Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: no. 56, no. 1445: November 23, 1895

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N«TeaibeT23, isec Record and Guide. 71"3 ESTABUSHED-^ (JWPH gyi^ 186B, Dd&jeD to Rp^l EsTAjt. Building Ap,cKrrECTuis'i{GUSEi(Mii DEi3(H^fi4 Btfsu/ESs fMo Themes of GEifeRM- llftEftpsi. PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. Tblephonb,......Cobtlandt 1370 commtmloattona shonld he addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street /. 3. LINDSEY. Business Manager. "Entered ai the Post-office ai Sew York, N, ¥., as seeond-aass matter." VOL. LVI. NOVEMBER 23, 1895. No. 1,445 The Record and GviiyR will furnish you with daily detailed reports of all building operations, compiled to suit your business specifically, for 14 cents a day. You are thus hept informed of the entire marlcet for your goods. No guess-tvorh. Every fact verified. Abundant capital a-nd the tiiirty years' experience of The Record and Guide guarantee the com¬ pleteness and authenUeity of tJiis\service. Sendito 14 and 16 Vesey street for information. WITH SUPPLEMENT. THE return of the Treasury to the practice o£ issuing gold "bars to exporters was doubtless occasioned by the fact that the forcing of coin ou shippers entailed a larger amount of work upon the officials and not sufficient annoyance on the others to appreciably cheek gold exports. It maybe taken, too, as an evidence that the Treasury is confident of its ability to replenish at anytime the gold reserve and, therefore, feels that it is unnecessary to place any obstacles in the way of gold leav¬ ing the Sub-Treasuries. In the face of the large exports this week, the decline in stock market quotations is perfectly natural; anything else would have been suspicious. It is gen¬ erally supposed that this movemenl. will continue for some time longer and that its influence on prices w^ill be maintained. So far, outside of a few Industrial stocks, the losses have not been great, and the circumstances which should check violent de¬ clines now and assist a substantial rise later on are existent just as much as they were a week ago, of which circumstances the Octobei.' earnings of Northwest, showiug an increase ot nearly $890,000, are an example. ---------•--------- RETURNS for October of British imports and exports showed moderate expansion, which has been the feature of these statements for several months. They showed also that the United States had beeu a large buyer of British goods, with no improvement in the American position as a seller of wheat. There was a great falling off in the receipts of this cereal from the Argentines for the month, they being only about one-sixth of what they were in October, 1894, but Russia and India sup¬ plied the difference. One point in the policy outlined by the new French ministry is of particular interest in this country. It is that new measures will be asked for to defend the French farniei's "against certain international speculations." That being taken to mean that increased duties will be put upon for¬ eign produce, the flrst efieets should be to raise the price of the articles against which the proposed measures are levied. In line with this matter are the demands of the Agrarian party in Germany, which, it is said, will play an importaut part in the coming parliamentary session. They are: A State monopoly for the imports of grain; duty free transit (bonded) warehouses; a warrant law specially suited to the agrarian views; an increase of the sugar export bounties; a closo control of the import and sale of articles of food. Apropos of the panic in Vienna, where the decline in values in the recent shake-up was proportion¬ ately greater than at other centers, it is said that Austria has very few disreputable securities, has orderly flaances and a Well-regulated Budget, aud if its agriculture is depressed, as is that of all the world, its industry is sound and ought to be suc¬ cessful. But, this notwithstanding, the Vienna bourse has been niore subject to panic in the last two years than any other, pre¬ sumably because Austrian and Hungarian banks have large amounts of capital tied up in land speculations aud in industrial establishments which are not expected to make any return for some time to come. The direful anticipations of war which Were so prevalent a short time ago seem to have reduced them¬ selves to a fear that the Sultan of Turkey will continue unwill¬ ing or be unable to stop the disturbances in his dominions, and will meet auy attempt of outside powers to force him to do so with armed resistance. The probabilities are, however, that the very difficult task of making him see that he cannot carry oil hie goverument in a way that shocks and disgusts the whole civilized world will ultimately be successful, or that he will, with the consent of the abler-minded of his own people, be de¬ posed and another ruler put in his place who will permit the organization of a ministry of ability tbat can act with vigor and will give to his distressed subjects something like an orderly government and security, whatever their