Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 46, no. 1176: September 27, 1890

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September 27.1890 Record and Guide. 887 "^^ \ ESTABUSHED^«WPhSi^I868.^ DwbTiD TO I^ Estate . BuiLoijfc ApjadTECTai^ McwsdRW DEO0H^TWl. Basii^ESs Alto Themes of CEHEn^L Ijnu^^l PRICE, PER TEAR IN ADTANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. Telephone, • • . CJortlandt 1870. Ck>nununlcatioDS should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. Vol. XLVI. SEPTEMBER 27, 1890. No. 1,176 NOTICE. Accompanying this number is a Special Supplement of Illus¬ trations of views at Fordham] Heights. NOTWITHSTANDING the easy rates at which money was obtain¬ able throughout the week, the stock market has not been strong. Neither is this very muchjto be wondered at. The news has not been of the most satisfactory description. The railroads for the first time in many months have reported a decrease in net eamings, and even the increase in gross eamings, wiped out as it is by the heavier increase in operating expenses, has not been taken as a saving clause. Nevertheless the figures as they stand indicate, if nothing else, a most satisfactory condition of general business. If the shipping rates lately have not been large enough to put much money in the treasuries of the trans¬ portation companies, the large quantity of freight carried shows clearly that ma|!]i>^!:acturers are active and the demand good. Indeed, the position of the railroads may be compared to that of the iron trade. In the case of both industries the demand for service in the one instance and the commodities in the other has been very heavy, indicating both a large production and an extensive exchange of general commodities. But, due to eager competition, the price of iron and the freight rates have ruled low. In other words the public, instead of the railroad stock¬ holders and the iron manufacturers, have received the benefit. The increased returns have been immediately expended in employ¬ ing more labor and iu improving facilities—the money being dis¬ tributed among the railroad supply trades and the laborers. It must be remembered, also, that although 136 roads show a decrease in net eamings iu July amounting to about $200,000, there is an increase net in 119 roads, from January 1st to July Slst, of $8,127,027 aud gross $31,711,638. More serious, perhaps, is the damage to the cotton crop in the South. What this damage amounts to it is impossible at present to state; but the speculators in the cotton market have deemed the loss important enough to advance the price. The crop is known to be the largest ever raised, and a partial loss this year can, perhaps, be better afforded than it could two or tbree years ago. REPORTS from tbe Trades-Union Congress at Liverpool indi¬ cate that organized English laborers are as much divided among themselves as organized American laborers. The majority of the congress decided to tium a cold shoulder to political social¬ ism, but when the question of an eight hours law came to be dis¬ cussed there was no such preponderance of opinion. The advocates of the measure outvoted their opi)onents, but the majority was only So in a total of 350, and the discussion was exceedingly bitter. The decisions of the congress are apparently, however, not so coercive as the decisions of an American caucus. The workers in the textile manufactories at once announced that they would not be bound by the vote. As these industries employ something like a million hands, it will be seen that an eight hours law is not so popular as i>t might be among English laborers. The British com¬ mercial mind is very well satisfied with this result, for it effectually disposes of any attempt at eight-hour legis¬ lation for some time. Affairs on the continent are also in an improving condition. In Grermany business is active and stock quotations are advancing. Russian securities are on the rise, and the advance in rouble notes continues steadily. Austro- Hungarian securities, also, are selling at higher prices. All of these advances are ascribed to the enhanced value of silver, and the pros¬ pects of a prolonged peace in Europe. In spite of the disastrous floods which have impeded trade and destroyed prosperity in Hun¬ gary the industrial and railway securities have also continued steady. In short, all Europe appears to be enjoying a degree of prosperity at the present time such as has not been seen for many years. rr^E articles which have appeared in the Century and other -A. magazines on Glasgow, Birmingham and similar municipali- (i es in England, whose government is so fix superior to our own, that a description thereof is frequently read with something like incredulity, are apparently beginning to have theu" effect on the minds of our newspaper editors. There are, indeed, small traces of the arrival of light in the newspaper oflBces of this city. At the time the articles were first published many of our city journals gave an account of the methods adopted by Birmingham and Glas¬ gow in reforming their municipal