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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 33, no. 841: April 26, 1884

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April 26, 1884 The Record, and Guide. THE RECORD AND GUIDE. Published every Saturday/. 191 Broadway, N. Y. TERMS: ONE TElilR, in advance, 811 DOLLARS. CommanicatioDS should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Buainess Manager. APEIL 26, 1884. Theodore Roosevelt heads the New York delegation to the Chicago convention. How would he do to head the ticket nomin¬ ated at Chicago? His rpcord is a splendid one for a dark horse. Tlie Democrats of this Slate piled up a tretuen(Jou=i majority for an ex- mayor of Buffalo for Governor whose name had scarcely been men¬ tioned before the convention met. Theodore Roosevelt might be equally uvailable as a presidential candidate although he has never been more than a State Assemblyman, the "Ticker" is stopped for the week. Points in a market such a3 we have had for the last month are of little value. The situa¬ tion is dismal and the outlook of the stock market is not at all batit;- factory. Some new and unexpected factor is needed to stop tlie decline and inaugurate an advance in stock values. The probabil¬ ities are that some time within six weeks there will be a spell of hopefulness, and consequent enhancement of values. The crops all promise well and should grain and cotton shipments be renewed and gold importations cease, prices will pick up aud general busi¬ ness become better. Bi:t outside of the real estate market the sit¬ uation is not satisfactory. The Broadway Arcade Underground project has been endorsed by the Slate Senate, only eight votes being cast against it. "N^e trust the measure will also be endorsed by the Aasembly, as we regard it as involving an improvement which will be of enormous beneHt.to the metriipolis, and particularly to its great thorough¬ fare—Broadway. It is to be regretted that the amendment pro¬ posed levying a tax of five per cent, on the gross receipts of the road should have been voted down. A corporation which secures BO valuable a privilege ought to pay something into the city treas¬ ury. Indeed, this fax should be levied upon the gross receipts of all ferries, gas, horse-car, elevated, cable and other companies, which are granted exclusive privileges within our city limits. We do not share the fears of the Astors, the Trinity Church corpora¬ tion or the representatives of the Broadway real estate owners who apprehend some damage to their propeity by the construction of an Arcade road. All capitalists and large real estate owners are generally blind to their own interests when improvements of this kind are projected. The Broadway property holders have been their own worst enemies, for in putting a stop to the laying of rail¬ way tracks on, under or above ground, they have driven the retail traffic from their own thoroughfare to Sixth auH other avenues. The Arcade road prtsents no engineering difficulties which have not been repeatedly overcome, and if ever completed will triple the value ol real estate on Broadway. It will benefit every section of the city, and help make New York in time the metropolis of the world. Although the House of Representatives is Democratic by a large majority that body cannot resist the tendency of the age, and in spite of its traditions is hard at work centralizing the authority of the general government, Ifc has votfd to establish a Bureau of Labor and a Bureau of Navigation. This action has greatly dis¬ tressed some newspapers hereabouts, who prophesy all sorts of evil because government is about to pay some attention to the real wants of the community. The present organization of our cabinet is inadequate and faulty. Why should a peaceful nation like the United States, without an army or a navy, have two of its cabinet ministers representing those departments? The vital interests of the country are transportation, agriculture, manufactured and labor. EJucation should also be a matter of national concern, and the passage of the Blair Bill will necessitate the organization of a department having the care of educational matters throughout the United States. Certain of our local papers are dismayed at the prospe::t that the Bureau of Navigation may eventually become as important and complex a machine as the British Board of Trade, Bui why not ? If there is anything which has so far been neglected by the nation it is our foreign commerce. One of the most hope¬ ful signs of the times is the effort to take our civil aervice out of pbliticc, so that the new functions the governmout is uadeitokiug may be efficiently carried out. Herbert Spencer's famous law of evolution that all things develop from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous is as true of governments as of vegetable and animal life. Tlie head must become stronger as the b'jdy becomes larger, and thij is why there are