Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 55, no. 1402: January 26, 1895

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January'20,'! S9 5 Record and Guide, 123 DEV&;ED to RP\L EsTME , gUlLDlf/c Ap-CrflTEeTUI^ .HoUSEtfOlD DESOF^WKlrf, ...... Bifsn/Ess AjfoThemes of GejJer^I lKTtR.E3.i. PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. Telephone,......CoRTLAunT 1370 ComMunloatlona should he addreased to C. "W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, J. 7. LINDSEY. Buaineas Manager. 6E00KLTN Office, 276-282 Washington Street, 0pp. Post Office. " Entered at the Fost-offtee at New York. N. Y., as second-class mallei:" Vol. LV. JANUARY 2G, 1895. No. 1,402 For additional Brooklyn matter, see Brooklyn Department immediately folloiving New Jeraey records {page 151.. BUSINESS is showing the disappointment of the public at the inactivity of Congress in the matter of the position of the Treasury. In administration circles there seems to have been an idea that a measure of complete currency reform could be passed in a Congress composed of the most heterogeneous elements of currency and financial doctrine and having only a short time in which to discuss the measures brought .before it. What an absurd idea this was is shown by the number of propo¬ sitions made to meet the situation. The present condition of things ought to have been foreseen by the administration ; if it had and, instead of a new cuiTeucy bill having been introduced a short measure to relieve the Treasury had been proposed, we should probably not have seen it compelled to contemplate a new issue of bonds, with the certainty that they will not be taken at anything like the price that was paid for the last-issue. However, the resolutions of the Chamber of Commerce ought to enlighten both the administration aud Congress of the true public wishes, and if they are backed up hy similar representations from the great commercial bodies of the country, probably, something will be done even in the few weeks that now remain before the life of the present Congi'ess is terminated. It is to this hope that whatever strength that may be found in the markets is due. It must be admitted that the commercial world has taken the best possible view of the situation hitherto. There has been no scare, although the con¬ dition of the public purse and its immeasurable influence on everything outside wanranted considerable apprehension. If Congress persists in doing nothing for ouly a little while longer the results will be disastrous to values. GOLD was produced iu South Africa last year, according to official figures, to the amount of 2,024,159 ounces, valued at $40,483,180; an increase in value of about $11,000,000 as compared with the production of 1893. The rate of increase is enormous considering the youth of the industry, but it prom¬ ises to be surpassed this year hy the completion of deep level operations at the Eand mines. A proposal to annex the Congo Free State to Belgium has been raised, and is opposed by France on the ground that the latter country has a right of pre-emption to the purchase of: the State should the administration of it ever decide upon abandoning it. This right does not appear to have been recognized by any of the treaties of the powers imder which Africa was cut up among them. British trade returns for December show a further falling off' both in exports and imports. The fact that there is a gain for the year is not satisfactory inasmuch as the losses at the end of the year are not promising for the business of the uew year. The influence of the fall of prices on these returns, however, is very great. A smaller sum m.iy represent a larger amouut of business. In cotton goods, which constitute about one-fourth of the total exports, for instance, the quantity exported expanded about 14 per cent while the increase in the value of the goods exported increased only 5.25 per cent. As a matter of fact English cotton goods h.ive been sold at actual cost. The returns of ninety-four cotton manufacturing companies, operat¬ ing 7,435,055 spindles and capitalized for over $34,000,000, show profitsforthe year of merely $21,000. Miserable as this result must appear it is somewhat better than that of 1893, for in that year the same companies, with the help of six more, made a loss of $300,000. Official returns of the foreign trade with Mexico place the value of exports at .