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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 65, no. 1681: June 2, 1900

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June 2, lyoo inX'()l?D AND (;UIDE. 961 ESTABUSHED'^^i DEvfeiED p RiEAj- Estate . Buildij^g AjjcKitectui^ ,h{oiiSEHoiD DEOCffiun^ Bt/sotess AibThemes of GeSerA 'KrEfifai. PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS. Piiblislied every Saturday. TsLBPHONE, Cortlandt 1370, Communications should be addressed to C, W. SWEET, 14-16 Veeey Street. /, T. UNDSEY, Business Manager. •Entered at the Post-Otf'ce at N^to Tork, N. 7., as second-class maltn." Vol, LXV. JUNE 2, 1900. No. 1681. OUR view, that liquidation in the Industrials had reached a point where it could hardly go farther, found confirma¬ tion in the advances made by that class of security in the Stock Market this week. The movements in these stocks were accom¬ panied by good buying in other directions, including bonds, with the result that the market for a couple of days has had a more cheerful appearance than it has seen for some weeks past. A series of advances In the price of refined sugar up to a point where it can be manufactured at a profit and the consolidation of the smaller refiners, who oppose the American Sugar Refin¬ ing Co., into one company, though not taking in the Arbuckles, the most formidable of the recalcitrants, are accepted by the Street as signs of the settlement of the sugar war. The advance in the price of sugar may be explained by the fact that the pre¬ serving season, when the demand for sugar is greatest, has be¬ gun, and the fighting refiners may have entered into a truce so as not to lose all the profits of this demand. The consolidation of the smaller outside refineries into one company may be for convenience of delivery to the Havemeyer interest; but though not unnatural to be inferred, if so, the fact has not been an¬ nounced. Part of the advance in stock prices this week has Been based on the theory that with the close of the Boer war, appar¬ ently so near at hand, the British public will enter the specula¬ tive markets again and among others will begin to buy our se¬ curities, A professional and speculative advance in the Euro¬ pean stoek markets may reasonably be expected as soon as the British are in Pretoria, though why it should wait for the ac¬ complished fact when accomplishment is apparently so certain, does not appear. It is, doubtful, however, if it would be more than a professional and speculative movement and highly proba¬ ble that the public who are necessary to make such a movement a success, will have something else to think of. As our readers are aware, our theory is that the activity engendered by this war prevented a serious decline in the volume of business in Great Britain, that was due by all the rules that can be applied to measure the length of a boom. The British government has been pouring out money by the millions, not only to provide for the wants of their armies in the field, but to replace the waste of materials and supplies that is always greater than consumption in war, and in this case must have been in larger proportion than ever. So that it is not a case of the cost of an army in peace offsetting the cost of one in'war, but a great falling off in the expense of the one as opposed to the other. This means that the contractors and the thousands of workers who have been employed to supply the army will now find much less to do and that the volume of money in circulation wiU be lessened; and through the usual chain of consequences bring an overdone business again face to face with the situation from which it was saved by the Boer invasion of Natal. Something will come from the repair of damage to property by the belligerente, but that will not come for some time, and when It does will be small in comparison to the outlay that hostilities compelled. It Is signiS- cant of this that London was a seller instead of a buyer in our market the past two days. \X 7 ITH all our talk of government by the people, the actual V V government and conduct of affairs is carried on by a very few people and the rest is all pother and shouting. This fact found illustration at the hearing given the Borough of Man¬ hattan on Thursday last by the Charter Revision Commission. The attendance was surprisingly slim, indeed made up almost entirely of a few public spirited men, aware of the immense im¬ portance of securing a workable charter, who were there to make suggestions in either representative or individual capacity. A small part of this Indifference of the majority—of the great public in fact—may be explained by the hour at which the hear¬ ing was given, one in which most people are doing the busiest work of the day; but a much greater part is due to the ignorance of our people generally of the subject of municipal government and their disinclination to attempt to overcome the difflculties it, or any other public question presents to the beginner. By con¬ trasts this brings outmore strikinglythepublic spirit of thosewho did attend either to speak or hear what was said. The West End Association by Cyrus Clark, their president, and the Real Estate Board of Brokers, by their president, John F. Doyle, showed a true appreciation of the importance of the occasion by appear¬ ing with detailed and comprehensive plans for the reform of the machiuery of our city government. These plans recommended a further centralizing of the governing forces, the abolition of the borough boards and municipal ownership, the latter by the West Bnd Association to the extent allowed by the present char¬ ter and by the Real Estate Board of Brokers to a much larger degree. Mr. Doyie stated that there were no differences between the two plans on which a meeting could not be effected. The advocacy of borough autonomy with local responsibility for local expenditures came from an individual, Wm. H, Rogers, who showed the enormous burdens that consolidation had thrown upon Manhattan, and claimed that the revision ought to afford relief. The questions put to this speaker by several members of the Commission, allowed the observer to infer that the subject of borough autonomy had a large place in their thoughts and that suggestions for meeting the difaculties that would have to he overcome in instituting such a form of municipal government might be favorably received. Some of these difaculties relate to the distinction between borough and municipal functions, po¬ licing of the city as a whole and in the boroughs, the provision to be made for municipal, as distinguished from borough improve¬ ments, and for the general government, etc. The reception of the argument of the counsel for the Ramapo Company, that his company could furnish water to the eity cheaper than the city could supply itself, ought not to encourage him or his clients to expect that the Commission's report will assist the adoption of the much discussed Ramapo contract, /—\ WING to the intervention of an extra holiday and to the *">—' waning of the season for offerings of city property, busi¬ ness in the real estate salesroom this week was of a purely per¬ functory nature. Eighteen parcels put up as a consequence of foreclosure proceedings, were, with possibly three or four ex¬ ceptions, struck down to the plaintiffs or parties iu interest; and only one of three properties offered at voluntary auction was sold. A similar condition of inactivity prevailed also in the brokerage business. The best items of the week's news related to private houses, including several in the middle residential section below the Park, In the one conspicuous brokerage transaction reported, an embarrassed builder disposed of his in¬ terest in a row of unfinished private houses on the West Side. Excepting dwellings bought by home-seekers, the dealing was composed wholly of small speculative operations of the kind to which the market has for some time been accustomed. The monetary prospect, coupled with the experience of normal years, would suggest a temporary accession of activity in real estate during the month of June, until the periodical movement of capital towards the interior begins to make itself felt. On the other hand, the unaccountable quiet of the recent past, which cannot be ascribed to monetary conditions, induces the belief that the tone of the realty market will not undergo decided change before the Presidential election. If there is little desire to buy, there is little pressure to sell. Owners universally antic¬ ipate an increment in the fee value of their property, as a con¬ sequence of rising rents and important public improvementa in progress, notably the rapid transit railway; while Investors and outside speculators, as opposed to professional builders and operators, are merely waiting for some decisive evidence of con¬ traction in the extraordinary opportunities which have prevailed for the employment of surplus capital In commerce and the In¬ dustries as well as on the Stock Exchange. Meantime, by next fall the upward impetus in rents will have assumed a cumula¬ tive force as result of the paucity ot current building operations. THE decision rendered this week by Justice Andrews In the case of Ackerman vs. True, declaring illegal a bay window extension on Riverside Drive, and awarding damages for injury done to complainant by Its erection, will. If maintained, have serious consequences for the owners of a vast amount of proper¬ ty In this city having projections of a similar nature to the one complained of. This decision, however, seems to conflict with that given by the Court of Appeals In April last In the case of Broadbelt vs. Loew. In that case, too, the lower court held that