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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 67, no. 1726: April 13, 1901

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April 13, 1901. RECORD AND GUIDE. 637' ESTABUSHED^ HfRpH Bl^S 1868. Dp6tiD to P^t ESTKH., BuiLDIf/c ^^ITECTUW ,KaUSE3l01I) DEflOtKlOli, BushJess A^toThemes OF Geito?^ iHiEfipsi, PRICE PER YEAR IX ADVANCE SIX DOI.I.ARS. PublUlted evert/ Baturdati. TELEPHONE, CORTLANDT 1370. 'Gommunlcatliina should ba addreBB«d to C. W, SW^EET, 14-16 Vesey Street. J. T. LINDSEY, Busmess Manager. "Entered «( the Post-Office at Wew Tork, N. Y., aa «eco«d-cl(M» matter.' "Vol. LXVII. APRIL 13,1901. No. 1726, ON THB PRESS. 'file NEW TENEMENT HOUSE LAW, edited by WilUatn J. Fryer, with headings and complete cross-reference index, etc,, etc.. will hepahliskcd shortly by the Record and Guide, 14 and 16 Vesey Street, New Yorlc Ciiy. Price, One .Dollar. Orders should now be sent in to secure proinjit delioery. This volume is an absolute necessity io every architect, builder, engineer real estate owner, oxieralvr and brolcer. IN the stock market this week strength has heen most ob¬ servable In those issues oonc&rnefl directly ov sympathet¬ ically in big deals, and which, until those deals are decided, ob¬ viously cannot be allowed to display weakness. Otherwise the market has shown a wholesome ability to react, and a compari¬ son of prices, with the exception noted, results in finding a long line of declines from the high flgures of this campaign. The great moving cause of this is the lessening volume of money available for speculative purposes, which has several times with¬ in the week put call rates up to the legal limit, and once one per cent, above it. Frohi now on the bank statement will be a greater factor in determining the course of speculation, and in view of the circumstances—the spring commercial aud industrial ■demand, the large governmeJit collections and the hardening of rates abroad, which would produce gold exports if the home rates became low—that statement's influence in the long run and for some time will be directed against quoted values. It is unnecessary to remark that the country's prosperity is not de¬ pendent upon speculation, but upon the developmeait of the skill •of its people and its natural resources; consequently, when the latter call for funds they must and do always have the prefer¬ ence, and speculation suffers. It is good that this is so. There never was, moreover, a time when this law could operate more "beneficially than when speculation has been carried to the dan¬ gerous lengths we have lately seen. By the same reasoning the withholding of money from circulation by the Treasury, though indefensible from any other point of view, for once is doing good, and Secretary Gage is following a wise policy in making his releases through the purchase of government bonds with ■care and caution. THOUGH by no means phenomenal, the total of new loans issued in London during the flrst quarter of the year was quite large and the Home Government was by much the biggest borrower. It is signiflcant of these returns that the. Empire absorbs almost all the resources of the centre as it has done for a long time past. This year out of thirty-five million sterling only twelve hundred thousand went abroad and half a million of that went to Egypt. Other nations have practically ceased to apply to London to supply tbeir pecuniary wants and British investments in foreign loans are made in other markets. The tone of European trade reports continues to improve. This is particularly noticeable in the iron and steel trades. For not only ■does the cable bring us news of large dividends paid by great corporations, but the mail adds details that prove the passing of the scare occasioned by American competition. For instance a correspondent in Berlin states that the depression in the Ger¬ man iron trade that set in about a year ago seems to have in¬ duced the wire makers of West Germany and Silesia to an- n^ounce advances. He adds: "It is a highly signiflcant fact that this increase of prices has been brought about by large orders for wire from the United States, whereas heretofore it was precisely the German wire mills that had to complain most about American competition. The American iron situation, moreover, is just now attracting an unusual degree of attention in Germany, and the opinion is now quite generally held that the changed situation there will result in 4. decided improvement * here. Another fact which has had a favorable effect here is the organization of all the Silesian blast furnaces into a syndi¬ cate, which occurred here last week. The decrease in the pro¬ duction of iron in Germany also permits a hope that the price