$30,287,500, as compared with $43,413,100 in 1893, aud the imports at $79,343,300, compared with $87,509,200. Eussia is waking up to the value of agi-i- cultural machinery in which there is a large trade springing up within her frontiers. In Southern Russia 2,000 reapers, mostly American, are said to have been sold la&t year. Hungary and America seem to divide the honors in supply¬ ing this class of machinery. Eussia is giving much attention, too, to the growth of cotton. In the Trans- Caucasus it is said to be very profitable, but as this asser¬ tion is based ou ten cents a pound for the product it must be only iu a limited and'special way. Throughout the great Euro¬ pean markets money continues in abundance with poor demand and at low rates; even the discount rates at Pans dropped to 1^2 per cent when the New Year's arrangement had been com¬ pleted. COTTON manufacturing in the South is to be further devel¬ oped by the establishment of plants by the great New England manufacturers in the Carolinas and other States where land and labor are cheaper than they are now in Massachusetts and other points east. It does not follow from this that the pro¬ duction of Massachusetts will be less than in previous yt^ars or that the great Eastern plants created at a cost of many millions of dollars are going to be abandoned. Increase in demand has a tendency to spread manufactures. For instance, it is not so many years since there were no rolling mills west of the Missis¬ sippi ; to-day some are to be found in Colorado, while the East¬ ern ones have lost none of their supremacy. To take a case more in point, Lancashire continues annually to increase its output of manufactured cottons, notwithstanding that a large business, an enormous business it may be said, in manufacturing cotton has grown up in India and Japan, and indeed, notwithstanding that the latter country competes witb Manchester itself in the Indian market in some lines. The explanation oE this apparently anomalous condition of affairs is that no one place has the means, taste, dexterity aud ingenuity to supply everything that is wanted in one particular line, consequently the trade becomes distributed, one kind or quality being made here and another there. Diversity of taste has a great deal to do with regulating this matter. Thus the Japanese who can please some of the trade iu India supply part of their own wants from Manchester. Whenever any change, such as that referred to in the cotton industry of this country is made, it is not uncommon to see alarmist statements appear of the injury to result to the oi iginal scene of that industry, when it more often ought to be a matter of congratulation that the trade as a whole has discovered a way of meeting somo particular demand that it had not been previously able to handle at all, particularly if this develop¬ ment keeps witliin the boundaries of one's own country. — - - -•..... IT must be noticeable to everybody that even the formerly most enthusiastic are not speaking of "refoi-m" to-day in quite the s.ime full-chested tones that filled the air immediately before and immediately after the election last fall. In the in¬ tervening time the word somehow has lost something of its character of a vociferous popular fiat. It is beginning to sound thin and personal to the ear again—the idiom of the discontents and growlers. By all the signs visible at this moment history is repeating itself. On several occasions *■ reform" has entered New York by the polls, but after a while the public-spirited newcomer has always turned out to be the old Philistine of vul¬ gar polities aud sordid misrule. There is every indication now that we have beeu witnessing the ancient masquerade, not a real, social revolution, the fruits of which will be clean and efficient government. This sort of talk naturally sounds very pessimistic, particularly in the ear of those who ride hope lightly under a loose rein and object to the mulish habit of making the road no better than it happens to be. Nothing, however, is to be gained by fool¬ ing ourselves with a make-believe reform. If there was no sub¬ stance, no effective force in the late political revolution why not face the fact at once and have done with the delusion? The recent election, undoubtedly carried or intruded iuto the sphere of government certain elements which if they were the con¬ trolling power in the new situation might be trusted to bring about a decided improvement in the management of our affairs. Mayor Strong's personality is one of the most important new elements, but we have already had esperience iu ex-Mayor Hewitt's case of how restricted and ineffectual, broadly speak- big, the most zealous reformatory efforts of the chief magistrate of the city must be when the old game of "politics" dominates the course of things at home aud at Albany. No one needs to bo told that the people of this city did not go out of " politics " at the last election, and even the outsider can see that the legisla¬ ture up the river is not woiiyiug itself very greatly about "reform." There are some good elements in it,but clearly they are not the ruling ones. WHY does not the Social Purification Society investigate the first column of our noisy uptown contemporary. The Herald. It would be quite edifying to know what "Angel" Dennett could find out about the real motives—and real age, too—of the beautiful blonde who so much mshes to become ac¬ quainted with the dark gentleman who dropped a button in a