does not incline to the belief that New York will have
to ship gold, but rather holds that owing to the larger ship¬
ments of grain and a foreign buying of American securities that
will ensue with renewed confidence in the general situation,
there will be no movement of gold one way or the other. Among
matters of interest reported from across the Atlantic is the influ¬
ence the Marconi experiments are having upon cable invest¬
ments. One of the financial papers publishes a table containing
the prices of fourteen cable securities, all of which have declined
in the past year, the losses varying from a fraction to twenty-one
and a half points. In the extreme case, doubtless, there were
other causes at work, but as the downward movement oE prices
is so unexceptional, the sentimental effect of the remarkable
progress in Marconigraphy is a factor in determining the values
of these issues. If certain enthusiastic individuals are correct
in their statements, the Transvaal will become eminent as a dia¬
mond as well as a gold producer. A field east of Pretoria is now
being exploited by a number oi companies, whose combined
capital amounts to about $4,000,000. and among whose stocks one
has advanced from £1 to £23. From this and other circum¬
stances most glowing results are prophesied. The question oE
the advisability of discontinuing grants in aid of railroads and
other carriers is coming to the front in Canada. Since railroad
building began in the territory of our northeni neighbor, $250,-
000,000 of money and 60.000,000 acres of land have been voted as
"grants-in-aid." Besides this ?100,000,000 have been spent on
canals to improve navigation on the St. Lawrence and on the
great lakes. There are several pretentious schemes awaiting
governmental encouragement, but, while the country has been
enterprising in this respect, and has benefited greatly from it.
neither of the two great political parties is now inclined to carry
the grants-in-aid policy further. The view that the Canadian
railroad industry need no longer remain in the nursery, and
that it can now maintain itself is held by the many thinking
Canadians.
THE important announcement of the week in reference to
the assessment lists is the statement that hereafter the
tentative lists will be published annually in the City Record.
This is a most excellent aud desirable step, which will be worth
to the property-owners of the city every cent that it will cost.
The only people who can object to it are people who for scm?
reason dislike the idea that their assessments should be sub¬
mitted to the light of full publicity, and objections on this ground
are an argument in favor of publication rather than against it.
One cannot, however, acquiesce so cordially in another reform
which, it is proposed, shall accompany this publication—the re¬
form, viz.. of itemizing separately in the total assessment the
value of the ground and the value of the improvement. That
such a separation of the two parts that go to make up the full
value of a parcel would be an admirable thing in itself and a
long step in the direction of a scientific system of assessment
may be fully admitted, but the objection is that it enormously
increases the actual work performed by the deputy assessors
and the practical difficulties of doing that work in an entirely
satisfactory manner. President Wells, of the Tax Department,
has recently stated in a public interview that the methods of the
deputy assessors are necessary rough and ready, and that it is
impossible to secure the services of expert appraisers at the sal¬
aries now paid by the department. Under such circumstances
the inadvisability of complicating the work they now perform
is sufficiently obvious. The inference from these considerations
is, however, not that the attempt to make a really scientific
assessment should be abandoned, but that proper measures
should be taken to improve the methods heretofore used in
making the assessments. By an improvement of methods we
do not necessarily mean any radical change in the personnel
of the assessors; we only mean that the department should
possess a large enough staff to review Its own work, just as a
private property-owner would have an appraisal of his property
made for an important purpose, duplicated by at least two ex¬
perts. A thoroughly informed appraiser, for instance, could rap¬
idly review the assessment books of several sections of the city,
and could in this way check errors in the work of the deputy
assessors, so that when the books were opened to the public
there would be a much smaller chance of the discovery of under
or over-valuations than there is at present.
OME such method of reviewing in detail and within the de¬
partment the work of the assessors is all the more neces¬
sary, because for the first time in generations the attempt is
now being made to get a really equitable and scientific assess¬
ment of real estate. Under the old system when the property
was supposed to be assessed at two-thirds of its value, but was
really assessed at almost any proportion the assessor pleased—
under such a system gross inequalities were quite unavoidable.
But the new rule of putting a conservative estimate of the full
value of real estate upon the books is an enormous improve-