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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 70, no. 1810: November 22, 1902

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November 22, 1902, RECORD AND GUIDE 117 eX ■* ESTABUSHO) -W tf^AR,CHSl'4^ IBSfi, itairi^ 10 RfA,L Bfn-ATE. BuiLDIjIg ApcKlTECTURE .t{oUSEyoU» DEGORAniMi. BUsitfess Alto Themes OF GeiJer^ I^TERfsii PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS Published eVery Saturday CommunlcattoDa ebould be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New YorR J, T. LINDSEY, Business Manager Telephone. Cortlandt 3157 "Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., aa second-class matter." Vol. LXX. NOVEMBER 22, 1902. No. 1810. THIS week the Stock Market has given signs of resisting the restraining pressure put upon prices. This view is not due to the strengthening of the market under the Manhattan deal, but to the action of a number of stocks that are regarded with suspicion, and which sharply recovered some points from their extreme declines. As the break in prices was due to the scarcity and high rates for money, their improvement is due to a change In those conditions. Last week's hank statement revealed an easing probability which the events of the week realized, and to-day's statement ought to show further improvement. Time money was offered with more freedom Thursday and Friday thau hiiS been the case for a cuuple of months. The rates were stiff for periods carrying the loan over into the New Year, and from this it may be gathered that the banks are not sure that the strin¬ gency will not recur next month when the year-end settlements and make-ups have to be arranged. However, while the condi¬ tions neither warrant a return to high speculation or the hope that money will be plentiful enough to be cheap this side of 1903, they do encourage the belief in a fair rally all along the list. Some people who have held aloof from Railroads, owing to their high quotations, are returning to them because of the at¬ titude of the managers towards the wages question. This atti¬ tude may be thus described. The help say they ought to share in the prosperity of the times. The manager replies "so also should the company. I'll tel! you what I'll do. I'll put up wages and rates at the same time and we'll both be satisfied. The ship¬ per is doing too well to complain, and we need not expect to hear from him until the good times are gone, and we all have to face new conditions." The investor says that the railroad man¬ ager would not take this position unless he was sure of good results for a long way ahead and hence railroad securities are a buy—or will be when money is cheaper. THE rumor that Mayor Low proposes to apply to the Legis¬ lature for a change in the local civil service laws, which ■will increase the class of appointments exempt from examina¬ tions has aroused the utmost disgust among the reformers out of office. They have the most rigid ideas of the way in which ap¬ pointments should be made. These ideas are based upon the assumption that the departmental employees should be a body of men and women, who are to a large extent independent of their departmental superiors. They are to be selected from a list of eligibles, who have passed the examinations with credit, and who are to be protected from removal, unless for serious cause. The assumption is that the departmental head is a spoilsman, whose chief object would ordinarily be to turn out of office every¬ body not belonging to his own party or faction, and who con¬ sequently is the enemy of his departmental inferiors. Now this assumption has undoubtedly been frequently justified in the past. Some such means of protecting the city offices from ap¬ pointments and removals irrespective of merit has undoubtedly been necessary. Yet it should be added, what every fair-minded man will admit, that the resulting system is not one which is likely to promote efficiency in the civil service. The people who pass the examinations are, doubtless, a selected class; but they are not above the ordinary human failings. When they can keep their positions unless absolutely derelict in their duties, and when it makes little difference to their chances whether they do or do not receive the approval of their superiors, their worit is not likely to be either very energetic or very competent. No proper system of responsibility has been established. Efficiency has been sacrificed to the end that the employees may feel secure in their positions, and appointments on the spoils system ren¬ dered impossible. A well-intentioned departmental head is handicapped in order to tie the hands of an ill-intentioned one. Mayor Low complained of this state of things early in his term, and any one who believes that the first object of departmental organization is efficiency must sympathize with him in his com¬ plaint; at the same time it must also be admitted that the mat¬ ter is a difficult and dangerous one to handle. It should not be touched at all except as part of some comprehensive scheme to reorganize the departments, re-classify the employess, and to provide more elfective inducements than those which now pre¬ vail for efficient and intelligent service. The City's Finances—Local Improvements. A MOVEMENT that has for its object the removal of the bar¬ nacles from the municipal financial system was prac¬ tically inaugurated by Comptroller Grout this week, by an ad¬ dress delivered to the Manufacturers' Association. The major defects in this system are found in the disbursing department, in the sinking fund, in confused provisions for meeting certain current expenses and for some forms of permanent works, and in the provisions for inaugurating and receiving repayment for lo¬ cal improvements. In his exposition of these defects and in the remedies he proposes, Mr. Grout states that he has availed himself of the statements and suggestions made by others during a period of many years; but, as he says, he has brought them together and in shape for action. The evils complained of are not disputed, though the fitness and adequacy of bis remedies may require discussion. Still as he has given the subject the ad¬ vantage of his proved ability as a financier and the prestige of his office, there is some hope now of tangible and profitable re¬ sults. Two of the three great imperfections of the municipal finan¬ cial system dealt with in the address have already been de¬ scribed in these columns, together with the remedies proposed and need but brief allusion. One is that on January 1st of each year, the city has no money with which to pay its bills until the following October. It is carried through the interim by borrow¬ ings which cost in round figures $1,250,000 annually. In order to change this improvident system into a business one, the Comp¬ troller announces that he wiJl introduce a bill into the coming Legislature "which will leave unchanged the date, the first Mon¬ day of October when taxes become a lien, and the date, December 1, when tbe interest penalty for non-payment begins to run, but which will provide that taxes shall be fixed and may be paid on and after January 1 with a rebate at the rate of three per cent, from the date of payment to December 1." This strikes us as a reasonable and practicable plan likely to accomplish good re¬ sults. It is not claimed that it will immediately effect the ob¬ ject sought to be obtained, but there is good reason for believ¬ ing that it will make an excellent beginning. The second mat¬ ter requiring treatment is the unnecessary accumulations in the sinking fund which it is proposed to divert to current income, the proposal for which is almost universally endorsed. Any confusion as to what should be paid from current income and what by the issue of bonds ought to be easily remedied and the Comptroller may be relied upon to suggest legislation for that purpose, which will be acceptable by reason of its reasonableness and propriety. In the matter of assessible local improvements it is probable that property owners and taxpayers will not give the Comptrol¬ ler the unhesitating support that they do in those previously re¬ ferred to. Mr. Grout thinks that tbe laws relating to these im¬ provements hear hardly upon both the property owner and the city. On the former because he would prefer to pay in instal¬ ments, which is quite true in a general sense, and on the latter since a large measure of its credit, about $20,000,000 and upwards, is always loaned out to the localities on these works. He sug¬ gests that the assessment be laid before the improvement is made and he payable in five annual instalments—but the work not to be contracted for or executed until two-fifths of the cost has been paid in. This he thinks would substantially relieve both the property owner and the city, for it would make payment for the one easier and reduce the expenditure, or loan of credit of the other. If it could be so arranged that these conditions of payment would not delay physical work, there would probably be no objections to them. This, however, is doubtful, because the work of assessing and determining areas of benefits is one of great detail and has hitherto been very protracted. Unless the Comptroller can, while changing the method of repayment by the property owner, suggest a way by which the assessment can- be fixed in as short a time as contracts can now be prepared, we anticipate for his bill an opposition strong enough to defeat it. The policy has hitherto been to encourage local improvement, or improvements depending upon the initiative of the property owner, as much as possible; and this for the very practical rea¬ son that the growth of the city and of its income depends upon them, the first almost entirely and the second very considerably.