September 22,1894
Record and Guide.
387
M\
ESTABUSHED ^ iWPH £»> 1668,^
,De6teD to Rea,l Estate,BuiLDiffe A^R,cKiT£crTui^>{ciisEHou)DEaa(^Tioi^
Btfsi(/Ess AifoThemes of GEjteR^L Iiftti^i.,
PRrCE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.
Published every Saturday.
Telephone,......Cortlandt 1370
Communications sliould be addressed to
C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street.
J. 1. LINDSEY. Business Manager.
Brooklyn Office, 276-282 WAsnixGTON Street,
Opf. Post Office.
"Entered al the Posl-officc al Netv Tork, ff, Y., as second'Class matler."
Vol. liv.
SEPTEMBER 22, 1894.
No. 1,384
For additional Brooklyn malier, see Brooklyn Department inmiediately
followina Yew Jersey records {page iOO'i.
Life seems so ruhptr, .'â– â– o casihi content with the commonpkiee
things of every ihig ; nnd get it always nurses nnd cherishes certain
higher claims in secret, anil looks about for the means of satisfying
Ihem. Goethe.
THE course of events lately iudieate.'* pretty clearly that the
more thoughtful of the imlustrial community, that part of
it which is in closest touch with the centre, is revising' or at
least recousideriug its.ittdfTuient about the prohable iuimetliate
course of mercantile affairs. |Tlie curious thiug about the present
depression has been that from the very first onr people tave
persisted in regi\Tding' it as an aecideiital luisfortuue whieli
wonUi speedily pass away wheu one ov two small matters had
beeu lighted. At oue time it was thought that if the silver
(liiestion was di,sposed of busiuess would he resumed instantly
as though nothing had happened, and when these anticipations
were proved false every one said the taritf agitation was the
source of had times, and that matter settled ono way or
auother it would leave the country free to immedi¬
ately return to its former state of prosperity. When
the last of Ihese inipedimeuts was removed a few
weeks ago by the uew tariff act going iuto operation it was
contidently asserted that fall trade woidd be marked by very
great activity. Disappointment in realizing these hopes is per¬
haps accountable for the slightly gloomier views which the
public have eome to hold within the last couple of weeks.
Everyone admits that there has been, upon the whole, coiLsider-
able improvement, hut the improvement has uot been auythiug
like a.s great as was looked for. The opinion current now is
that tbe coming election is the liou in the path, and W(! mu.st
wait nntil the political wrangle is finished before the hu.siuess
of the eouutry can resume its old state. The trouble with all
these views is that they are fuudamentally wrong. In the tirst
place the dLsasters which overtook us last year were uot by any
means incidental. They were not caused by unwise
monetary laws, nor were they iu any real sense
continued by the, tariff agitation, though undoubtedly both
of these luatters were factors whieh contributed to bring about
financial disaster. There wa,s nothing at al! adventitious about
the panic and depression of 189:!. It arose from adverse
economic conditions whicii had been creating for some time, and
just as our anticipations concerning the salutary effect of the
repeal of the Sherman Act, and the settlement of the taritt"
agitation were exaggerated and falsely based, so we .shall find
that all anticipations as to immediate great increa-se ot i-om-
mei'cial activity are erroneous. We eaunot .iump back into
in'osperity. The country mnst grow into it. Our affairs have,
improved within the last few months, and the pi'o.spect is that
they will coutiuue to improve, hut improvement will be .slow
and steady. In the meantime, sii long as people indulge iu wild
hopes, there will be reactions, and reactions will occasion
despondency. The situation, however, is and will he encourag¬
ing, hut it is unreasonable to e\]iect any very sudden stroke of
good fortune to happeu to us. Like tbe man whom the waves
washed out of the boat, we must trusc to our swimming to gain
GUI' former position. It is foolish to think that anol^her wave is
coming to wash ua back to where we were.
TMPEOVEMENT in trade conditions iu EuTOpean markets
-^ continues to he more an affair of symptoms than of actual
transactions. The plethora of idle funds prevails in all the
financial centres, and as yet there are no indications of auy ac¬
tivity iu demand to stir rates from the almost nominal point that
has ruled of late. It is evident that people are not yet thor¬
oughly convinced of the reality of the much talked of " revival
of trade." There need be no doubt, however, that things gen¬
erally are iu a nuich better shape than they were a few mouths
ago. The greater activity in the iron trade is one indication of
this fact; the larger receipts reported by railroads is another.
