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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 27, no. 680: March 26, 1881

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EAL Estate Record AND BUILDERS' GUIDE. Vol. XXVII. NEW YOEK, SATURDAY, MAECH 26, 1881. No. 680 Published Weekly by The RealEstate Record Association $6.00 TERMS: OIVE YEAR, iu advance - - - Connnunications .sliould be addi-es.sed to C. W. SWEET, 137 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. THE BULL AND THE BEAR VIEW CONTRASTED. The views of leading operators on tbe street are very fairly divided as to the future of the market. It is conceded that the hopeful view should guide investors who wish to buy for a long turn. Even the con- one or two crop failures will not permanently injure our railway lines. The only differ¬ ence of opinion is as to the immediate future. Are the floating securities of the street a purchase or a sale, say for the next sixty days ? On this point opinions differ so decidedly that prudent operators are out of the market, and hence the sales are few and the fluctuations in prices unimportant. On tbe bull side it is shown that we have exported .|13,000,000 more since January 1st than we did in 1880, while there is a decrease of nearly $18,000,000 in the value of tlie imports. We have imported, in conse¬ quence, some 18,000,000 of gold and silver since January 1 against $.3,700,000 last year. In other words, the changes show a com¬ parative difference in our favor of nearly $2ii,000,000 this year, compared with last year. These are striking facts, especially if we kcrp in mind that since January 1st nearly $20,000,000 of gold and silver from our own mines have been added to the bullion reserve of the country. The banks are taking out more circulation. Our green¬ back and national banks together give us some $740,000,000 of paper circulation, while the gold and silver in the country coined and available for coinage amounts to nearly $650,000,000. Our circulating me¬ dium since the first of January, 1879, has more than doubled, and from no quarter is there any possibility of contraction. Then, look at the emigration. It is far in excess of what it was this time last year. Our manufacturing industries were never so active. There are no indications that the foreign demand for our securities has ceased. To sum up, the bull argument is heavy exports, light imports, the flow of bullion from abroad, the retention of our own bullion, giving constant additions to the currency, the large emigration, the activity in manufacturing and prosperous trade. We now come to the reasoning of those who are out of the market or have sold it short. They point out: 1st. The fact that the recent bull move¬ ment and an advance in prices has been confined to the walls of the Stock Exchange. In the " boom " of the fall of 1879 every iliiug advanced in price. But since the summer of 1880, while railway securities went kiting, food products have declined in values, cot¬ ton is lower than it has been for two years past, the metals have not advanced despite the heavy consu.mption, and real estate, while strong and firm, does not show as much speculative activity as it did in the spring of 1880. 2d. We have passed through a winter of phenomenal severity. It has not only diminished the business, but it has largely increased the running expenses of all rail¬ roads north of the Ohio and Missouri Rivers. The Grangers have suffered unprecedented losses, and the only railroads that profited hav9 been the coal carriers, and with these the expense account has been largely in¬ creased. 3d. It is now certain that the crop-plant¬ ing season will be late and the acreage seeded far less than for the last three years. The weather has been so exception¬ ally bad that a short crop, if not a disastrous failure, is among the probabilities. As the street always discounts such events, the market is a sale. 4th. The prospect of a refunding bill mak¬ ing money very cheap added at least ten points to the prevailing prices. As there is now no hope of any such measure and no short time treasury notes to inflate, the market, it is argued, should recede in prices. Then, there are the spring settlements and the uncertainty-as to the policy of the administration, all of which tend to check speculation and create a bearish feeling. The above epitomizes the situation. We really think the time has come when pru¬ dent investors wiU let the market alone and turn their attention to a kind of property about which there can be no mistake. We mean real estate. Stocks may go up and stocks may go down, but real estate on this island is like the tides in the " Propontic Sea," which knows no "retiring ebb." --------------i*>------------- THE WORLD'S FaIR. It was The Real Estate Record which flrst advocated the appointment of Ulysses S. Grant as the chief executive of the World's Fair to be held in New York. Our advice was followed, but General Grant seems to have been dissatisfied with the site selected and has resigned from the position of President of the proposed exhibition. It is not to be disguised that this question of site is what has, so far, prevented our citizens from subscribing liberally for the stock of the company. As a matter of fact, the location is not yet decided, nor can it be. By section 21 of the act of incorporation of the commission, it is provided " that not less than $1,000,000 shall be subscribed and not less than 10 per cent, thereof be paid in, before said commission shall do any cor¬ porate act other than the acts necessary to its organization." As $250,000 of the mil¬ lion, which, it is claimed, has been sub¬ scribed, is conditional upon the raising of $4,000,000, it is doubted whether the com mission can adopt any site or do any cor¬ porate act. It is the misfortune of New York that there are seven or eight excellent locations for a fair. The friends of each are so pow¬ erful that they can prevent any general sub¬ scription to the stock. Had the Central Park and Manhattan square been adopted, as was urged by the commission originaUy and by ex-President Grant more recently, there is no doubt but what the necessary funds could have been easily raised, for the location appealed directly to the personal interests of every hotel and lodging house keeper in New York, the heads of all the business houses and the caterers to the amusement of the public. But Inwood is so remote from the centre of business activity that shrewd business people fear that hotels and stores and amusements would be pro¬ vided for the thronging multitudes in the immediate neighborhood. Then, the "Van¬ derbilt subscription was a disappoinf>ment. Had the Central road subscribed a miUion of doUars, as it should have done, General Grant would not have resigned the Presi¬ dency and the fair would now have been on the high road to success. It does not seem possible to get the press of New York to tolerate a fair held in the pleasure ground of the city. Whatever bus¬ iness reasons may be urged, there is the sentiment very generally diffused that it wiU not do to convert the Central Park from its present uses. We could have a fair that would add tens of millions to the trade of this city and would have given an immense stimulus to the value of property on this island. But the only site which would secure the fair and make it a financial suc¬ cess is just the one to which the newspapers of New York unanimously object. So the exhibition wUl be held in aU probabUity in some Western city, Chicago perhaps, where sentiment does not stand in the way of the business interests of the community. Our Albany information to-day wUl be found interesting. There is every reason to believe that the Legislature will remain in session until June, and it is too soon to say whether any wise legislation wiU be ef¬ fected. Public opinion wUl probably force the Legislature to pass Senator McCarthy's amendments to our present charter. So far as we can see, the changes are judicious, but there is always danger that, towards the end of the session, amendments will be smuggled in to continue old abuses or make an opening for new ones. As one party has absolute control of every department of our State government, it will be held to a rigid accountabUity if it faUs to give New York a good charter. A member of the West Side association says there is nothing before the Legislature affecting that part of the city. There may be some bUl incubating of which they know nothing, but they have nothing to ask of the powers that be at Albany. By the way