Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: no. 56, no. 1438: October 5, 1895

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October B, 1895 Record and Guide. 431 Dev6teD to I^l Estate . BuiLoijfc A^cifrrEemiRE >{aJSEaoii> DEoatpm^ Birsnfess Alto Themes OF GET^ViL Ilftrapsi.; PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. TBLBPHOMB,......OOBTLAHDT 1S70 ODmmnuloatlons should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Veeey Street. /. 1. LINDSEY. Busineas Manager. Brooklyn Office, 276-282 Washington Street, Opp. Post Offioh. "Entered at the Fost-offiee eU New York.N. T., as second-class-matter." Vol. LVI. OCTOBER .5, 1895. No. 1,438 The Rficord and GviUF, ivili furnish you with daily detailed reports of all building operations, compiled to suit your business specifically, for 14 cents a day. Tou are thus kept informed of the entire market for your goods. No guesswork. Every fact verified. Abundant capital and, ihe thirty years'experience of The Eecord and Guide guarantee the com¬ pleteness and aiUhcnticity of this service. Send to 14 and 16 Vesey streel for information. AFTER "being stroug all week on tbe drop in exchange and the coDseciiient cessation ot gold exports, prices on the stock market displayed pronounced weakness yesterday. It was said this movement was in sympathy witb the London mar¬ ket, whieh is weak tinder European realizalions in Kaffir shares. If there i.s any connection between the two movements it will become interesting to know the significance of the initial one. Is this the beginniug of the long predicted collapse in Sou'h Ahican gold mines, or is it only a shake-up to get rid of the weak holders and lay the basis t'oi" a new advance'! If it is the first, will the sympathy tha.t is supposed to exist between the two markets contiuue on this side until the liquidation has run its course on the other? Kaffirs have been so long rampant and so many of them must have been boomed on tbe strength of whAt others and not they themselves have done, that it would not be surprising if the work once begun there should be a leveling down tomore seemingly propoitiouate values. That such an operation should adversely rlifect prices ou this side to the same extent does uot appear to be reasonable, especially as Europe has taken so little interest in American securities for two years past. The causes wliich will operate against our prices were stated here last week and to them maybe added tbis later one tbat any trouble abroad, whether weakness in prices or political cloudiness, will be used by traders here for momentary operations. On the other hand tlie business conditions of tliis country are in fine shape again, so that all the arguments drawn from them favor prices. The results of the agricultural year have bee]i satisfactory, the great coru crop compensating for losses elscwiiere. The lessened cotton crop even has its com¬ pensating feature, wliile tbe amount gathered by the planter is less, the money value, owiug to the rise in prices, is as great, if uot greater than that of last year. This fact also illustrates the healthy change that has come in the mauufactni'iug demaud for cotton, and also in tlie general commercial eouditious. NOTWITHSTANDING the enormous amounts of gold that -^^ have poured into Loudon and the other great European money centres, the demands of general trade for money are being felt now that they are supplemented by harvesting re¬ quirements. Last year the calls from the agricultural districts made no appreciable difference; this year, while the influence is not great it is sufficient to create the opinion that tbe accumula¬ tions that have been heaping up at a few points have reached theirmaxima, and justifies tbe hope that before another year has gone round tbe rates for money will be more remunerative to the banks. The course of trade improvemeut is reinstating iron as the commercial barometer. As in the Uuited States, so in Europe, iron prices have been continually rising, and the iron and steel trades getting busier ever since recovery began. Re¬ ports from the great iion regions of Germany are particularly encouraging, though it will be noted with satisfaction on this side of the Atlantic that tiie exports of iron andiron goods hither were in 1894 about a third of what they were in 1893 ; it may betaken for granted that tbe difference was made np by home manufacturer. The returns of the foreign trade of Japan for 1894-, recently is.sued, uatnrally excite a good deal nf attention, in view of the proniineuce Japan has arbievcd, not ouly in the field of war, but as a manufacturer and exporter of goods iu competition with other nations. Notwithstanding the obstruc¬ tive influence of trade the war with China had, the total imports pam (rreat Britain and her colonies ipcrey.se'^ a))put $4,000,000 j the increase from the United States was less than $2,000,000. Her exports to Great BritaJu and her colonies decreased, how¬ ever, $1,250,000, while those to the United States increased $5,000,000. Corea look $400,000 worth more of Japanese goods