religious faith may be. The newspapers whicb have been so industriously and gener¬ ously dividing up the Turkish possessions may lay away the new maps they have prepared, because they are not likely to be wanted, just yet at any rate. The Sultan's letter to Lord Salis¬ bury, published this week, is an extraordinary evidence of weak¬ ness, but it shows not only where tbe pressure upon him on the Armenian question comes from, but also that it is felt. THERE is a very important lesson to be drawn from one year's experience of a reformed administration—a lesson which is for the most part ignored by those who write about the matter in the newspapers. It is this : The activity of the busi¬ ness men, lawyers and public-spirited citizens generally who have headed the movement has been too exclusively political; it is not sufficiently administrative. They are very active round¬ about election time, but in the interval between the elections, the time in which the battle is really won or lost, they leave re¬ form to take care of itself. There is a tendency to let the whole burden fall upon the shoulders of the Mayor. Mr, Strong, just after he was elected, complained that he could not find any men among his prominent supporters who were willing to accept important administrative offices, and his appointments aflbrd sufficient corroboration of his complaint. In the cases of the Police and Street Cleaning Departments the importance ot the work tobe done enabled him to secure the services of strong men ; but neatly all the other salaried offices have been filled not by business men, but by politicians—men not different in kind from the politicians whom they superceded. Before any permanent refoim cau be achieved this must all be changed. Our committees of fifty and our various reform organizations must not consider their duties ended when they succeed at the polls ; they must pervade all departments of the muni¬ cipal government and give them a business iu place of their present political atmosphere. There is a superstition abroad that a mayor provided with almost unlimited powers of appoint¬ ment and dismissal can run tbe whole vast machine of depart¬ mental administration without any particular help from his political supporters. As a result of this superstition the Mayor has been endowed with duties so many and various that it would take the organizing ability and tirtiless energy of a Bona¬ parte properly to perform them. He has to make all the appoint¬ ments; the heads of all the departments look to him for direction and advice; he sits on all the important Boards; he has a vast amount of political and social business to attend to ; and finally the new constitution gives him power ot veto over all city legislation passed at Albany. He is at once required to do everything and to be responsible for everything; and at the same time he is so handicapped in his appointments by political ties and lack of good material thathe can rarely obtain proper subordinates. Is it any wonder that people tind fault with him and that the machine is creaking harshly 1 IT is all very well to have a responsible executive, but in the present case a responsible executive is merely an excuse for irresponsibility on the part of his supporters. This admin¬ istrative irresponsibility has from the beginning been the curse of American municipal government. Business men have been so busy making monev that they let the municipal administra¬ tion all into the hands of politicians who had no interest in gov¬ ernment except to make money. Others have made a business out of city politics very much more effectively than Mayor Strong can ever do. The time came when it was necessary for the good name of New York to destroy this lucrative trade. Tlie reformers put in a man of their own choice ; but it soon be¬ came apparent that the victory remained not with the refonners but with the politicians. It has been largely a process of sub¬ stituting one kind of politician for another. Tliorough-going, permanent reform can be based only in the collective responsi¬ bility of those men whose business talents are the sure basis of New York's industrial prosperity. The common councils of the English cities are composed almost entirely of the successful merchants chiefly interested in the welfare of the locality. Ad¬ ministration is carried ou by committees of this council who oc¬ cupy the same relation to the skilled employes in the depart¬ ments as the board of directors of a railway occupy to its en¬ gineers and operating officials—that is the committee are the directors; they determine what is to be done, and the skilled employes do it. Eut our cities have been under the control of politicians for such a long time that our machinery has been adapted to government by politicians. The " honor" offices are few and unimportant; the departments are directed by heads whose duties are partly directive and partly operative—duties which require so mucb time that no one who wished to perform them competently could also conduct a large private business. Our charter refonners have attempted to remedy the matter toy