Upou the whole, however, the feeling abroad to-day is some¬
what more conservati-\^e than it was a week or two ago, when
slight activities were regarded as promises for more than has
actually heeu realized so far. Investors are evincing a degree
of caution that precludes expansion, particularly with classes of
securities that have heen distinguished by "tiuanciei'ing" and
other methods of manipulating certain peoples' property iuto
the pockets of " insiders." This tardy caution on the part of the
investor is rather hroad than linely discriminating, audit would
be idle to deny tliat even reputable American securities will
labor for some time to come^ under the odium which has beeu
created by not a few criminally "managed enterprises which
reached the end of their rope lately on this side of the water.
Indeed, the commercial world at large is in bad repute; and
that fact undoubtedly is one impediment tothe realization of
the better times which couditious appear to warrant. Among
the indications that trade is slightly hetter thau a year ago, the-
increase in the receipts from shipping on the Sue/, Canal deserves
to he noticed. The tolls received iu August of this year amounted
to (5,110,000 francs, agaiust 5,840,000 francs in the same month
of 1893 a.ud 5,420,000 iu 1892. lu Germany, bear operators
are reported to be again on the agressive, and though the im¬
provement in business continues, thero is .something, itis said,
in the general position which goes to support their efforts. In
AiLStria, in iron prodacfion, there was during the first seveu
mouths of 1894 an improvement of 660,000 cwts. compared
with the same period a year ago. The reduction of the United
Slates tarift ou pearl buttons from 140 per ceut. ad valorem
under the MeKinley act to 84 per ceut. has been received with
mixed feelings. It renders a limited exportation of this article
possible again. The MeKinley tarifl', it will he remembered,
practically ruined the button industry in Austria. It deprived
3,600 fiirnei's of work. Our former high protective duties were
particulaily disastrous to Austria, whicii country exported to the
United States in 1893 only about $4,.500,Oo6 worth of mer¬
chandise.
----------â– ---------.
THEKE are predictions whicii people coutiuue to reiterate iu
spite of the faet that uone of them has ever been verified.
t.)ne of these is to the eftect Ihat the limit of the production of
gold has been reached. AYhenever the output of that metal be¬
comes stationaiy or begins to fall off, the world is assured that
it is drawing upon a supply \\hich has reached its maximum
point antl which must (liereafter continue to diminish. There
is always something plausible to these vaticinations, because
their falsity cannot bo demonstrated by an actual appeal to
facts. A year or two ago it did not seem to some people to bo at
all iiuestiooablc that the greatest prediction of gold had been
reached. Xo new sources of supply were in sight, aud the old
fields were appareiiLly evidently giving out. To those who held
this vnew, figures recently made public hy the Director of the
United States Mint must bs a surpris:?. In his last report the
director estimated that the world's gold production for the year
1894 would b.i about if; 169,000,000—greater than in auy pre¬
vious year. This was enough in its way ; but since issuing that
report Mr. Preston has found it uecessary to even increase his
estima.te, aud now he says that ho sees gold to the value of
$174,000,000 in sight, and adils that the prospect is that even
this amount will be below the fact. He estimates that the
Uuited States will yield $42,000,000 or $43,000,000 of gold,
agaiust $36,000,000 last year. South Africa will prodnce
$40,000,000, against .^29,000,000 last year, and Australia
$38,000,000, against $35,680,000.
1
iBSERVERS of our weekly reports of the statistics of bnild¬
ing cannot fail to have noted thecontinuous improvemeut,
indicated hy these reports, in the huiltling industry of Brooklyn
since the first of AugiLst. Compared with the records for the
corresponding weeks of last year, when the pa.iiic was still hot
upon ns, the figures fm- the last eight weeks are even more en¬
couraging. In tabular form they make the following showing:
1893 1894
I
Week or.
No. of hidgs..
Amount.
No, of ItlllKS.
Amount.
Aug. 4
29
)P 143.100
50
$177,885
11
51
183.410
29
208,250
18
2:3
71,865
ti6
139,595
25
IU
109.550
.'JG
389,m
Sept, 1
18
04,520
(J8
283,370
8
23
7!i,97.'>
70
224,225
15
22
....... 182
151,810
97 .
436
274,683
$804,230
.*l.li97.119
Part of this remarkable increase is due, it is true, to tlieextension
of Brooklyn's supervision of buildings over the newly annexed
territory. But it ought fiu'ther tobe remembered that many ofthe
jirojects for which plans were filed a year ago were not carried out
at that time beeause of the tiuancial stringency then prevalent.
So that, remarkable as these figures arc, they do not express the
whole fact as regards the improvement iu building operations
J