last year than in the year before. The best feature about the report is that, though buying four times as much as it sold to Japan, the United States was a proportionately larger seller than iu 1S93; the growth of business in the first case being about 20 per cent, and in the latter 50 per cent. Cotton yarn appears for the hrst time iu tbe list of Japanese exports; the amount was 4,500,000 pouud.s, all of which went to China. '■ The Business-Man-in-Politics." THE sudden/e^o de se of the Park Cora mission ers almost at the moment wben the public was expecting to see a Fall budding of the city trees, an autumn sprouting of tho grass and a general exuberance of nature in all things pertaining to the Park Department, under tbe benign influence of "reform" and business methods, has caused agreat manypersonstotake coun sel with themselves as to whether the "Business-M.an-)n-Poli tics" isn't losing in the noisy, visible field of actual adminis¬ tration a great deal of the splendid reputation he acquired in the mist of theory. Nasty, Btraightforward people cannot help finding a pariillel to this break-down of the merchant in the seat of official powerin the esperience, common enough, in the mer¬ cantile world, of the old man.ager, who, in tbe new position, doesn't somehow put the expected hum into affairs ; so tbat ifc seems to the unprejudiced that he wasn't quite able to remove .all his effects from the old staud, but left behind him there a part of his ability and a portion of the secret of his past successes. Considering the pre-emptory right which the political ruffian had apparently acquired to govern the American city as it seemed best to him, an unexpected test of tlie " Btisiness-Man- in-Politics" was permitted by the "reform wave" last year; and as some indubitable "Business-Men" thus got into power conspicuously, it is difficult to avoid comparisons between results aud expectations. Candidly, the fact carnot be dodged that whatever other vir¬ tues he has made to shine in high places, the Business-Man has displayed exceedingly little sagacity or .activity in the per¬ formance of his new duties. Yet, sagacity and activity—the great twin-brethren of commercial success—are tbe very ingredients (the ferment) that the merchant office-holder was expected to briug to the old uuleavened administration of the city's afl'airs. With our cherished notions about the potential efficiency of the Business-Man as a public functionary, it is extremely hai-d to digest so complete a failure as that of the Park Commissiouers. Perhaps people are learning enough, to force them to bring tbe Business-Man-iu-Politics theory to the scrutiny of facts; and we are of the opinion that a scrutiny of the kind will make it clear that the theory is rubbish, a pleasant plausibility, particu¬ larly " takiug " no doubt to the decent mind we.ary of the shame and the hopelessness begotten of the professional politician and his ways. Judged by business experience, what reason is there for thint- iug that because a man has sold dry-goods, or manufactured hardware, ov specidatedin real estate withuiore than the avcr.age success he is thereby qualified, in a large measui-e, to control the affairs of a Park Department, superintend ptiblie works or direct the cleaning of streets? We know that success isn't a freely interchangeable article in the commercial world, aud that among merchants the achievement of aniauin oue department is held scarcely as a presumption of futiu-e success in another and dif¬ ferent department. A man who should apply for a responsible position in a bank on the score of what he accomplished in the iron trade would tind that commercial reasoning took very little stock in his logic. Yet it is a no gi-eaterstep between dry-goods and chemicals, bardwai'e and real estate than between anyone of these or their similars and the Depai-tnient of Docks or the Departmeut of Public Works. Experience, training, special qualities of mind aud temperament are every bit as necessary to produce an efficient head of a street cleaning dep.artinent as to produce a successful salesman, merchant or manufacturer. Besides, to look at the matter frora another point of view, suc¬ cess in business is not invariably the rigid all-round test of gen¬ eral ability which the Business-Man-in-Politics theory tacitly assumes it is. Commercial success is frequently compounded. among other elements, of adventitious, impensoual, or occasional circumstances. Good fortune, brute good luck in matters of time, locality, juxtaposition of events and such like, frequently are essential contributions to the fortunes of the wealthy mer¬ chant or the fame of tho great house. Deprive them of these, and, like Samson shorn by Delilah, their .strength is uo greater than that of other men. These parts of a merchant's success are secret possessions even to himself. They are not to be fixed or estimated; but rare indeed is the notable career io which they are not potent factors. It is the existence ot these as well as the necessity pf special knowlefjge and experimwe to th.c do-