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Jnne 23,'1894
Record and Guide.
1007
ESTABLISHED ^ MARpH 21^ 1868.
DEV&IED to f\EAL ESTWE.0UlLOIf/G ^acrflTECTUI^E,Kc!USEriOU>DEOOHJTlOlf,
BasitiESs Alto Themes orGEfJEi^L li^itRpsi.
PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.
Published every Saturday.
Telephone,......Cortlandt 1370
Communioation» should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street,
J. 1, LINDSEY. Bvsiness Manager.
Brooklyn Office, 276-282 Washington Street,
Opp. Post Office.
" Entered at the Post-office at New Tork, 2f. T., as second-class mailer."
Vol. liii.
JUNE 23, 1894.
No. 1,371
For additional Brooklyn matter, see Brooklyn Department immediately
following New .Jersey records {page lO'.iH,.
PEOPLE seem to have given up liojiiiig for iminovemeiit aud
to have taken to Vifondeiing how loug business, like a
liatient given over by tlie doctois, can live at all uuder such
conditions. Such a depth of jiessiinism if accompanied by
activity in the markets, even though such activity brought
declines in prices, would indicate that better times were near at
hand ; but to-day activity is to be found nowhere, and ordinaly
calculations are therefore valueless. This despondency into
which the cominercial world has fallen is due in part to the con¬
tinued droning iu the Senate over the Tariif Bill, but more par¬
ticularly to the attention that has been in the past few days
drawn to the condition of the Treasury. To this latter fact is
also due the renewed gold export movement after the signs
had beeu distiuct that the old movement was coming to a close.
If we look back for cau.ses of most of tlie trade depression siuce
last fall the conclusion inevitably forces itself that it is due to
the unwisdom of the administration in forcing on the country a
tariif discussion when it needed rest, aud to the utter inability
of the Treasury Department to handle a very difficult situation.
The public atteution having been so forcibly drawn to the
state of the treasury's gold balauce, the situation cannot
improve until something is done to quiet the fears so raised,
and it looks as if the duty of doing this something
will f.all agaiu on the banking interest of New York as
it has done before, and it is to be hoped, iu the inter¬
est of the couutry, including the New York biinking inter¬
est itself, th.at this duty -vdll neither be dallied with or
shirked. If iu any industry there is fouud a gleam of encourage¬
ment, it is iu the iron trade, w-here the hope is permitted
that the orders held back by the fuel question may come for¬
ward now that the coal strike is practically settled, but this hope
is mitigated by the announcement that continued operation of
some of the largest mills and furuaces depends on a readjust¬
ment of the wage-scale. Wall street has had leisure to discuss
the Atchison plan. Quotations apparently do not approve it,
though the decline in these is as much due to the considerations
which adversely[affect the prices of other .stocks as to the view
taken of the plan. As has been already stated the investment
public is not in the mood to look at anything- cheerfully. Even
the declaration of the usual dividends on the Vanderbilts failed
to ch<ange the speculative temper which will not see any but the
bearish side of any news.
ALL the gre.at European banks report their funds rolling back
on their hands ; consequently, while deposits and surplus
increase, discounts decrease. The rates for money are not only
low now, but promise to continue so for some time to come, as is
evidenced by the ruling rate in London of eleven-sixteenths to
three-quarters for three months' bills. A recent computation
placed the money in the Bank of England alone that was earn¬
ing nothing at $37,500,000. This is due liirgely to the with¬
drawal of English money from foreign countries. Kailroad earn¬
ings iu Great Britain taken as an indication of iinproved busi¬
ness are favorable. For the tirst twenty-two weeks of the year
of twelve great roads, two made decreases amounting to .$88,000
and ten increases amounting to $2,500,000, derived .almost
wholly from freight. The decline though in imports and exports
for May, which was for the first $13,500,000 and for
the second $1,700,000, including as they do a severe
loss in the imports of raw materials, is not favor¬
able to continued progi-ess in business improvement.
It is .almost certain that the French treasury will supply the
twelve millions of small coin required from new metal instead
of melting down tive-fi'anc pieces ; the attractions of the seign¬
iorage ofiered by coining from new silver appear to be too great
0 be resisted iu a time when treasury officials are reaching out
in every way to make both ends meet. The way in which the
great governments are looking around for ways of stretching the
garment to eover pecuniiiry needs keeps the holders of high-rate
bonds in a state of great nervousness. Several scares have been
gotten up in Germany on reports that the 4 per cent Imperial
and Prussian loan was to be converted into a 3 per cent loan.
