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Apiil e, 1895
513
OevGtiD to I^l EsTiME. BuiLorf/o ^KOfiTEeuni? .HousQfoiit Deqcbikk4
BiTsii/ess Mb Themes of Gitj&i^l lr/TCH.Esi.
PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS.
Published every Saturday.
Telephone,......Cortlandt 1370
â– Uoiomunioations ehould be addressed to
C. W. SWEET. 14-16 Vesey Street,
J. I.'LINDSET. Businesa Manager.
Brooklyn Office, 276-282 Washington Street,
Opf. Post Offiob.
" Entered at the Post-office al New Tork, N. T., as second-class mailer."
Vol. LV.
APRIL 6, 1895.
No. 1,412
For Brooklyn matter, see Brooldyn Department immediateli follmuing
New Jersey records [paae 573).
TRADE conditions give no sigu of cliaiigp, wliich is forttmate
for the East aud unfortunate for tbe West. A check
has been given to the stock market by realiziugs and now an at¬
tempt is beiug made to dejiress prici'S because the Supreme Court
has not rendeied ils decision in the income-tax cases. Rumorp,
â– whose source may be easily guessed even if it initi'ht be haid to
bring them home iu a â– way tbat rosponsihility for them couUl uot
'be avoided, are in almost hourly circulation that the decision
will be au adverse oue. Of course, this is uothiug more nor less
tbau pure guessing, with the wish perhaps shaping the guess,
but the object sought is to induce people to believe that as a
result of the court's finding the government will again be put
into a condition of financial cuibarrassmeut with consequences
to the stock market similar to those se<-n in Pebruiiry last. This
is a piece of palriotisiu peculiar lo the Street. So far the results
of this elaborate scare are very poor. Even the Grangers, with
their bad sho'wing of earnings, aud the Coalers with disorganiza¬
tion ill the coal trade, have refused to respond. Au adverse
decision, if it comes, '""ill uudoulitodly have an iiufavorable first
effect, thoua-h offsets will he found in the escape from an odious
tax, aud people will not forget that the Treasury can be helped
by bond issues and the couutry at large by better business.
INDIA does uot appear to be going to the dogs as a result of
closing her mints to the free coinage of silver, as both Man¬
chester aud Denver declared she would do. Ou the contrary,
the close of the fiscal year shows the national treasury to be in
possessiou of a surplus instead of the deficiency which was ex¬
pected eveu iu official circles. This and other circaiiistauces
shows that there is a distinct improvemeut iu the financial con¬
dition of India which will increase with the improvement of the
value of silver. The Loudon Economist figures out that the
depreciation in American securiiies officially listed in London
since 1890 has amounted to $626,725,000, divided as follows :
South American, $292,725,000 ; United States, $250,520,000;
Canadian, $33,750,000. It uatontlly argues that with such
extreme depreciation the eud ought to be at hand. As tbe list
on which this calculation is based is ouly a partial one, the loss
of value ou this hemi-sphere and eveu in the Uuited States alone
is several times the enormous total given, which fact adds force
to the ^cojiomJsCs deduction. The movements of prices iu the
past week or two bave shown, commercially at least, "all the
world akin," because the buoyancy of feeling and hopefulness
for the future is seen everywhere. This sympathetic result has
even touched Vienna aud stopped tbe decline 'whicb bad been
under way there, Sucb a coudition as this which animates the
whole Iradiug world could not become so conspicuously appar¬
ent uuless it were well imdei- way. Taking a wide-world view,
it may he said that the wheels of commerce are now workiug
â– with some regularity.
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PREACHERS and the religious press continue to circulate (he
ficlion that, tenements pay immense returns upou tbe
investments made iu tbem, and this iu spite of the facts that
receut investigations have brought to light. The way in which
they adhere to this belief—for presumably they do believe it—
suggests the obstinacy by the light of which in ancient days
many a good raau walked iiuuecessarily to the stake. The Out¬
look, in a receut number, speaking iu the usual way of such
journals—that is, without eL-amiiiation or apparent effort to
obtain accurate informatiou—rtf the tenemeut-house question,
naively says that the better class of tenements pay eight per
cent and the poorer class twelve per ceut. Only those ignorant
of the circum.stance8 surrounding New York reaby would be
foolish enough to say tbatyiny class as a wliole makes any such
retui'u in a city where tho demand for real estate investments is
as keen as it is in New York City. It is rem.irkable that these
false ideas should continue in circul.atiou amoug people who
c!aim to be as desirous to do rieht and speak the truth as
preachers and writers for the religious press do, iu spite of their
continued failure to prove their statements wheu challenged,
and in spite of the facts that have beeu published, which go to
prove conclusively that the tenements as they would have Ihem
do not pay at all. The Outloolc is not an organ of sentimcutpure
and simple, aud if it really knows that tenements can be made
to pay twelve per cent, it ought to make that fact clear. A
demoustration of that kind, one would be uniinswerable, would
do more to improve the conditiou of tenemeuts thau auytliiug
else, because there are many people who uould be satisfied to
purchase on that basis and returu a large part of the income to
the tenants ill the way of improvements. As we have pointed out
before, several have sought this remarkably attractive invest¬
ment with that very laudable inteutioo, but have failed to find it.