mstnagement; but it was like their account of everything alien to their various "policies"—tbat is, perfunctory to an extreme. Not a few of the Westem and New England papers, however, have taken the matter up, and are advocating the adoption of similar methods in this country with some degree of intelligence and persistence. Nothing, so far as we have been able to observe, has been accomplished as yet. Here and there a city operates its own electric light plant; two or three examples exist of cities which own their gas supply : but in no municipality in the country is the principle that natural monopolies cannot be trusted to private corporations without waste and corruption thoroughly understood and consistently put into ])raciice. The Record and Guide has held this opinion for years past, and called attention to the Glasgow and Birmingham experiments, some time before the magazines found it worth while to give them space. The experi¬ ence of the past few years, particularly in this city, has been a continuous and overwhelming justification of the position, but because false ideas still continue to prevail, people will not and cannot see its significance. Circumstances conspire, also, to pre¬ vent any proper consideration of a novel policy of this kind, and one, too, which depends for its efficacy on the degree of honesty and economy with which it is carried out.. New York City, body and soul, is in the hands of politicians, and politicians, while they may be honest, are never wise in the selection of good measures, courageous and consistent in advocating them, or pertinacious in putting them into practice. They are not open to considerations of popular welfare, because from the very necessities of their being they are obliged to put party welfare first. If a bill such as the rapid transit measure of last year, which was imperatively demanded, and which from an econ¬ omic point of view met at the time with no opposition, if such a bill can be blocked for jjurely factional reasons, what must be the fate of a policy which rests only on its own inherent rationality, and the necessity for which is not (as yet) popularly appreciated? Thus it is a prerequisite of all progrets in our municipal affairs that the politicians should cease to be supreme, not only in Ne»' York, but alas ! also in Albany. If the gentlemen behind the Municipal League can control our local affairs something may be accom¬ plished, for we recognize among their names many students of political affairs who, receiving their training outside of a pot-bouse, have settled convictions on the tme relations of a municipality to the corporations which exercise public functions within its limits. OUR attention is again called to the strides some of the English cities are making in the matter above referred to by the report to the State Department of Consul Sherman at Liverpool. This report, we are sorry to say, does not betray any great intelligence on the part of the consul. It is a fragmentary document, exhibiting neither any l?rge amount of information, nor any power of com¬ bining what there is into a connected whole. Indeed, it is principally composed of extracts from the last report of the Chief Engi eer of Liverpool, and does not give the supplementary facts that are necessary for a full understanding. Such as it is, however, information of some use may be gleaned from the fragments. Take, for instance, the following statement, which stands as bleak and isolated as the mountain of Teneriffe, in the Atlantic Ocean: "All the street railway tracks (tramways) are laid and owned and kept in condition by the corporation. And the company leasing them for traffic pays an annual rental of 10 per cent, on the cost." Instructive details are painfully absent, but the bare fact stated is not without ils significance. The fruitful suggestion which ex-Mayor Hewitt threw out in his rapid transit message, advising some step of this kind, has, it is true, hardly entered into rapid transit discussions outside of the columns of this paper; but can any one allege a reason why advantage should not be taken of the city's ability to borrow money at 1 and 2 per cent less than a private corporation? And is there any more equitable way of obtaining for the city the money value of the franchise than by such a percentage of the cost as experience has shown to be fair? If there is a more equitable way, it would only be by taking a percentage of the gross earnings instead of the capital invested— in which case the returns would increase as the franchise became more valuable. In either case, however, the principle would remain the same, viz.: that whatever value the right of way through a crowded city has should inure to the benefit, not of capitalists who under^no risk in operating the road, but to the public which gives the franchise its value. Experience in Brooklyn has shown full well tbat tbe practice of letting the franchise at auction without putting a valuation on it under which no bids will be accepted leads to results exactly the reverse of those which are sought. Furthermore.