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The Record and guide: v. 37, no. 944: April 17, 1886

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April 11, 1886 The Record and Guide. 485 THE RECORD AND, GUIDE, Published every Saturday. 191 Broad^wav, IST. IT. Onr Telepbone Call is JOHN 370. TERMS: Ol^E YEAR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS. Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. Vol. APRIL 17, 1886. No. 944. Just at the moment things do not look promising. There is a hesitancy in general trade and a marked falling off in orders for new goods. Nor is the real estate market as buoyant as it was. The sales of the past week have developed weakness. Certain dealers have been overdoing the market and offering more property than investors would take at high figures. The renting of housea is not as brisk as it was. Indeed, some agents say that the coming May will see a larger number of unrented residences than usual. The labor troubles seem to be paralyzing business in every direction. opposed the construction of the Arcade, yet had it been built Broad¬ way property would have been worth double what it ia to-day, and the city would have had real rapid transit, for the Harlem River could be reached from the Battery in twenty minutes' time. But all is well that ends well. The sympathies of the public were with the conductors and car- drivers when they struck for $3.00 a day for twelve hours' work. But the outside public do not justify the tie-up of yesterday. Demanding fair treatment and fair wages is one thing, but to put vast numbers of people to inconvenience in order to force the Third Avenue Company to discharge half a dozen non-union employes is, in the judgment of disinterested persons, little short of an outrage, and the company will have the backing of the com¬ munity in fighting this demand to the bitter end. Then the boy¬ cotting of Mrs. Gray's bakery was a most unwise proceeding, and has done more to damage boycotting as a practice than anything that has yet occurred. This is not to be regretted ; the boycott is a dangerous weapon in the arsenal of labor agitation, and should never be resorted to except in very extreme cases, if at all. These excesses and mistakes of the labor organizations are tending to dis¬ credit them with the business community. It is all right to demand of employers fair wages and good treatment, but they must be per¬ mitted to conduct their business in their own way and with their own agents. Tiie American public will not tolerate the assertion of extreme demands, either on the part of employers or their work¬ people. Senseless tie-ups like this on the Third avenue road and boycotting like that of which Mrs. Gray has been a victim will, if continued, turn the tide of public feeling entirely against the labor movement. In his conference with Mr. Powderly, Mr. Jay Gould presented one view of the railway difficulty in connection with the labor disputes which has often been given in these columns, but which has been overlooked in the general discussions of the press on the subject. Says Mr. Gould : It is the public duty of a corporation and every individual member of it —of a railroad corporation—to operate the road for public use. It is the duty of all employes alike in that respect, from the President down. They clothe themselves, so to speak, with public duties. It is unlike the employes of a manufacturing company or any private organization. A railroad is a public thoroughfare, a public organization, and it has contract duties to the State and to the public; and from the President down to the lowest employ^, when they take service with the railroad they assume their share of those public duties. Time and again has The Record and Guide urged that the true solution of this whole trouble would be for tbe government to make all railway employes a parfc of the police force of the nation. Engineers, conductors, brakemen and switchmen should wear the national uniform, and their wages and treatment be subjecfc to regulations by Congress. This would pufc an end forever to all strikes, and would add a force of half a million men who would be under the command of the Federal authorities, and would insure us not only againsfc strikes but local insurrections. The Southern rebellion would not have lasted three months if the railway employes were at the orders of the military authorities of the nation. Then, were the engineers, conductors and car-drivers of our city steam and horse-car companies made a parfc of the police force of the municipality, we would hear no more of senseless sfcrikes and tie-ups, and a force of at least 15,000 men would be prac¬ tically added to our local militia, who could be depended upon to suppress riots and keep the peace in times of great public excite¬ ment. Both inter-Sfcate and local railway lines are intended for the public convenience primarily; the wages of the operatives and the profits of the stockholders are only incidental considerations. Jay Gould is a man of great courage in a financial way. He would probably