so many departments in oui government now compaied with the period which preceded the civil war. Tlie work of reform will not have been completed even if all the Roosevelt bills become laws. The disorder in our city finances is one of the giant evils connected with our municipal government. As Bradntreefs very well says : " Everywhere local finance is con¬ fused and demoralized. In consequence the entire conduct of city business is in a like condition. As we have often pointed out the municipal problem so-called is primarily a question of practical finance. Sj true is this that tliere is not mucti hope for a better government of our large cities until the point comes to be generally recognized. The ouly well defined exception to the demoralization is in I he recent history of Philadelphia. There the general effects of a reformed finance have been moat wholesome. New York has about the worst financial accounting in existence." Time and again has The Record and Guide pointed out a way for using the taxpayers to straighten out our city finances and bring a constant pressure, to bear to effect economy in muuicipcl expenditures. We would have the lar e taxpayers of New York charged with the duty of examining the history of every bill presented to the Comptroller for payment. They should be required to present frequent reports touching the workings of every department in the city government ; in other woros, they who pay out the money should know what becomes of it—how much la expended on proper' city work, and what proportion is wasted on sinecures and fraudulent charges agaiust the treasury. Were the expert representatives of the taxpayers to be. aa it were, in per- pEtual session, there would be no need of Commissioners of Accounts or legislative investigations. We do not propose that the taxpayers shall have any additional powers, but tiieir representa¬ tives should have authority to see every salary roll and every bill charged against the city. This would be so simple a reform that it will be a difficult one to adopt; yet it would be a very, very effect¬ ual one if tried. ----------»---------- A revolution is impending in the iron business. It has now been settled beyond all peradventure that the very best quality of pig iion can be proi^uced in Northern Alabama for twelve and a-half dollars per ton. Tbe cost per ton io Pennsylvania is eighteen dol¬ lars and seventy cents, a difference of six dollars and twenty cents in favor of Alabama. This means that that State can produce iron at a rate so low that no tariff is needed to keep foreign iron out of the country. The consequences which necessarily follow this fact will be most important. Pennsylvania cannot compete with Ala¬ bama. Its least profitable furnaces must soon close, never to be reopened. For a time it will retain the making of steel, because •he patents for the Bessemer and other processes are held by the owners of the great plants in Pennsylvania; but in time the steel production will be transplanted to Alabama, where iron can be so cheaply mined. With the|fall of her iron industry Pennsylvania has no longer any interest in a high tariff. It is the "Keystone State" which has been the bulwark of the Protectionist party in the United States. The New England manufacturers are slowly but surely coming to the conclusion that free trade will give them a better chance for making money than ever did protection. The latter has built up a home competition in the South and West, whicii is eating up the profits of the New England manufacturer, Wilh free trade he could enter the markets of the world. The fact that we can produce cheaper iron that England and Scotland is destined to have a most important influence upon the pontics as well as the business of the United States, The Senate has passed a new Bankruptcy Act, but it is Slid its chances (o get through the House are very doubtful. Bankruptcy laws are beneficial to only two classes—debtors who wish to rid themselves of their obligations, ai d the lawyers. Creditors arO invariably robbed in all bankruptcy proceedings. Tom Benton said in his day that insolvent estates never paid more than 1 per cent., and this has been true of every bankruptcy act passed since then. Ail thesenational enactments create a host of official harpiei who, with tiie lawyers, see to it that the creditor gets nothing. The winding up of estates in this country is a shameful chapter ia the legal history of the country. Ic is simply organized plunder from first lo last. What makes the record rhe more shameful is that the swindling is done in the name of justice. We can never have a proper bankruptcy law paased by Congress when nine-tenths of that body are lawyers, and about all of its leading lights are members of that profession. While we heartily approve of the reform legislation so success' lully conducted by Mr. Theodore Roosevelt there is one bill—tbat rslatins to the public parka—which teems to ua unnecesaary. Th*