January 11, 1896
Record and Guide,
37
V
^ ^ ESTABUSHED-^iWPH2l*i^>868,
Devoted io f^LEsr^re.Building AR,cKrrECTUi^>(ousDlou)Dl«H^n4
BUSINESS fib Themes of GEjtenjl iKrEnpi.
PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.
Published every Saturday.
TBLKIHONB,......COBTLANDT 1870
Oommniilcatlong should be aldreesed to
C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street.
/. I. LINDSET. Business Manager.
"Entered at the Post-offlce at New York. N. Y., as seeondrctass matter."
Vol. LVII.
JANUARY 11, 1896
No. 1,452
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SECRETARY CARLISLE lias nitide bis .innounccnieiit of a
boiul issue. Though uot in the lorm expected or desired,
the aiinotinceiiieiit ha.s not been witliotit good effects mion the
business situation. On this is.sue, tis in so many otlier niatters,
the louil mouths seem to have had more intluciice thau the leve
heads. The free coiuajce measure comes into the Senate in a
way that ought to show the silver men the liopele.ssiiess, and
conseiiuently tlie tooli.shness of their task, but it may be con¬
fidently iiredicted tliat it wont. The silver men will disappear
from the couiieils of the nation eveutiiully, but it will be because
the constituencies refu,se any longer to be served by men holding
to the belief,s that they do. It is a remarkable thing, one that
pa.sses the bounds of ordinary comprehension, that Congress
cannot be got to see that as a mere business proposition, one in
whicli the protit is beyond all question of doubt or iiiobability,
that the reform of the cnrreiicy is dollars ;ind cents in the
pockets of the nation. The fresh capital alone that .such a
reform would biing to this country from abroad would be more
effective iu the development of our energies and resources than
the success of any uovel economic ideas could be. It is sur¬
prising, too, that the- agricultural class does not make itself
heard with better effect than it is now doing, on the subject of
the currency. The gniiii market ought to show that they are not
getting all they should for their cereal produce. Take wheat
for instance. From all parts of the world reports come
of failures of crop. The Itttest return is from Australia,
where, it is said, the crop will not average five bushels an
acre. Only recently we referred to the serious tailing oft' in
the wheat crops throughout Europe and in Argentina, Since
then the exports from Russia and Argentina have proved that
these repoits were by no means exaggerated. Reports fioni our
own wheat territories, while it is too early to form an opinion
of the probable results, are not encouraging to th<> grower.
There is talk of war in tones that create great apprehension.
All these are ordinarily bull poiuts on wheat, yet its jirice does
not go up simply because the financial cinditious are such as
to discourage the operations that are necessary for a rise. With
the news .at hand wheat should be selling at 80 cents instead of
at .about G7 cents. Cannot the farmers see that all other con¬
ditions being favorable to better prices, it is only the money
question that compels them to accept ti price that it does not
pay to grow the giaiii tor'?
an improper or unnatiu'al one, because if those who have the
powerof declaring for warorpeace, speak without due regard for
diploiuiitic proprieties, the people cannot fail to get the idea, er¬
roneous though it may be, that they want war and war it will bo.
Oue of the results of this feeling is the falling off in the capital
applications in'London, which from being remarkably high have
become remarkably low ; this is a sure sign of dullness in finan¬
cial circles. In examining these tipiilications for the year, which
iimouut to over $.'500,000,000, it cannot escape notice that Lon¬
don has htitl comparatively little to do with foreign loans. Prob¬
ably not more than teu per cent, of this capital went outside of
Great Britain aud her colonies. In this connection it may also be
remarketl that there is a tendency, in Grermany particularly, to
draw away from Loudon dmniuation in financial opertitions.
Vienna will follow Berlin, and as was made patent only recently,
Russia has ciirried lier business to Paris, and later to the Ger¬
man capital. The tittitiule of London itself is largely the cause
of this. There need be no doubt that Russians, Germans and
Frenchmen will take money from thtxt centre if they can get it
on suitable terms. Britisli politicians, too, are endeavoring to
divert the attention of the home capitalist to the colonies as the
best and surest lield for the employment of their wealth,doubtless
with the idea that tliiit will bring the whole British nation into
closer coiutnunity of feeling .lutl remove some of the dangers to
the Empire whicli arise from having- her interests scattered too
widely among other peo])les whose friendship cannot bo de-
peuiled on.