THE opiniou, which has beeu giveu wide circulation, that
the recent deuisiou if the Court of Apjieals against
the Trinity corporation settled the question of the coustitutiuu-
atity of any legislation relating to tenements that may be passed
this session at the request ot the Tenement House Commission
is clearly an assumption ou the part of its makers. The opinion,
which, by the way, was not the utiauimous opinion of ihe Court,
held that a certain requireluent of the Consolidation Act was
within the police powers, by which, for the good of the commu¬
nity, the coustitiitioual rights of the individual are in eftect
somewhat ciutailed. But tbe oiiiuioa stated also that such re¬
quireiuents must be reasonable iu their nature and iu the cost
they involve. It was because these couditious were iu tlie view
of the Court observed in the order of the Health Depart:tnent on
the Trinity corporation to supply water to each lioor of their
teuements, as well as because the oidcr in itself was a pi^oper
exercise of police powers for the benefit of the moral ami physi¬
cal welfare ot the comnumity, that the Court fonud as it did.
It maybe reasonably taken then (hathad (hcordei'of the Health
Board been one that did uot directly atfect the well-being of the
occupants of the Trinity tenemeuts, or oue extravagant in its
nature and unreasonable iu the matter of cost, the decision of
the Court of Appeals would have been diHerent to what it
was. To say then, that the executiou of any laws passed,
by the present Leg'islatnre at the request of (he Tene¬
ment House Commission canuot be opposed on constitutional
grounds is to assume that their provisions will violate none of
the couditious which the Court of Appeals has said must accom¬
pany the exei'cise of police powers. Looking at the Tenement
House bill, eveu anieuded in the sevei'al particulars reported by
us, this seems to ns au unfounded assumption, and that on
the contrary there are several matters, which we have pointed
out already, that are unjust aud unreasonable aud from which,
if they are enacted, the Courts will protect the tenement house
builder and owner.
LABOR commissions seem destined ouly to emphasize the
difficulties involved in auy attempt to impfovc the condition
ofthe workiug classes. Judging from recent reports on both sides
of the Atiautic the two greatest of these difficulties are the
danger involved in the assumption by the .inthorities of auy sort
of arbitrary powers in the settlement of matters that .hitherto
h.ive been decided by the law of supply and demaiid, and iu inter¬
fering with the liberty of the individual by compelling a pro¬
vision for the future which will never otherwise be made. So
far as we have a right to assume anything, we may take it that
the framing of a law so elastic, so broad iu principle and so
perfect iu detail that it could be applied with equal justice to
both employer aud employed iu regulating the terms aud
rerauueration of service is an impossibility. But a measure to
compel insurance against bad times, sickness or death, may he
auother matter. If a governmeut cau imnose an income tax.for
the benefit of the nation, why canuot it collect a eiiuilar tax for
the benefit of the individual? The experiment is about tp be
tried iu some of tbe Swiss cantons. The results will be looked
for with great interest by sociologists of every shade of think¬
ing. In the Cant'in of St. Galleu a law, or ordinance, to compel
insurauce against loss of work by all who earn less, thau five
francs a day has beeu passed, though those wbo earn more than
flve francs a day are free to join it. The least that tlie insured
will receive when out of work is a fi-anc a day, but any one teim
of benefit is not to endure beyond sixty days. A mau who is
earning five ffancs, or a dollar a day. is for obvious reasons the
one who liuds it hardest to save anything; yet he isthe very one
who is iu the greatest danger of long s|)ells of uuremunerated
idleness. Putting seutimeiit aside aud looking at the matter
arithmetically there can be uo doubt that it is doing that man a
service; to distribute his earnings with some kind of equality
over good times aud bad. In the good times his means aro
lessened but iu the bad ho is saved from a great deal of the
inconvenience and suffering which he must endure if they come