Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

The Record and guide: v. 37, no. 934: February 6, 1886

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February 6, 1886 The Record and Guide. 153 THE RECORD AND GUIDE, Published every Saturday. 191 Broad^Arav, IST. IT. Onr Telepbone Call is.....JOHN 370. TERMS: ONE YEAR, in advance, SII DOLLARS. Communications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. Vol. XXXVII. FEBRUARY 6, 1886. No. 934 Wall street, after two months of dullness and depression in prices, promises to be the scene of a new bull campaign. Appear¬ ances may be deceptive, but the " boom" which was promised for January may make itself felt in February. The business outlook proper continues to improve. We have commented elsewhere upon the excellent showing of the January official returns in real estate. Indeed it has been the most prosperous January in years. Dealers in dry-goods have not been making so much money since 1881, while traders in woolen goods are very happy over the pros¬ pects ahead. There is no diminution of the demand for steel and iron. The coal industry has picked up, while in the railroad world tho combinations and arrangements have been such as to insure against any war of rates. Then money is cheap and likely to remain so, and there is not the slightest danger of the stoppage of the silver coinage, which fact is reassuring to everyone in the West and South as well as all who understand tbe financial situation in the East. A reasonable advance in j^rices in Wall street is in order, and we can state upon the very best authority that the Pennsylvania and Baltimore & Ohio difficulty is practically settled and it will soon be so announced. ---------------------------•--------------------------■ Count de Lesseps' invitation to the representatives of the various chambers of commerce and trade boards of the leading cities of the commercial world to join with him in inspecting the jsrogress of the work on the Panama Canal, is the best possible answer to the misleading statements made by so-called American engineering experts interested in the Nicaragua and other schemes, as to the monstrous cost and the long delay before the completion of the work on the canal now under way. The American public have been fooled by the vigorous lying of interested so-called engineering experts. The English public were hoodwinked in the same man¬ ner by their engineers .when the Suez Canal was building. Ameri¬ cans may not like it, but the Panama Canal will be completed and in good working order befoi-e any of the schemes which they would like better are fairly under way. The opening of the Panama Canal will probably occur within three years time, and it may lead to grave complications with tli3 leading nations of Europe. We will probably have to eat humble pie, as there is no likelihood- of our having a navy or proper coast d<:fenses by that time. It is to the credit of a religious jjaper, like the Christian Union, that it has the courage to oppose the extraordinary bill which recently passed the Senate for suppressing Mormonism. It says, very truly, that if the government has a right to sequestrate the property of the Mormon Church it can also appropriate the possessions of the Roman Catholic or Presbyterian sects. There were only seven Senators who opposed this monstrous enactment, yet every lawyer in that body who voted for it knew that its pro¬ visions were utterly opposed to the spirit if not the letter of our constitution and lavvs. It is to be hoped that the House will show more respect to the traditions of our government, than has the Senate. ---------«--------- The newspapers have managed very successfully to make a mud¬ dle of the proposed trial by government to test the validity of the Bell telephone patents. The suits now pending in the courts, it is suspected, are collusive. They are sham legal contests to further legitimatize the Bell monopoly. The suit instituted by Secretary Lamar is to go to the root of the matter and find out whether the original patent was not procured in a questionable manner. The way in which leading newspapers are attacking Secretaries Gar¬ land and Lamar shows how extensive and powerful is the tele¬ phone ring. It would be a great public benefit if the making of telephones were thrown open to the public without the impedi¬ ments of patents. There are many useful inventions which cannot now be utilized because the Bell monopoly stands in the way. Patents are sometimes useful, but in a great majority of cases they ^^ do not benefit real inventors and lead to the unnecessary taxation of the public. ■----------------------------------------------------•----------------------------------------------------- The.supineness of the public over the squandering of money on pensions is very remarkable. Pension agents have plundered our treasury to the tune of nearly $500,000,000 within a few years. As yet no effective protest has been made by the press or the public. One half the money corruptly voted away would have given us sea-coast fortifications, a navy, internal