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THE decision of the Supreme Court of Connecticut in the
trolley cases, which has been looked forward to for some
time with so much iiitcicHt, and which was rendered this week,
passes by the one question that gave the litigation its chief in¬
terest outside ot the State in which it has been carried on. This
((uestion is the additional servitude put upon the highways by
the trolleys aud the consequent right of the owners of abutting
property to damages. The Connecticut case being originally
one relating to the powers of municipalities to control the opera¬
tion of street railroads by modifying their privileges aud to
compel the substitution of another power for electricity, the
point of additional servitude was put aside as irrelevant. In
the main issue the trolley companies were victorious, the court
hokling that an exiuess grant bv the State to lay rails through
certain specitted streets is not dependent ou the consent ot the
municipal iiuthorities, nor could the latter substitute iinother
power tor electricity, though they might require the substitution
of the storage battery for the overhead trolley. The hitter is
an importtinf concession, as any one can see. The chief regret
that the court did not take up the questions of the additional
burden on the highways tind the consequent rights of ad,joining
propertv owners to damages, will come from those who believe
ill the probability of these points being raised tigainst the
owners of trolley and table lines iu this aud other States. It
would have been interesting to know whether the Connecticut
judicature had as jealous a regard for the rights ot abutting
property owners iu the streets as the New York courts have dis¬
played iu the suits for damages brought against the owners of
the New York L railroads in this city. Besides this, it is im¬
portant that the relations between the public and the owners
oE the improved .systems of rapid transit, whether cable or elec¬
tric, should be more strictly defined th.an they are now. A con¬
test is inevitable ou viirious points—the terras and conditions
under which they are to get permanent rights ou public thor¬
oughfares, their right to change the motive power, etc., and how
these things infringe on the rights of individual property owners,
for instance—aud the sooner it is biought to a focus and deter¬
mined, the better for both parties iiud the traveling public iis well
WITH every community wrought up to a pitch of excitement
such its has not been experienced since Nttpoleonic times,
it seems ridiculously tame to talk about the condition of Euro¬
pean trade, nor is it very easy to learn much about it, except
that it is necessarily bad. Wheu ueople are brought face to face
with the near pro.spect of Wiir, they are likely to let everything
go until they learn whether their fears are to be reitlized or not,
and they can determine what course they will take in either
eventuality. The consequence to all kinds of business is obvi¬
ously one of obstruction, and .surface appearances such as quota¬
tions of prices, etc., do not count for much, seeing that an hour
may change them in the most radical manner. The little outbreak
in tho Transvaal, which at any other time would have passed
; without occa.sioning more than a ripple of excitement, coming so
; closely behind the explo.siou of the Venezuelan bomb, h.as scared
I people into doing all manner of foolish things, wliich obtain an
I importance iiccording to the political prominence of the person
I doing them. People are not now comforting themselves with
i the belief that the first trouble will blow over, but are worrying
j themselves-yvith thej question. What next? The inquiry is not
"VTATURALLY the Torreus registration law adopted by Cook
-i^ County, Illinois, last November, has to undergo the ordeal
of the courts. Until it h.is passed through that, proceedings
taken under it will be unsatisfactory, inasmuch :ia a judicial
mterpretalion of any new features of legislation is necessary be¬
fore the public can accept them with perfect confidence. It is
reported from Chicago that many obstacles were placed in the way
of giviug effect to the system, one of which was that the Circuit
Court judges only allowed the Recorder the necessary clerical
help to carry out tho work of the system after a struggle. Tho
judges would iu the ordinary course of things, go slow before
acting on a matter of such novelty, ixud their proper prudence
and caution may have been interpreted as an opposition to the
measure itself, for which assumption there w^as no apparent
basis. Further, it is said that the opposition of the land title
lawyers in Chicago is very pronounced, and this may not be any
more culpable than was the hesitirtion of the judges of the Cir¬
cuit Court in setting the miichinery of the law in motion. It
would be a very difficult thing for a legi,slature to enact a mea¬
sure, of which there could be only one construction; no legisla¬
tive body has succeeded in that task yet, and it is best uudei' all
the oircumstances that the coui'ts pihoiitcl flecido what was the Jo-