Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 59, no. 1510: February 20, 1897

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February i2o, 1897. "^ Record and Guide Oe6teD to REA.L Estate.BuiLDijfc AppKiTECTUR.E,Housn(ou)DECcs(AnoAi BusH&ss Alb Themes op GejIer^I Ii/ter.esi., PRICE, PER YEAR, IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday, Telephone, - - - - . - - ^Cortlandt 1370 Communloatlona should he addressed to C. TV. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street. J. T. LINDSEY, Businesa Manager. "Entered al tlie Post-office at New YorJe, N. T., as second-class matter," Vol. LIX. FEBRUARY 20, 1897. No. 1,510 All Architects, Bailding Material Manafaotji7-ers, Real Estate Owners, Agents, Auctioneers and Brokers are interested in the great "Mistorical, Fncyclopedio Eeview of Architecture. Building and Real Estate" noiv preparing hy the "Jlecord and (.T-nide." As useful and necessary as a dictionary or directory, and as readable as a novel. Thousands will need it. The standard tvorl: ALMOST everyM'here, oHtside of the stock market, the con¬ ditions of a bettering business are appearing. The other (lay what appeared to be an evil—the break In the prices for steel rails—turned out to be a blessing; because, on the drop, ■contracts "were made for rails aggregating $20,000,000. These contracts will not only keep the rail mills active for sometime to come, but they mean also the employment of thousands of men in the handling and laying the rails and a vigorous policy or renewals and repairs on the railroads. If our currency con^ ditlons were what tber should be, cheap rails would also en- eoiirage the building of new lines, but as that involves the raising of new capital, for which the times are unpropitious, this opportunity will very likely he lost. Another impoi'tant fact connected with the steel rail business, is the reported placing of American rails iu the English market, which, if true, opens out a wide vista of growth in our steel and iron industries. In look¬ ing at the situation it is to be noted too that the latest official returns of our foreign trade show that we are still selling largely aud buying quite moderately abroad, a condition of trade that would not be quite satisfactory under noi"maI conditions, but is to-day in that it conveys an assurance that our recently re¬ plenish stores of Treasury gold are fairly safe from attack. The stock market has of late, it is true, been disturbed by the effects of long protracted poor busiuess in the coal trade in both anthracite and bituminous branches and which will prob¬ ably compel the reorganization of one or more properties that have until now been able to weather the storm, but there is a well-grounded feeling that with the coming of the spring and a new impulse from an administration pledged to revenue and currency reform and having a majority in both houses of Con¬ gress that both business aud prices will Improve. IT is more because of what they don't know than of vphat they do know that business men in Europe are displaying ex¬ treme caution just now. They have to determine whether the present decline is simply a reaction or the beginning of a downward movement. As to probabilities of war affecting trade, if a poll were taken there would undoubtedly be an enor¬ mous majority of opinion that the present troubles In Eastern Europe will not involve any of the Great Powers in war. There is, however, no knowing what may develop at Constan¬ tinople, or whether tbe efforts that have been constantly made for two years past to prevent the condition of the Turkish Gov¬ ernment forcing a final settlement of what Is known as the Eastern Question, to which war would be almost certainly in¬ cident, can continue to be always successful. The sincerity of the Powers in their expressed desire to work together for the maintenance of peace is evidenced by the absence of friction among them in treating the outbreak In Crete. To the outsider there seems to be some danger that this peaceful policy may be defeated by the Greek turned blatherskite. At any rate, and this is the important thing to business men, the chances of a big war gi-owing out of the Cretan uprising, never very large, are be¬ coming very small indeed and, whatever may be on the cards to procure the tranquility of tbe island, in a little while to-day's situation will fall back among the many faintly remembered incidents of the history of the Eastern Question and so cease to bother. The late good business has enabled the British rail¬ way companies, as a rule, to increase the dividends paid this year, though there are some exceptions so notable that they prevent the market from reflecting the full beneflt of the In¬ creased distributions of proflts. The figures relating, io Gei'- many's foreign merchandise business, of which so much has been said, are now at hand. They show exports valued at $850,000,000 and imports at $1,080,000,000 for 1896 as