Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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622 The Record and Guide. May 30,1886 system is of immense benefit to New York City is undeniable, but there is considerable opposition to it in the State at large, and it would not be sur¬ prising if considerable changes were made in its management at no distent day.—St, Louis Repuhliean. Vanderbilt's Little Game. The despondent view which Mr. Vanderbilt is said to be bestowing upon the stock market is almost sufficient to convince one that he has nearly com¬ pleted his preparations to take in West Shore. The great philanthropist is rarely so selfish as to compete with the public tor properties for which he creates a cry, and is even genc!rally so unselfish, when the multitude are buying eagerly on his pointers, as to divide out his own holdings with lavish band. Conversely, he would much prefer, in the amiability of his heart, t ■ fo along iu peace and quietness, picking up only such things as the public on't want, and he would be the last man to prevent the people from get¬ ting their tUl of anything he recommends, by competing with them in such purchases or sales. Mr. Vanderbilt has strenuously denied on all occasions that he ever made speculative sales of any of his raUroads; and, indeed, since the big sale of §'20,000,000 of Central stock a few years ago, he has always insisted that he has not had much " stuff " to sell, short or long. An interview with him last week purports to put the whole business in a new Ught, and for once Mr. Vanderbilt is anxious to be generaUy recognized as an active seller of his special properties aud a bear on the general situation. It is not a bad scheme to be bearish if bearishness prove contagious. Mr. VanderbUt has concluded that his system will be ultimately compelled to yield gracefully to the West Shore blackmaU, as it yielded to the Nickel- plate, but it is particularly desu'able to buy at bottom prices.—LouisviUe Courier Journal, The Future of Copper. It is reported from England that a motion is on foot in that country to establish a copper institute ou the plan of the British Iron and Steel Insti¬ tute. While we cannot believe that copper is of sufficient importance in the art and manufactures to warraut the formation of a technical society for the sole pc.rpose of investigating its properties and studying its merits, with a view to its more general adoption as a substitute for iron and other metals, it is yet a significant sign of the times that the business pubbc is realizing the fact that copper is destined to play a more important part in the future tban its comparatively limited use in the past would seem to indicate. The present euormous annual output of the copper mines of the United States has already in some degree enlarged the market for this metal, and its further consumption is ouly dependent upon the price at which it can be sold. Its superior qualities would make it a readily accepted substi¬ tute in i> any instances where iron has been previously used, provided its eost could be so reduced as to place it on a relatively exual footing with the cheaper metal. For use as a roofing material it stands nuequaled, and.despite its greater first cost it is beiug as extensively employed for this purpose. How far it is applicable to the manufacture of plumbing fixtures has not yet been determined, but its durability and working properties fit it eminently for this as weU as a multitude of other purposes, aud if the producers will be content with making a small percentage of profit ou a large output, instead of closing or partiaUy closiug their mines with the result of forcing up tbe price, copper will before long open for itself a much more exteuded field of application.—iV. Y. Iron Age. What We May Expect. The statistical elements of business have been pretty thoroughly examined during the last year or two, and each new development has been studied by thoughtful men all over the country to determine what the future is to be. AU the Ught that was to be bad from such sources has been obtained, and, though our means of getting at the facts are not so complete as they ought to be, the situation is pretty well imderstood. Everybody knows of the overproduction and the consequent dechue iu prices, of the infiation of the stock and bond markets, of the widespread bankruptcy and breach of trust and ot the general stagnation that succeeds aU tnese things. It is now known that the stocks of goods are comparatively small, that there is little disposi¬ tion to speculate, that buyers are very cautious, and that there is no reason to fear a further geueral run of failures. So far as the facts can be reduced to an arithmetical fui'm of statemeut they look favurable to better times. Itisti-ue, there are unmense sums of capital lying idle, but it is reasjn- able to say that it is si . ply taking a rest aud will soon come into uae, Outside of statistics the main guide in a study of the situation must be the apparent temper of the people and the opinions of experts iu each branch of business. It is highly important to know whether there is general discouragement and apathy or an entei'iM'ising spirit. One ot the greatest advantages of the shrewd speculator is his ability to perceive the drift of popular sentiment in regard lo values and the outlook ot trade. The wisest uf the bears in the stock market have reaped large profits from observing the almost universal lack of faith aud the coustaut e.xpectation of lower prices growing out of repeated disappointments among buyei's. It must be admitted that, it we are to judge from the temper of the public, we have not yet reached a point from which we can expect a speedy revival of trade The most