Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 57, no. 1460: March 7, 1896

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March 7,1896 Record anel Guide. 379 ESTABUSHED'^ iS\W\pH 2l«i^ 1868. OpKbld) to F^LESTWZ.BuiLDlj/o ARPlf'TE<=™'^^<'"SE«OlDl Bi/snfess Alio Themes of GEffeivA IjftCTpsi, PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. TBLBPBOini,......OOBTLANBT 1870 Oonuniinloatloiis shonld be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street. /. 3, LINDSEY. Business Manager. "Entered at the Post-office at New York, JT. Y., as second-class matter." press ever engaged in. A step toward universal suffrage in Austria has been taken by au official proposition to create seventy-two seats in Parliament for which every male over twenty-four years of age will be entitled to vote. The sale of the Northwestern, South and North German Junction railroads to the State is about completed. This practically places the railroad business of Austria in the hands of the government. The Italian reverses in Abysinnia, of course, have an imfavor able effect on the Continental bourses. Vol. LVII. MARCH 7, 1896 No. 1,460 The Recokd and Gvidk will furnish you with daily detailed reports of all building operations, compiled to suit tour business specifically, foi 14 cents a day. Yon are thus kept informed of the entire market for your goods. No guess work. Every fact verified. Abundant capital and the thirty years' experience of "The Record and Gvidv guarantee the com¬ pleteness and authenticity of this service. Send to 14 and 16 Vesey street for information. CONGRESS' interest in Cuba as a fitting weapon for use in partisan strife does not scare business men so much as it wearies them. This explains why we have a strong but dull stock market. People refused to be frightened into helping profes¬ sional operators to make a big turn on the short side, but they also refrain from buying. After the bear tiadershave made their raid and covered again, business comes to a standstill. The hope is growing that the gentlemen who are passing con¬ current resolutions and digging holes for the admiuistration to fall into will get through with this very dignified and profitable work, or get tired and go home soon, and that then trade and finance may resume their ordinary course without interruption from politics for a time at least. It will be a great shame if the politicians do not give them a brief interval in which to make some progress between the adjournment of Congress and the excitement of the campaign that will come this summer and fall. Apart from the malign infiuences that spring from Washington, judging from all appearances the condition of trade is satis¬ factory. The centres from which the gloomy'reports, to which we alluded last week, came are already taking on a better aspect, so that it is not too much to say that, barring further Con¬ gressional aberrations, the outlook for the spring is fairly good. IP, as some Continental journals say, and which does not appear at all improbable. Great Britain's ability to hold her vast aud scattered possessions is to be put to the test, she does not intend to bo taken by surprise. The naval appropria¬ tions just asked for by the minister for the navy in the House of Commons are not more remarkable for their amount than for the readiness with which they will undoubtedly be granted. Evidently the British feel that they are menaced on all sides. There is an absence of factions or party criticism; even the wild free lances of the Radical elements of Parliament, like Mr. Labouchere, refrain from stinging and teasing in order to remove any doubt that may linger in the minds of other peoples as to the unanimity of the national sentiment. This proposition is a response to the talk iibout the evacuation of Egypt, under coercion from other powers, as the mobilization of "the flying squadron" was a reply to the German Emperor's message to President Kruger. Those who believe that large armaments are a guarantee of peace should see in these preparations an argument to support their position. The activity at arsenals and dockyards and the distribution of money which it implies will favorably atfect general business. Paris, which has been largely the market for Spanish and Spanish-Cuban securities, has felt the fullest force of the electioneering vote in the Senate and House favoring the accordance of belligerent rights to Cuban macheteers. Should we be eventually led to do more than talk, a panic will undoubtedly be precipitated in that market as well as iu our own. The graded income-tax proposed by the French Minister of Finance is receiving popular support, though if it passes the Chamber of Deputies it is not unlikely to be rejected by the Senate and bring on another of those awful political crises for which France is so renowned and which seem to do her so little harm. The German press is making itself ridiculous by abusing England for not aggreeiug to re¬ open the Indian mint and, as it is alleged, thereby making the calling of another silver conference impossible. Of course, the newspapers