Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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1C22 The Record and Guide. September 19, 1885 the iron iudustry has set in with a suddeiraess which is something remark¬ able. At tbe close of last month the outlook was regarded as simply encouraging, but nothing more; and leadi ng authorities, while professing to be hopeful, maintained that there were "no special indications of change either for better or worse." Even so late as August 22 the Cleveland rolling mills announced that there had never been a time since their organization *'when business was so slack as at present." "We have no orders upon our books, and the prospects for running grow steadily less every day." Only in Chicago were there any positive expressions of con¬ fidence aud tangible indications of improvement. Within ten days all this is changed. Frora tbe East tbere is reported "improve¬ ment of the very healthiest character, namely, a steady and in¬ creasing demand without any undue excitement in prices; orders are numerous, the deraaud for steel rails unprecedented, mUls running to their full capacity, and their entire output bespoke for a year in advance." Frora the South corae similar reports witli tidings of boun¬ teous crops and over-taxed freight facilities, the projection of new fur¬ nace plants and the extension or completion of railroads suspended by the depression. Hero in Chicago not only is there a far better showing than there has been for .some years, but there is a marked advance in prices and increasing activity in every line of tbe business. It is not claimed that there are yet the elements necessary for a " boora," but the raost conserva¬ tive admit that there are strong indications of the beginning of another era of general prosperity.—Chicago Ncios. The Growing South. The progress which the South is making is well worth careful attention. Her people are displaying marvelous energy and enterprise The casual observer does not notice the evidences of her material development, but those who raake it their business to look after such thmgs see thera, and are not slow to take advantage of them. When the facts are brought together, showing the South's material development, they very naturally excite surprise, it bas long been tbe custom to look to the West for indi¬ cation of extraordinary growth in wealth and population, and it is there¬ fore difficult to make th * country understand that the South is rapidly buildiug up ber waste places, establishing new industries and increasing her wealth. Since ISSO, when the census was taken, tbe assessment books of twelve southern States, viz.: Alabama, Arkansas. Florida, Georgia, Ken¬ tucky, Louisanna, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennesee Virg'iuia and Texas show an increase ia wealth amounting to $892,305,930. These figures tell tbe story of tbe South's progress in a way tbat is as eloquent as it is convincing. The South is not standing still. She is advan¬ cing with giant strides. Every year thousands of new farms are opened and the land already under cultivation is raa/le raore productive by better culti¬ vation and the use of fertilizers. Every year additional capital is employed in developing mines. Every year raanufacturing industries are established. The figures are at hand to support these stateraeuts. It is within tbe bounds of possibility that tbe present generation will see the South attracting attention for her marvelous development, just as the West is attracting attention now.—Savannah Neivs. ftlanufacturinj? Prospects. Scientific Araerican: A number of interviews, held recently with the pro¬ prietors and managers of representative manufacturing establishments in a New England State, afford sorae interesting if not positive information relative to the prospects of manufacturers. Out of the number visited, fourteen estabUshinents ma}' be taken as representative. These comprise the niakei-s of machine tools, .steam engines, band tools, cutlery, sewing raachines, guns and pistols, raachine screws, bench hardware, builders' hardware, drop forgings, patterns. A number of these branches are dupli¬ cated in the visitations. Taken as a whole the reports are favorable, not only for present work, but for prospective business. In one establishment the hours of wo^k have been doubled during tbe month of August; the factory bad been running ou half tirae for several months. This inci ease of time is not due to a " spurt" of a single order, but to a gradually-increasing pressure of small orders. Two machine tool establishments have lately increased their force of bands^ aud are busy filling recent orders; they both say that they have few tiiiished tools in stock. The steam engine builders complain of lack of orders; there does not appear to be raany new manufactories starting, and few which are increasing their power. The call for bench tools for iron and wood has lately received an Impetus from fresh orders ; but possibly this may come from dealers whose stock bas run low. Cutlery, gims, pistols and sewing machines are more in demand than they were three raonths ago—April and May—and the manufacturers are confident that " the good times" are about to come again. Machine screws are affected largely by the manufacture of raachine tools and raanufacturing machin¬ ery ; but this industry, which bas lagged slightly, is coming up to a healthy if not a driving conditiou. Bench hardware has suffered considerably ; the dealers bave a considerable supply on hand. In some localities builders' hardware has been in brisk deraand all through the spring and summer, and there is an increase