that cau be looked for is a gradual recovery. It will take men a good whUe to become confident of the stabiUty cf markets and the fruitage of their enterprises. The opiuious of leading busmess men, are very valu¬ able if you pick out the right men. C. P. Huntington is quot.?d as speaking hopefully, but such opiuious as meu like Huutiugton aud Gould give to the public are worthless. It the country were on the brink of a precipice and they were loaded up with stocks they would of course talk confidently. It is no part of the business of a sjDeculator to ruin him¬ self by telling the ti-uth. And any opinion from a big speculator that things were iu a bad condition would be equally valueless, for it would be open to the suspicion that it was uttered for a private purpose. Yet such men have foUowers without uumber, and all through the darkest times of last year these followei's were imposed upou with the assurance that the Uquidation was a matter ot only a tew days or a few weeks. Week by week they clung to the delusiun, aud it cost them a good deal of money. MeanwhUe they went tii)-toeing abuut with a sort ot " Hush, dou't wake the baby " air', and some of them actually thought that it was the reports of faUures in the newspajjers that made the times bad. Fortunately we now have favorable opinions of the outlook from more trustworthy persons than the speculators. In no branch of trade are there yet very sanguine views of the prosi^ects, but in all there is a much more confident feeliug than we have seeu fur mauy a month. The dry goods people m-e notyet through talking of the recent auction sale. One of its conspicuous featuies was the wide distribution of the property which was for the most part taken in small lots. The market bore the sale very well, but it made clear to the trade that tht-re must be higher prices or a lower cust of production before the mills can gel a profit uu their output. There has siuce been a very gond demand f rum cuuulry buyers. The lumber traile is caUed fair and stocks not excessive. Makiug due allowance for efforts of the coal men to show up their business in a favorable light, the trade doe^i not appear to be in a speciaUy gratifying condition. It is evident that low prices wiU have to be accepted afl through the summer. As for iron, a man in that branch of business beiug asked recently how trade was, told a story: A boy who was trying to sell a dug expatiated on his good puiuts, winding up with the statemeut that he was une-third English coach. " What ai'e the other two- thirds <" inquired a bystander. " J ust dog," was the reply. In the money and stock markets it is the same old story emphasized. The holdings of lawful money by the banks iu excess of the ueeds of the reserve fund con¬ tinue to increase, and will unquestionably be lai'ge all through the sunmier. The New York stock li-,l is haid up by manipulaliuu. The geueral convic¬ tion IS that the raiU'oads will not have eai'umgs the coming summer that wiU justify any considerable advance in prices. . A strong effort is being made to bring the trunk-line roads to a better understanding in regard to rates aud to settle the quarrel between the New York Central and the West Shore.—Cliicago Tribune. Mexican Cotton. The Secretary of the Mexican Commission to the New Orleans Exposi¬ tion, Senor Plutarco Omelas, has furnished for jjublication some very valu¬ able statistics relative tu the production of cotton and its manufacture iu Mexico. In considering the annual cotton pi'oduct of the world, very little attention has been paid to the cotton produced in Mexico. In fact, it does not appear to have been generally known that much cotton was produced In that country. The New Orleans Exposition, however, has been the means uf causing the world to be furnished with some infurmation uu this subject. The cotton crop uf Mexico last year amounted to 57,i«lO bales of 350 pounds each. This was clean cotton ready for the mills. The Mexican Financier very correctly remarks that this is rather a large amount uf cot¬ ton to be ignored in forming an estimate ot the annual cotton suijply of the world. This large amount of cotton, however, is not sulficient to meet the demands of the Mexican mills, aud about 10,000 bales a year are impoi-ted from the United States. In Mexico there are twenty-three States in which cotton goods are manufactured. In these States there are W mills, H,74.5 looms and 247,894 spindles. The total value of the machineiy in these mills is placed at ?4,.500,000, and the value of the entire manufacturing properties at 810,000,000. Mexico is much more of a cotton manufacturing country than she is generally uuderstood to be. If the reciprocal treaty which she has negotiated with this country should be ratified, it is probable that she would at once show marked progress in manufacturing iudustries, because her opportunities for getting cheap machinery would be greatly incre.ssed. The very prominent part that Mexico has taken in the New Orleans Expo¬ sition shows that she is awake to the advantages of advertising her sources of wealth, and that she is ready to utiUze everything that will help develop these sources.