Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 54, no. 1397: December 22, 1894

Text version:

iLfVWiu.mil ,d«, j.a<7 m.^X-'^^K.^ A V..4 Vj« I^XVJ,V^i 'Hil^. Dented to Riea,l Estwt . Building AjicrfiTECTUi^ ,KousEifou» Sroa^inlt Bifsn/Ess Afi) Themes of Gej^r^L Ims^l. PRICE, per' year in ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.I Published every Saturday. Telephone,......Cortlandt 1370 Oommimlaatlons should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street. J. 2. LINDSEY. Business Manager. Brooklyn Office, 276-282 Washington Street, Off. Post Office. "Entered al the Poat-offlce at New Tork. y T., as second-elaas ■matter." Vol. liv. DECEMBER 22, 1894. :^0. 1,397 F(yr additional Brooklyn matter, see Brooklyn Department immediately following New Jersey records (paqe 944|. "T" AST year at this time the business community was set on -Li thorns by dire predictions o£ the results of the settlements at the close of the year. January came with nothiug very serious occiu'ring. We are now approaching the end of a year whieh has been one vigorous light to keep things going, to end in see¬ ing that consumption has not yet got up to a very limited pro¬ duction, of which fact the recent large sale of cotton goods and the accumulations of iron on the makers' hands are expressive examples. We are buying and will continue to buy a great deal from abroad, for which settlements will have to be made iu some form, if not in goods, then in gold. Still our position is better than it was a year ago. There are more people employed and even the moderate results now obtained were not possible at all at this time last year. The security market has been as unpleasantly surprised by the acceptance of the Carlisle bill as a basis for currency discus¬ sion in th e House as it was agreeably disturbed a week before by the passage ofthe Pooling bill. What seems remarkable is that Mr. Carlisle, of all men in the world, who cannot be con¬ sidered an altogether successful Secretary of the Treasury, shouldbe called in as an expert to deal with a tiscal trouble of such proportions as that of our currency. It does not follow that a doctor who has helped to make a man sick ie able to cure him. Probably he ought to; but can he^ The principle upon which Mr. Carlisle's services have beeu accepted, seems to be one of some responsi¬ bility for existing conditions. Of course, his suggestions are doomed to defeat, but the worst of it is that they are taking up the time that should be given to devising temporary remedies, pending the preparation of a comprehensive curative course. But Congress may have more pleasant surprises in store for us. It is clearly in an amiable and tractable frame of mind, and has abandoned the Vanderbiltian opinion of the public for the time being. If it can be shown a clear and proper course to help busiuess, it will no doubt take it, and this makes the situation hopeful. ''pHE movement of gold has lost its usual siguificauce. Here »- the secui-ity market advanced in the face of exports of that metal, in London large shipments to France have no influence whatever on discount rates, while the accumulations of the Bank of Framce are becoming burdensome to it in the payment of a duty on the note representation of the gold reserve, for which there is no demand. Snch is the plethora of idle money in the great financial centres that reversing the old order of things the departure of gold is a benefit and the receipt of any a disadvantage proportionate to the vohime of the receipt. It is only the United States Treasury that sutters by the export of gold. British trade returns for November show a decline in the value of imports of $2,725,000, and an increase in the value of exports of $2,14r>,000. These results are accepted as indicating no very marked recovery in trade, but that the check to the downward tendency begun in the previous months is sustained. The movement in South African gold mining shares is drawing atteution to the realities that the so-called Kaftir-circns repre¬ sents. Sixty-three shares are dealt in with a totaliiominal capi¬ tal of $75,500,000, and with a market value of $21.5,400,000. Only thirty of these shares have paid or pay dividends. These have a nominal capital of $34,000,000, aud a market value of $118,500,000; dividends paid since 1887 amount to about $30,000,000. It will be seen fi-oni these figures how very large a part of this movement is gambling pure and simple. The introduction of these shares in the Parisian marketis giving anxiety to conservative elehients there. The Graud Trunk ailway Company has made a loan to tide itself over next year ; taestimateddeficieDcy of fixed charges for the current year is $750,000. Suez Canal shares have got hack to figures not quoted since 1881. Receipts of the canal have increased largely- this year, and the Madagascar expedition and anticipated larger China trade is expected to do still more for them in the coming year. Provisional returns of the French vintage