in orders. Drop forgings are special as well as regular, and tbe former seem to have increased in orders while the latter have not materially fallen off. So these facts as to the actual state of work may be properly supplemented by the combined opinion of tbe managers of the raanufactoriei. On the whole tbe impression gamed is that our manufac¬ turing business is beginning to increase ; the deadlock is to be removed, and the dullness of years is lo be gradually changed to an activity that shall give corapetent labor reraunerative eraploynient and invested cajiital profitable returns. As to tbe cause of the present relative inactivity, opinions differ. Probably there are combined causes which do not resolve theraselves into a comprehensive explanation. But aU those who have been addressed ou the subject agree upon one cause, tbat of production beyond the requireraents of the people. It is a reraarkab'e state of society where raore of all comforts, necessaries and luxuries ai'e provided thau cau be sold to those who are able to pay for them; it raay, nevertheless, be the fact.— Age of Steel. Hard Money. The Treasury Department is withdrawing the one-dollar and two-dollar greenbacks in order to make a place for the sUver dollar. This is a raost desirable reform. The small bills aro inconvenient, easily destroyed, and. being in greater use than bUls of other denominations, they soon become very disagreeable, and are often supposed to carry the gerras of disease. We exclude rags frora countries where contagious or infectious diseases are raging; why not do away with our native rags i It is very difficult to get silver money here. Only tbe other day a depositor asked, at one of the principal banks of tbe city, tbat ten iloUars iu sUver should be given iu part pay¬ ment for a check, and he was told that there was not that amount of silver in the bank. It is a comfortable thing to have a handful of silver raoney. The araount of money now usually carried by people in tbeir pockets is not large, and specie would be far more convenient than paper. In England there are no bUls for less than twenty-five dollars. In France there are none for less than twenty dollars. In consequence of this there is a large quantity of gold and silver in circulation. There is no minor incident of European travel which prcKluces so pleasant au impression upon au Araerican as the abundance of gold and sUver coin. Here we keep the coin in vaults and in place of it use paper, much of which is lost by use, thus imposing upon the people a very unjust tax, almost all of which falls upon the poor. It is assumed tbat tbe people prefer paper money; but there is no gromid for such an assumption. We bave never had anything else, and do not know the advantages of a specie currency. Is there any com¬ munity which has ever had gold and silver and is wiUing to exchange them for paper ? California is an example to the contrary. There the people have always refused to use the paper raoney. Does auy one suppose they could bo induced to give up the gold and sUver ( There are other consid¬ erations besides those of convenience which make it desirable that there should always be a large s ock of specie in the hands of tbe people. It is a valuable sa eguard against a panic, and a source of strength in times of financial trouble.—New York Star. The Administration and the Currency. Secretary Manning is a machine politician who cares much less about the silver coinage than he does about the preservation of peace in the Demo¬ cratic ranks. He must understand that it is irapossible for the President to bulldoze the Democrats in Congress into submission to a Wall street attack upon the double standard. In this situation he seeks for a compromise, and his political morals do not forbid him to favor one thing in public and another in private. Manning can discharge himself of any political responsi¬ bility as easily as an eel sheds its skin. What he may do in the secret caucuses of the Democratic party is a matter of no consequence. Even Detnocrat<» must judge hira by his acts as Secretary of the Treasury in enforcing the Cleveland policj', which indicates so far an unswerving deter¬ mination to suspend the double standard and raake silver unpopular by forcing it on the people in place not only of tbe small notes but of the fives and tens. Whatever Manning and Jordan may do as individuals they are, as merabers of the Cleveland adrainistration, committed to tbe doctrine of no compromise on the silver question. The adrainistration has used every means to discredit silver, and shows a strong disposition to bulldoze both Congress aud tbe people into its practical demonetization. As indivi duals, Manning and Jordan may be growing anxious for a compromise, but as officials they will not be permitted to hint at anything of the kind. The Cleveland administration is committed not siraply to a suspension of the coinage—which all sensible men desire—but to a practical demonetiza¬ tion of silver, and it will have nothing "officially" to do with the Warner compromises. Like the Admiral ra "Pinafore" it does not "officially" know that anything of the kind is conteraplated.