—Savannah Weekly, The Age of Steel. " The country owes a great debt of gratitude to the labor organizations," says the New York Commercial Bulletin, and then it proceeds to show huw this service, though involmitary, has been effective. They have made eld modes of manufacture so costly that employers have been com|ielled to adopt labor-saving devices with a rapidity unknown in other countries. As a result, in new and economical processes America leads the world. But in case of the ironworkers this result has reacted upon the labor orgaiuza- tions in a remarkable manner. The ironworkers, with a very strong asso¬ ciation, placed their labor at a very high value, and because iron was thereby rendered costly, the products of steel have been substituted for it more rapidly here than abroad, The manufacture of steel escapes many of the labur complications to which ii-on is liable, and the late Pittsburg convention of ironworkers endeavored to raise the scale of the steel workers, iu order to arrest this flank movement. The Bulletin says that they can ouly hope to do this iu tho West, for in the East they have not been able tu coutrul the wages of pudalers or other ironworkers, even, and that if they succeed iu raising prices in the West they wUl simply mcrease the advan¬ tage which Eastern mills already enjoy. Also, that the immediate effect of such success will be to still further stimulate the adoption of those luofies of production in which the cost of skiUed labor is smallest. As an example, it points out [that trade journals are uow full of descriptions of new prucesses for making steel, one uf which, now in successful operation in Pittsburg, employs only one mau at wages exceeding -J1.2o a day, all the rest of the wurk being done by unskilled bands, easily obtainable anywhere. It these statements are true, the ironworkei's cau hardly be ignorant ot the fact, and it would seem that the knowledge should naturaUy make them cau¬ tious about entering upon the great strike v\hich seems to be threateneil. The object ot a strike wuuld be to impruve wages, but the effect, under the cii- cumstances outlined, wuuld mure probably be to largely extend the adop¬ tion of tuose pruce.sses which require the fewest skiUed operatives, and to permanently wi.hdraw employment from mauy who now diuw the highest wages. One question which naturaUy suggests itself, however, is this : If the substitution of cheap steel processes for iron is due to the action of ironworkers' unions, why is it that in England, where those organizations are more powerful than in America, the substitution is less rapid than here ! Values of Some Products. The events ot the last two or three weeks have been tending to relieve the commercial situation at one of the points ot greatest weakness. The special disadvantages uuder which we have been laljoriug have been, tirst, the pecitliar depression in the overcrowded artisan industries, unduly stimulated by a so-caUed protective tariff, and second, the abnormal cheapness of the staples ot agi'icultural produce, especially those of the North and West. The latter has been largely instrumental in aggravating the difficulties in the way ot pro.sperity to artisan industry. The excessively low prices for Western foodstuffs, especiaUy grain, are facts of common ob.servatiun. The advance set in before the occurrence of the last Anglo-Russian war crisis, winter wheat especially having gained very materially, while uth r cereals were firm or rising. The boom started by the war sensation depended, of course, upon the realization of war, and it peace be assured much of the rise occasioned wuuld perhaps be lost; but irrespective of this, breadstuffs had apparently reached a tm'uing point on their merits before the late excite¬ ment was developed. If su, it is a fact of considerable general signifi¬ cance. It is a result of our financial system to impose the princiiml weight of the most costly system of ta.xation upon the productions of the soil. Om' system has not only rendered merchandise artifl¬ cially dear, but has also stimulated by fictitious but decepted profits the volume of artisan productions. The unprotected class, which pro¬ duces by far the greater part ot the country's wealth, its grain, live stock, cotton, eto., have been the principal reliance for the sup¬ port of the general mercantUe trade in jjrotected articles. The farmers have borne the burden with wonderful endurance, and as long as the world's markets were favorable to their great productions their resources availad to keep the whole system in apparently healthy action. But iu the last two years the immense burden, natm'al and artificial, which had to be borue by the jjroducts of the soil, has pressed upon producers with uuwouted severity, because their produce has shrunken seriously iu mouey value. Not only have the world's markets decUned fruni material canses, but in addi- tiun there has been superimposed upon our Western pi oduce the artifi::ial disabiUty of legislative restrictions in several foreign countries, directed at products ot the soil, but intended as retaUation ou account of our protective duties on our artisan products. The farmei-s, therefore, to use slang phrjise, " have caught it going and coming." The reduced purchasing power of the products ot the soil has been felt m all parts uf the compli¬ cated system built thereon. There has beeu a weakening and settling down in the whol fabric under the necessity to acjommodate the burdon to the capacity of its support. None of the great nations of Christeudom, if we except Russia, are so dependent upon the suil for the sustenance of its wealth and general industry, aud nu nation taxes the capacity of this general packhoi'se with such a reckless disregard both of the limit of its strength and the contingencies which may impair its owu energies. There is consequently no nation which is liable to as serious iuconvemences from any turn of trade which cuts into the far-iuer's reveuues. The late tur'ii of the markets is therefore a matter of gi'eat significance. Even if the change of tendencies in breadstuffs aud pro¬ visions be due to influences which may have uudesii'able effects it is a real and substantial benefit, for according to om' past exijenence the late com¬ bination ^of adverse conditious has been pai'tly fortuitous and .probably