run away from a man bigger than himself if the former showed fight. Bufc in his officfe Mr. Gould is willing to face any danger to himself or his forfcune. Yet those who have seen him recenfcly say thafc he is very much excifced jusfc now. Matters have nofc turned oufc as well in the Soufchwesfc as he expected. He had the Knights of Labor afc a disadvantage, and he thought he could discredifc them. Hence he refused to arbitrate ; would not recognize the labor organization, and certain results followed which he did not foresee. The labor disputes have got into Con¬ gress. Other interests are being attacked which affect him nearly, and, worse than all, there is a probability of legal proceedings againsfc himself which may prove awkward. His enemies say that Mr. Gould has been guilty of illegal practices which, if the laws were rigidly enforced, would land him in Sfcates prison. T. V. Powderly is not.the kind of man to make careless threats, and if the Knights of Labor can raise $500,000 there are plenty of lawyers who could be hired to worry the life out of this great Wall street operator. The money interest in the Southwestern sail way system has been transferred to New York. Very few persons in Texas are interested in stocks of the Gould roads. Rightly or wrongly the public feeling in that region is with the strikers. This is shown by the meetings held in St. Louis to try and bring about arbitration. If the lawyers get after Gould's past transactions he may gefc more law than he bargained, for. The Broadway Arcade Railroad biU has been indorsed by the Legislafcure of this Sfcate. There were only two vofces against it iu the Senate and seven in the Assembly. This settles this important matter, for the measure has friends enough in the Legislature to pass it should Governor Hill interpose a veto. What a difference it would have made had Governor Hoffman nofc vetoed the original Arcade bill when it passed through both branches of the Legisla¬ ture. By this time we would have had sfceam transit under Broad¬ way, connecting every part of thafc thorougLfare with the railway system of the cpuntacy. The Broadway property-holdere then Judge Joseph Donohue is confessedly one of the ablest members of the New York bench. He is a well-read lawyer, can see a point quicker than mosfc of his associates, is prompt in his decisions, and has many ofcher elements of popularity with fche legal pro¬ fession and the public. But, somehow, there has always been a great deal of talk about this judge. He has been charged time and again with favoritism and suspected of wrong-doing. The members of the bar dared nofc say much, because they feared ifc might damage their cases when taken to his court. The charges which, it is said, will be brought againsfc fchis judgejare his overriding the law by injunctions for the beneflt of sporting men and liquor dealers. He enjoined the police, for instance, from interfering wifch the bookmakers at Jerome Park. Perhaps, technically, he was wrong, but certainly in that matter he had the countenance and supporfc of every turf man in the State. Our laws on that subject are preposterous, and if there was any legal way of evading them the !public sentiment of the vast majority of 'the counfcry would sustain him in the course he took. Then his infcerposition againsfc drinking wine after one o'clock at a masquerade ball does nofc seem so heinous a matter to the patrons of those hilarious gatherings. Of course this is nofc the view of respectable and pious people, bufc the latter comprise, after all, but a small portion of the community and they never go to masquerade balls. Still, law is law, and Judge Donohue has no business to nullify it by the abuse of legal process. Bufc whafc a pity it is fchat so brighfc a judge should have his good name called in quesfcion by actions which may not be blameworthy, yet which lay him open to suspicion. The political and social changes which are taking place in Europe cannot be well understood without reference to the difference in the presenfc price of land compared with whafc it was formerly. In the generations gone by it was the great landowner who repre^ sented the accumulated wealth of the cummunity and who formed the class basis for aristocratic rule. Corporate wealth is practi¬ cally a creation of this century, and the banker, the merchant, the manufacturer and the railway king have taken authority away from and accumulated more wealth than the landowner. But the fatal blow to the latter has. been the competition of grain-growing countries, such as the United States, Australia and India. The wheat product of these countries could not have been utilized were it nofc for steam navigation, which has so cheapened transportation thafc the lower-priced labor and land and the more fertile soil has rendered the farming of the old and high-priced land of Western Europe unprofit¬ able, or comparatively so. The distress in the British Isles, and especially in Ireland, is largely due to the facfc thafc agriculturisfce have become impoverished by th« sompefcifcion of other nations,