are satisfactory^ compared witb the average for the past ten years. One of the feat¬ ures of the German Bourse reform bill is a register in which the names of all operators ou time would have to be entered if their contracts are to be enforceable iu the courts. It is not surprising that if this feature is characteristic of the whole bill that it creates general apprehension as well as opposition. Austria and Hungary have both in prospeet measures to help their agri¬ cultural population, who are suffering because of the decline in the prices of cereals. In Austria it is proposed to grant farmers loans of money, which are to be expended in making their land more productive. In Hungary a similar suggestion prevails, but to be operated through an agncultmal bank. Notwithstand¬ ing its recent scare, the Vienna market has recovered its old- time buoyancy. The political crisis iu Italy does not affect Italian securities adversely ; so far as the markets are concerned, the scandals with whicb one political party is trying to undo the other are old tales. IF the hearings that have been had hefore the Springer Com¬ mittee on Mr. Secretary Carlisle's plan for reforming the currency and the discussion of the same measure in the preaa prove anything, it is that Congress ought to go slow in adopting any suggestions on this subject. The data upon which action can be taken is not perfected. Mr. St. John's belief that the United States as a debtor nation cannot maintain its currency on a gold basis is startling. Very surprising, indeed, is the sug¬ gestion of partial repudiation whieh comes from President Williams, of the Chemical Natioual Bank, who advocated be¬ fore the committee the redemption of silver certificates and perhaps the Sherman Treasury notes in silver bullion at its market value at the Government's option. Mr. Carlisle in illus¬ trating one feature of his plan stated that in Gi-eat Britain no notes under the value of five pounds or tweuty-five dollars were issued. A leading New York paper, which has always^taken the position of an authority on economic questions, corrects Mr. Carlisle by saying that that is true of England alone, because in Scotland and Ireland one-pound or five-dollar notes issue. As a matter of fact, they issue in all three countries, because some of the English provincial chartered banks besides those of Scot¬ land and Ireland issue them. A great nuisance they are, too, to a mau in London who has them, because they are not current and he has to pay a discount for collection the same as for foreign money. This is what would probably be the case with many of the notes issued under Mr. Carlisle's plan if it should be adopted. So we have a great disagreement of the prac¬ titioners, the experts and the authorities. If Congress acts wisely it will not attempt to deal with the currency question in its entirety, bnt confine itself to finding temporary assuagement of the most glaring evils, particularly the weakness of the gold reserve, and leave to its successor, which will not be hampered in point of time, the duty of grappling with the rest. It wiii know, too, how much of onr present trouble is due to inherent defects in the currency system, and how much to falling off ofthe Federal receipts, A new bad sjstem would be much worse than the old one ; bad as that is.we know what to expect from it; in the other case we would ouly discover it from an other coiu'se of painful symptoms like those h e have endured in the past three or four years. INVESTIGATION shows that Trinity Church Corporation is the latest victim of the seusationai press. With the usual recklessness of such papers, everything that supported the view they want to preseut has been published without ex¬ amination. Their baste and ignorance has been so great Ihat the corporation has been liehl responsible fov the conditiouof houses they do not owu, and of others on leased land and over which they had no further control than that ordinarily belong¬ ing to lessors. Wheu the great estate which Trinity possesses was first vested in it, it was either farm land or respectable residence property. In the course of time, with the north¬ ward movement of the better classes, honses, built origi¬ nally for private residences, degenerated iuto tenements, and are now only awailing the expiration of leases to take another transition, this time into business property, where it will doubt¬ less permanently remain. So far as the administration of the estate is concerned, the Trinity Corporation can only be guided hy bu.siuess principles, whatever charitable disposition is made of the income. The very people who com¬ plain loudest now would be equally vociferous if the corpora¬ tion bad spent large sums iu remodelling old houses for the short time that they are to remain tenements. It is useless to talk in this connection abont the tenements over which the cor¬ poration has no control. Of those for whieh it is directly re¬ sponsible, competent and unpredjudiced examination would