compared with con'esponding figures of $740,000,000 and $984,000,000^ re¬ spectively, for 1894. The Increases are by no means so excep¬ tional or alarming, considering the state of activity that .all branches of European trade have exhibited since 1893. ■^pHB Lexow Trust Investigation is a disgrace to the state. . ■• If we must have our political circuses every year, in the name of common sense let us go into the business completely and get all the buncomhe, demogogy and fun we can in a straightforward way. Hire Madison Square Garden and em¬ ploy some Barnum to work up the farce for "all it's worth." Tbe present proceedings are neither one thing nor the other. None but the simple are deceived by the pretense of a seriops investigation of certain economic conditions. As to the humor- ou-s, they readily perceive the immense possibilities of this sort of legislative humbug if handled entirely in the interest of pure fun. How Le.Mow, Searles, Flint and the rest could let them¬ selves out in the nonsense if they were not restrained by Hkt necessity of appearing to be engaged in a serious business! But, playing to the galleries, iu the name of a great commonwealth is a sad spectacle. Eeal investigations are carried ou neither in the spirit nor tbe style of Lexow. An inquiry of the nature of the one undertaken should be an instrument of serious states- craft, To pervert it to political purposes, and use it to make public clamor is a criminal degradation of the authority and reputation of Government. The demagogy of the streets and the newspapers, heaven knows is bad enough; but the worst is reached when the State takes a hand. Unquestionably there are evils resulting from the operations of Trusts. So there are others from the operation of unrestricted competition. Some of these evils might be mitigated by legislative action; some per¬ haps are not to be avoided at all and others must be endured lest some thing worse be substituted. One thing is certain, that part of the evil-doing of Ti-usts that is the direct consequence of human defects—covetousness, dishonesty and the like—will remain to perplex legislatures even though those corporations be destroyed. An investigation of Trusts is not undesirable. It might be of some value. For that end, however, the enquiry must be serious, impartial, judicial. Nothing good can come from a mountebank performance like Lexow's, solely for poljt- ic-al purposes and for its effect upon the mob. EVERAL bills afCecting real property and the bliildlng id- dustryare now before the Legislature as a result of thework of the Commissioners of Statutory Revision. One of these, intro¬ duced into the Assembly, by Mr. Sanders, revises and proposes to consolidate into one statute, to be known as the Labor Law, all the many enactments relating to labor. Such a codification would be a very good thing if carried out with due regard to all the interests affected. It may hardly be necessary to remark that the bill as introduced does not do this. So far it is a bill introduced essentially in the interest of labor alone. In this in¬ terest it covers the matters of hours of labor; payment of wages, protection to persons employed in erecting and repair¬ ing buildings, tenements, factories and the hundred-and-one other similar things regulated by law. The changes and modi' fications suggested are important and require consideration and, at the same time, it would be well for the employers to decide what amendments they would like, the opportunity being as good for them as for the workers to suggest changes, with the view of securing their admission into the bill previous to its passage. One of the changes now proposed gives an employee power to sue directly for penalties for failure to comply with the law requiring weekly payment of wages instead of to the factory inspector through the attorney general. This is a provision likely to create tbe worst relations between employer and. em¬ ployed, by throwing them into direct antagonism. It occurs to us, too, that a better plau for the inspection of scaffolding could be devised than tbat contained in this bill. Inspection of alleged dangerous scaffolding is to be made by the police, and the officer making the examination, "shall attach a certificate to the scaf¬ folding, or the slings, hangers, irons, ropes or other parts thereof, examined by him, stating that he has made such esaminatioa and that he has found It safe or unsafe as the case may be." The impropriety of placing such a duty upon a police officer, who is more likely to be ignorant than well-informed or stupid rather than intelligent. Is manifest, to say nothing of the at¬ tached certificate. Penalties for the various offences mentioned in the bill are stated in only a few cases, It being the purpose to provide for the majority of such penalties by an amendment to the Penal Code, by which these offences are made misde¬ meanors. The wisdom and necessity of looking after this pro-