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Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 29, no. 734: April 8, 1882

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Real Estate Record AND BUILDERS' GUIDE. Vol. XXIX. NEW YOEK, 8ATUEDAT, APKIL 8, 1882. No, 734 PublisJied Weekly by The Real Estate Record Association TERMS: OXE YEAR, ia advaace - - - - - $6.00 Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 13T Broadway J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. What has Mr. James Gordon Bennett done that the Netv York Herald should abuse him because he happens to be a land¬ lord? That influential journal denounces landlords as mean and avaricious, because thfey take a natural advantage of the large additions to the population of the city to increase the interest upon their investments. The writer in the Herald may have a relative who keeps a grocery store. The drought of last summer made potatoes scarce but surely that would be np reason for abusing the groceryman or call¬ ing him extortionate because he advanced the price of those tubers. Now James Gor¬ don Bennett owns a building full of offices on Nassau street, and liis rents have been advanced within the last two years. He owns dwelling house property on Fifth avenue and other streets, a country resi¬ dence on Washington Heights and vacant property in the Twenty-third and Twenty- fourth Wards. Because these lands and tenemients have advanced in market value that is no reason why the Herald should stigmatize Mr. Bennett or the class of land¬ lords and landowners to which he belono-s, as mean and avaricious. Leading papers owned by wealthy individuals or corpora¬ tions, and in themselves representing mil¬ lions of dollars, should be careful how they . pander to prejudices against any class of citizens. The capitalist who provides dwell¬ ings, stores and offices for living and the transaction of business, performs as useful a social function as any banker, merchant, manufacturer, editor or farmer. We pro¬ test against the injustice which the editor, of the Herald is doing to Mr. James Gor¬ don Bennett, the landlord. The stock market will undoubtedly be subject from this time forth to very marked fluctuations. There are powerful influences at work to advance prices, but the course of events is against them. " Everybody," as ex-Surrogate Hutchins is reported to have said, "is stronger and wiser than any¬ body." The magnates of the street may for a few weeks sustain and even advance prices, but they cannot continue an upward' movement if the facts of the business of the world do not warrant their action. There can be no great rise in the best secu¬ rities, and the prospect would seem to be of a general reduction in values. There will, of course, be ^spurts to higher flgures, and certain stocks may be manipulated so as to advance largely; but the average of prices is probably higher to-day than it will be during May and June. The large railroad earnings due to the heavy immigration, and the promise of the crops which will look well from time to time, even though they finally fail, will give us occasional bull speculations before the harvest is actually gathered. But in the meantime the real estate market is all right and is bound to be active for the next two years, no matter what happens to stocks. THE REAL ESTATE SITUATION. Saturday, April 1st, 1882, was the busiest day in the Register's Office since 1868, when the paper money speculation was at its height, and when the Tammany ring was doing all it could to foster extravagant no¬ tions as to the value of New York realty. We are now on a gold basis. There is no speculation as yet in real estate. Prices can¬ not be called high, and there is plenty of cheap property yet in the market, yet the natural growth of the city is such that »he legitimate business of to-day equals in volume that of a period when the specula¬ tion was a partial frenzy. In some cases prices are higher now than then, but unim¬ proved property away from the line of imme¬ diate improvement is very cheap to-day compared with the figures which obtained up to 1873. A marked feature of recent buying has been the purchase by the retail dealers and storekeepers of the property in which they transact their business. There have been large additions to the population of New York within the last four years; the labor¬ ing classes have been fully employed at high wages, and this state of things has made custom good in all our retail stores. Real¬ izing the value of their places of" btisiness, these shopkeepers have iu many instances invested their savings in purchasing the property they occupy. The number of stores has not increased relatively to the in¬ crease of the customers. Another fact will be observed. Among the new building plans filed are quite a num¬ ber in the old Eighth Ward. And here again it is remarkable that it is the mer¬ chants themselves who are erecting build¬ ings for the accommodation of their business. The wholesale trade of New York is stead¬ ily encroaching upon the residence portion, and it will not be many yoars before the whole region south of Fourteenth street will be given over to manufacturing establishments, warehouses, and wholesale dealers. Were the North River Tunnel completed it would work a vast change in this quarter of the city. On the East Side, again, a very remarkable change has taken place in the productive¬ ness of realty. Property has been under a cloud during former years in the Seventh and Thirteenth Wards. In that section of the city tenements were not in demand, and these two wards were the only ones in the city which showed a decreass in the taxable value. But so great has been the increase in the population of the city, especially of ' the laboring classes, that all the tenement houses on the East Side are full to overflowing. ^ This is particularly the case in the Seventh Thirteenth, and Seventeenth Wards. It may be remembered that over 140,000 immi¬ grants remained in and around New York during 1881. The Irish and Germans go to live among their friends on the East Side. Then the population of Williamsbux-g is in¬ creasing, as is shown by the increased ac¬ commodations at the Grand Street Ferry, and the greatest throngs that come and go every few minutes. The East Side store- keepers have made and are making a great deal of money. Ridley has taken in tliree ad¬ ditional houses on Grand street, and has built still another on Orchard street; indeed he now occupies nearly the entire block, and his business has increased at a faster ratio than that of ilacy's establishment on the West Side. Tenement house property has advanced in rental value from 15 to 20 per cent., and the signs are that there will not be accommodation during the coming year for the poorer people who want to live in New York. PROGRESS AND POVERTY. A correspondent wishes to know what The Real Estate Record thinks of Henry George's work, entitled '• Progress and Pov¬ erty." We have already referred to this book, but as it has attracted miicri attention since then and as it is being tra,nslated into several foreign tongues, perhaps a further reference to it may be allowable. Mr. George's work is forcibly written and his criticisms on previous writers on political economy are often very just. But we can¬ not assent to the conclusions he arrives at. From his point of view all the woes of man¬ kind are due to the private ownership of land, in other words to land monopoly, and his cure for the ills of society is for the State to be the sole owner of the soil, which is to be offered free to any one who will till or build upon it. But Sir Henry Maine and other writers on the land tenures and owner¬ ship of the past, have shown that our semi- savage ancestors did own the land in com¬ mon and that the thrift and enterprise of modern times is due in great part lo the recognition of private ownership of the soil. The East Indian village common, and the Russian commune are relics of the semi- barbarous past, and a return to State or community ownership would be a step back¬ ward instead of forward. But even if Mr. George is correct and land monopoly, is really the cause of the inequal¬ ities of wealth and the misery of the poor, his solution of the problem is so difficult to bring about that it cannot be made a prac¬ tical question for the next generation. To propose that private persons should surren¬ der their landed property to the State or nation is to expect a miracle, and the age of marvels of that kind has passed forever. It is more .than suspected that the ills of society are not due to any one cause, but to the imperfection of all human institutions. A cure will not be found in any one panacea but in the progress of our civilization and by higher ethical ideals of the race. We are