—Chicago Tribune. The Business Rebound. Simultaneously with the awakening of tbe u'on industry in this country comes the news from England that the furnaces there are again aglow and that the works everywhere are resuming operations. As there is nothing that succeeds like success, so there is nothing that establishes confidence like confidence. Tha oddest aspect of the world's periodical panics is that they never, or very rarely, can be traced to any actual diminution of the world's wealth. On the contrary, instances are comraon where stupen¬ dous destruction of everything that men regard as valuable bas been productive of tho utmost apparent prosperity. The years immediately fol¬ lowing the War of tbe Rebellion, frora 1865 to 1872, furnish an instance of tbe kind. During this period the wheels of our natioual raanufacturing and commercial industries revolved with unexampled speed. Every branch of business appeared to be prospering beyond alraost the hopes of man. Wages were high, expenditures of all sorts lavish in the extreme, profits enormous, tbe demand for consumption insatiable. Vast railroad and other engineering works were pushed forward with an energy and success unknown before iu tho history of tbe world, and material wealth was created with a rapidity which was simply inconceivable. In short, every American felt that he was living on a modern Tom Fiddler's ground where, while gold and silver were scarce, •greenuacks, which answered every purpose just as well, could be had in abundance for the mere trouble of picking thera up. But after this seven years of productiveness, when the actual wealth of the country had grown into proportions incomparably larger than those which had existed at the commencement of the period, some mysterious and hitherto inexplicable force was called into piny, which put a stop to every¬ thing. Busy workmen were converted into listless idlers, resounding forges became as silent as the tomb. Increased riches, instead of creating confi¬ dence among men, appeared to have the contrary effect. 'Whispered words of suspicion, cautiously uttered within the recesses of bank parlors and other dens of capital, brought tbe prosperous march of the armies of labor to a sudden and most disastrous halt. According to the theories of political economists tbe wage fund had grown treraendously; but this did not help the wage-earners a particle. Confidence was lost and a period of disti*ess set in which covered nearly another seven years. A simUar process was repeated later, embracing, however, shorter periods of time. Two or three years of almost feverish activity, resulting in another enormous accretion to the national wealth, was promptly followed by a period of depression, from which, if outward signs be true, the world is just now emerging. It is very easy to explain everything on, under or above the earth, if people are con¬ tent to use only certain set phrases, and the peculiar condition of affairs of which we speak is said to be due to over-production. This word "over-production" is the modern cant for the wrath of God, to which in other ages all the unusual miseries of mankind were attributed. But nobody has ever yet risen to explain why the production of more fixed wealth than can be iramediately con¬ sumed should necessarily result in immediate and distressing pov¬ erty to the producers. It could be understood if these periodical times of distress were coincident with or consequent upon destruction by war, crop shortage or any siraUar event which raight reduce the world's capacity to pay; but when it is remembered that pi-ecisely the contrary is tbe case, that rigorous productiveness seems always to lead directly to a raoney panic, the prolilemis beyond solution by any ordiuaiy process of reasoning. In spite of what the ingenious professors of pohtical economy may say, no matter what plausible if incomprehensible " laws" they may promulgate, the whole matter is as much a mystery to-day as it was before Adam Smith wrote or MUl philosophized. We only know that a sort of epidemic of suspicion sets in periodically, and that capital, always prompt to take alarm, is suddenly withdrawn from all classes of industrial and commercial enterprise. Then, again, we know that after a period confidence becomes gradually re-estab¬ lished. A few thousand flrras, more or less, have been ruined, none but the financiaUy strong permitted to remain, and then, here and tbere, tbe old industries are resumed, and almost before the cry of confidence can be heard tbe world is running its race as eagerly aud as prosperously as ever. All signs poiut to tbe commencement of such a period now; as confidence begets confidence, so the reopening of one iron forge leads to renewed activity in others. The sense of security and ambition to produce is spreading rapidly, and everything promises that business wUl take its new birth in the season just commenced.—>S^ I^ouis Globe-Democrat. The Better Outlook. There is a real improvement in almost every leading branch of trade, except that which is under the control of tbe coal barons. The combination which went to pieces years ago had placed the market on such a false basis that when each company carae to act iu practical independence of the other* there was an over-production and the trade was demoralized. It is uot likely to recover frora that condition soon. The advance in iron is wellniaiulained and tbe deraand is good. There was an active and fairly profitable busi¬ ness in dry-goods last week. The South is one of tbe best customei s of the New York houses, aud is buying a better class of fabrics tban ever before. Flour, which has hitherto been a drug, is in better demand. The best American grades will iuevitably be iu large deraand a little later in the season. In spite of low rates the railroads make a pretty good showing. Fifty roads, mostly in the West and South, earned >;l6,6i»5,.502 gross in August, which was ouly $723,405 less tban for the sarae month in 18S4 on a mileage but little greater; and forty-eight roads earned from January 1 to August 31 $l24.o9J,l38, a decrease of $1,919,086. The coastwise steamship