improvements, and encour¬ agement to our fallen commerce. The expenditure, moreover, would have tided it over the bad times by giving work to unem¬ ployed laborers. We have some hopes that President Cleveland will put his foot down and stop further spoliation of this kind. Should he do so it would make him justly popular. Should he approve of these fraudulent expenditures—well, we will not con¬ demn him in advance. ----------a---------- The German director of Posts has invited our government to send an officer of the Post-offlce Department to Germany to study the advantages that would accrue in joining the international parcels posts. All who have traveled abroad must have been struck with the economy and convenience of the parcels post on the other side of the Atlantic. By au extension of the post-office machinery foreign governments do the work nov/ monopolized by our express companies for one-twentieth of the charges made by the latter. The business done by the parcels post abroad is simply enormous, because goods can be sent from place to place at a minimum of expenditure. In our country the newspapers get all the advantage which is given to general business abroad ; that is, their packages are charged only two cents a pound, while private persons have to pay two cents an ounce for their letters. It is this which causes the heavy yearly deficit in the post-office receipts, although the carriage of letters in itself shows a profit. ---------«---------. Were we to adopt the parcels post for domestic and interna¬ tional commerce it would be an immense stimulus to the trade of the country. The great manufacturing and trading centres would no longer be forced to pay such tribute as they now do to express companies and freight lines. The government charges abroad for carrying parcels are so small as to astonish Americans, who know to their cost how severely they are mulcted by the express compa¬ nies and the freight lines. Of course very bulky articles are not taken by the post-offices abroad ; but the writer, last summer, in Germany, saw trunks, huge cheese boxes, barrels, carcasses of animals—such as deer—among the parcels delivered at the post" office. It will be a long time, however, before we will get these advantages in this country, for the express companies will fight the carriage of parcels by the government; nor will the newspapers help to decrease the value of the monopoly they now enjoy, which amounts to a subvention of ten to fifteen millions per annum. -----------e------------ The Board of Estimate and Apportionment. The movement now making at Albany to enlarge the Board of Estimate and Apportionment by the addition of three members representing the taxpayers will, it is to be hoped, be successful. The board now consists of the Mayor, Comptroller, president of the Board of Aldermen and the official head of the Tax Commissioners. These officers, who have enough to do already, cannot give the thought or time requisite to deciding upon the appropriations called for by the various city departments. Mayor Grace is all but supreme in the present board; and it is alleged, with great apparent justice, that he has been very partial in the distribution of the city monies. He has been liberal with the officers who are his friends, and has been unnecessarily parsimonious with departments the patronage and expenditures of which he could not entirely control. The proposition to come before the Legislature is to add three members to the board. They are cto be taxpayers, and are to be chosen—one by the Real Estate Exchange, another by the Chamber of Commerce, and the third by the Board of Fire Underwriters. The presumption is that these institutions would appoint intelligent and honest commissioners who could give more time and attention to the wants of the various city departments than the elected officers who are now in the sole charge of this matter. The Record and Guide has heretofore often said that there should be some way of utilizing the taxpayers in looking after the finances of the city. We have urged that the Legislature should require—say 500 of the leading taxpay¬ ers to keep watch over every department of the city government. A commission of five or seven, appointed by and paid by them, should be in perpetual session to see what became of the money paid into the city treasury. They, the repre¬ sentatives of the taxpayers, should be required to know the exact work of every person who drew a salary from the city and whether the bills presented were for actual service performed. In other words, the object would be to throw a blaze of light in and upon all the expenditures of the city. There would seem to be a pro¬ priety in letting the persons who paid the money know what became of it. We would not propose to clothe these taxpayers, representatives with any powers except to examine and report. It is true the Mayor now appoints two city auditors, but their work has amounted to very little, because they represent an official and not the taxpaying public. It is known now, in a general way, that from one-third to oue-