situation will improve." A subject to which great attention is now being given is the work that must be done to provide the increased carrying facilities that the next decade will de¬ mand. On this there is a remarkably simultaneous, though un¬ connected agreement of opinion, that this increase must be found through improving and consolidating by artificial connec¬ tions the great waterways. While we have a bill in Albany for expending $26,000,000 on canals in this State, the Russian Gov¬ ernment has in contemplation a great scheme for creating a through waterway from the Baltic to the Black Sea; the Prussian Government are endeavoring to obtain powers for a compre¬ hensive plan for connecting the Rhine and other rivers by ca¬ nals and the Austrian Government have resolved on the expendi¬ ture of $200,000,000 in a similar operation, if possible, during the next ten years. The Board of Trade Minister thus expressed himself on the subject recently: ''I hold the firm conviction that the building and completion of a net of canals in Austria has become a necessity which brooks no delay, and that though such a plan must m.cct with serious technical difficulties, and must therefore cause enormous expenses, still it must be car¬ ried out in a relatively short time." It is only necessary to look at the enormous growth of trade all over the world in the past ten years with the accompanying intensifying of competition to see that in another period of like duration the railroads—unless they can be built much more cheaply and operated much more economically than they are now—will be insufficient, and water carriage will be an absolute necessity for the exchange over long distances of heavy freight of low productive cost. T X 7'iILE the new tenement house legislation works great ^ * hardship on owners, contract builders and material men must benefit by it. Not only have many plans for the con¬ struction of new tenements under the old law been approved, but it is also reasonably certain that a measure affording a term of grace before the new law goes into effect will be passed. If that hope should flnally prove baseless, there will be still abund¬ ance of work under the provisions of the bill, by which old tene¬ ments must be brought up nearer the structural requirements for new ones, as well as in building new tenements. The al¬ terations rendered necessary by this clause, to quote the act it¬ self: "Shall be made within one year hereafter, or at such ear¬ lier'period as may be fixed by the departments charged with the enforcement of this act." There are those who go so far as to say, that the present building forces of the city are unequal to making strict compliance with this provision. If that is some what of an exaggeration, there is still no doubt whatever that the act means a constructural.movement of big proportions in this city right away. THB removal of the Star Theatre and the sale of the Young Men's Christian Association Building, reported this week, are both examples of one tendency, the migration of other in¬ stitutions before the approach of commerce, in a city that has not defined its proper geographical centre. To-day there is no theatres of prominence south of 14th st., while within the mem¬ ory of living men there was none north of it. To give perma¬ nence to the sites of great institutions a centre from which all the life of the city radiates is necessary, and we are. now form¬ ing one between 23d and 59th sts. Not only do recent invest¬ ments in real estate and building along the middle of this section preclude the possibility of removal, but the character of those improvements—embracing hotels and theatres so largely-^ is one that must attract and hold its patrons. In a general way the lines of communication of the greater city, and its supple¬ ment across the Hudson, must culminate at tbis point, and the growth of population be from it outward in all directions of the compass. -------------«----------•-— ACCORDING to cabled dispatches the London County Coun¬ cil will develop 225 acres of land at a suburb called Tottenham, by the erection of 5.799 cottages to accommodate 42,500 persons, at a total cost of£1,500,000 ($7,260,000), as a meas¬ ure of relief to the poorer sections of the metropolis. This is the largest provision ever made at one timi for housing the working classes, and the necessity of such a wholesale measure shows the intensity of congestion at the center. Yet, if the cabled flgures are to be relied on, they show that housing may he obtained very cheaply across the Atlantic and make the hous¬ ing difflcutly there all the more perplexing from this point of view. The tota) cost given is equal to $1,380 only per cottage and $185 per head to the housed. Even in our tenements the