The growing power of King Mob is illustrated by the decision of
the Vienna Corn Exchiinge to abolish the Internation.al grain
market which is annually held at Vienna after this year, because
they are unable to secure for the visitors protection against
insults from <mti-Semitic mobs. This will be a considerable
loss to Vienna, because the market was attended by from five
to six thousand merchants who, while there, placed a great
many orders with jobbers and manufacturers, many of which
will hereafter doubtless go to other places. Owing to the con- ,
tinning growth in the number of idle people in Austria an
Emigration Society has been formed, similar to the one in Ger¬
many, to assist working people to reach new countries. London
advices indicate that the most potent cause of the ti-ouble in
Argentina is the fear of war with Chili, the latter country
haviug kept up its unfriendly demonstrations ever since the
Bolivian att'air.
THE recent report of Mint Director Preston is not only an
assurance that the gold supply of the world gives no sign
of becoming inadequate to the duty it has to perform, but it
also shows how supply will respond to demand. The rejection
of silver as a currency medium to such an enormous extent by
our own and other governments, naturally led or wiis rather
preceded by a curtailment of the mining of that metal, and
just as naturally has created a hirger use for gold. The mau who
had beeu employed iu the silver mines, finding his occupation
gone, turned to the search of the metal that is always in demand,
so that before the special session of Congress was called to con¬
sider the advisability of suspending silver purchases miners in
small piirties could be seen aloug the water courses in Colorado,
Utah, Nevada and California, in any regions where gold was
knowu to be, washing for that precious metal, and in that
way providing against the contingency which they feared
or foresaw, and which ultimately made their previous
occupation unprofitable. The result of this increased energy in
the search for gold is that not only does the present year prom¬
ise very much larger results thau the yearly average for a long
time past, but also that that was the result .already achieved in
1893. Not only was the output of gold in the newer fields of
South Africa extiiiordinarily large, but the increiise iu this coun¬
try last year over the year before was con.siderable enough to
keep it at the head of the gold producing countries ofthe world.
Tliis year there is every promise that it will keep the same
place, notwithstanding that the returns from the South African
fields are very favorable. Australia, too, is increasing its out¬
put of gold as iire also the smaller gold producing countries.
These facts, coupled with the accumulations that are piling up
in the great banking centres of Europe at the present time, show -
that, all excuse for hoarding being removed, there is no ground
for the fear thiit gold will become inadequate as a basis for the
world's currency ueeds even should other countries, now on a
silver basis, follow the example of Austria, and adopt the gold
basis.
IT is uot at all necessary thiit progress should destroy the
beautiful, it is only that we choose that way of progressing.
It would be just as easy to make those changes necessary to our
needs that are called advancing and stiU preserve whatever is
really beautiful if the task was set about in the right way.
If we took a little more time and moved with unity of spirit the
results would be more satisfactory from the iesthetic point of
â– dew, and probably equally satisfactory, if not more so, from the
commercial standpoint. One cannot fail to be struck with this
fact wheu contemplating the change that is being brought
about in the aspect of New York by the high buildings.
Auy one who wishes can see how the city is being disfigured by
the erection of high buildings by taking a trip on any of the
ferryboats running out into the bay or up the East Kiver.
Formerly Manhattan Island iilways presented a pleasing pros¬
pect from the water. If the warehouses ou the river front were
never very attractive from the architectural point of view indi¬
vidually they were so masked by the masts and cordiige of
the shipping at the docks that thtir ugliness was not obtrusive.
They had, too, a background of spires and towers that
insured au agreeable ettect. Now, where the high build¬
iugs hide the church steeples and other ornamental
adjuncts of our buildings the impression on the stranger
must be that the city is fast becoming a mass of factories,
because the details that may relieve a p.articular high building
when seen from the street are lost at a ilistauce, and the only
ett'ect produced is of so many rows of square windows, rising one
above the other and shutting out everything else. Lovers of
New York, until recently, always pointed with pride to the beau-