cannot help it, they have to dance as they are bidden. The goverment demands these articles, to make the agrarians believe that the failure of their pet project, the recognition of silver, is due to England. If they can be made to believe this their stupidity must be of the densest kind. It is to the outsider the most childish business that ever a responsible government and even a terrorized and subsidized Tlie Need of Self Examination. IF ever there was a proper occasion for parades and petitions, indeed for putting into motion the entire machinery of popular demonstration, surely tho present time furnishes that occasion. Busiuess men, all over tho country, should send deputations to Washington on an appointed day to demand that Congress shut up shop at once aud its members disperse to their homes to carry on some more profitable occupation than the one they are now engaged in—that of disturbing American civiliza¬ tion and the commercial economy of the nation. The entire session has been unspeakably ridiculous. Pressing domestic att'airs have been utterly neglected, while the country has been forced into the position of a pot-house bully, threaten¬ ing and "squaring up" to everybody withiu sight. No one of any sense imagines for a moment that our relations with the rest of the world suddenly underwent so complete a change some time iu the past three or four months that it has been really necessary for us to devote our entire attention to several irritating controversies with foreign nations. At any moment during the last quarter of a century there have been questions enough under discussion between the State Department and the governments of other countries to embroil us with many of the first-rate powers of the world. What was needed to bring on a fracas was that any of these matters should be discussed, not with sobriety and dignity, becoming the ancient traditions of American diplomacy, but with bad temper, ignorance and jingoism. No man who is " spoiling for a fight," as they say iu Ireland, has to seek very far for an excuse for a rumpus or for some oue to strike at. We can easily get up a fight every year of our natioual existence if discord and war be our ideal. Hitherto our ambitions have been those of peace and amity, and the countiy has not lost one iota of dignity or a single substantial right by a policy that has been so much in harmony with civilization that it has been a lesson and a shame for other nations. It has not produced for us an enemy on the face of the globe. It has made friends for us in time of trouble, so that the leaders of other nationalities have been, by the divine call of conscience, our" self-appointed ambassadors. Of what other nation can this be said 1 In the face of the past the hysterical jingoism of the last few months is deplorable in the extreme. We have gaiued nothing for ourselves but the vulgar applause of our cheap newspapers and whatever empty gratification may be derived from the fact that others have not yelled back at us language quite as violent as our own. The insane Spanish mob at Barcelona are the brothers of our Senators. Both are acting in the same spirit, but the Spanish government promptly apologized for its lunatics as civilized governments do for discourteous act or word, whereas our ofticials aud Statesman led the rioters instead of voicing the highest sentiments of the country. A foreign policy long continued on the new lines will speedily make the United States hated and distrusted every¬ where. We will take our place with bullies like England and Chauvinists like France; aud strong as we may be, we will surely have our bitter experiences, as the former did at York- town, and the latter at Sedan. Those who live by the sword, perish by the sword. The demand to-day for ships and guns is a savage, reactionary cry—a demand that henceforth the United States shall join iu that very arming of the nations which hitherto we have decried. Let no man deceive himself that this "war business" can be done in moderation. Guns beget guns and warships warships. The history of the world shows how prolific these articles are. It is the flrst step that counts. New condititions are by it created, aud these conditions will master the policy of this nation and drive the coming generations into situations undreamt of to-day. Every patriot and true lover of his country should strive to bequeath not the biggest navy and a bloody renown, but the leg¬ acy of peace to the age that is to succeed his, and this boon is to be secured ouly by setting the face to-day firmly against every¬ thing that does not make for the conditions of peace—for the absence of hard feeling between ourselves and other nations, and for the lack rather than the abundauce of inflammable war material, for the rash, the foolish, the ambitious to set fire to some day. Ours should be that spring ploughing for which Grant restored the cavalry horses of the vanquished at Appo¬ mattox. jThereis enough of this kind of work to be done on this continent for generations to come. Our people want internal prosperity, immunity from every sort