Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 68, no. 1759: November 30, 1901

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■^"^ '^" ESTAEUSHED^'/^CH2lii"^lfl68. DtVo-fEfi TD Real EsUTE . SuiLOIf/o ^RClfIXECTURE.KoUaOiOLD DEGORJIlOtS. BusK^Ess Alto Themes of GEtten^. iKCERF^f- PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS Published eVery ■Saturday Communications should tie addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street, New YorR J. T. LINDSEY, BuainesH Manager Telephone, Cortlandt 3157 'Entered at the Fast Office at New York. N. Y.. as second-clans matter." Vol. LXVIII. NOVEMBER 30,1901. No. 1759. IF one disregards one or two specialties and analyzes the movements of other securities, one is compelled to come, to tbe conclusion, that the stock market is being manipulated in order to carry out heavy realizing sales. Taking for example the stocks in which the largest transactions were made, it wil) be found that thirty shares had sales of 10,000 or over on one two or all three days that preceded the holiday, and the trans¬ actions in these thirty shares were S2-2Cths of the whole husi- ■ness done. At the end of the three days, fourteen of these shares made losses, flfteen gains and one was stationary. The losses ran from 31^ in Copper down to "^Jk in Union Pacific; the gains from 3 in Sugar to Ya in Leather. Yesterday's movements of prices harmonized with those of the flrst three days of the week. What is most remarkable is the small gains made in most of the stocks in which the business done was largest. New York central on 128,235 and Pennsylvania on 2f6,557 shares ad¬ vanced only % each. Southern Railway on sales of 127,0f^0 shares gained y^. The only stocks out of the thirty whose movements in¬ dicated anything like a wholesale demand, were Sugar, Manhat¬ tan and Southern Railway preferred. In all the rest in which the buying was large enough on any of the three days to bring them into our list, there was more or less loss or only frac¬ tional gains. The steel stocks showed some spirit yesterday, and it will be very surprising if these do not reflect better than they have yet done the phenomenal activity t.nd strength of thS iron and steel market in all its branches. ONE or two items of news of especial interest to us on this side of the Atlantic come from the other, amidst the continually reiterated complaints of depressed business and fears of a distressing winter for the industrial centers, where the un¬ employed are in large pi-oportion. The Berlin correspondent of the London "Economist," attributes the renewed dulness on the Bourse there to the cessation of English and American buying of German industrial stocks, which had been going on in moderate volume. The Frankfurt Zeitung says inquiries are still received from American speculators as to whether the time has arrived to buy these industrials, but the answers are generally in the negative. Prospects for reduced dividends be¬ ing in evidence, it is thought that these shares will go still lower. The information that there was buying of these shares this fall helps to explain the gold exports of last week, which have been puzzling people ordinarily well informed. Not only this, but the circumstance would indicate an immense broadening of Americau investment and speculation, undreamt of a few years ago. There certainly will come a time when the indus¬ trial position of Europe will brighten again, perhaps when our own is becoming obscured, and we may hear in our own mar¬ ket, in a not very distant future, what now would seem ex¬ traordinary, of operators being short of home industrials and long of foreign ones; later reversing their position as changes of fortune are achieved by the industries of the two continents. The American, participation in foreign speculation is certain to come in proportion to its participation in foreign trade. Talk¬ ing of that, the same mail that brings us the interesting facts given above, brings us also some information of the latest claimant to participation in the favor of the foreign consumer, namely, American coal. The Cologne Gazette says this article costs $6.96 per ton delivered on Rhine boats at Rotterdam, and is of a quality equal only to that sold by the German coal syn¬ dicate at $5.52; therefore, it argues, that the latter has nothing to fear from the former. Other papers contest the correctness of these flgures and point to the fact that German purchases of coal continue to be made in the United States as showing that, if the syndicate want to retain the home market, they must reduce their prices. It is admitted that, if American coal is not yet felt as a competing factor in Germany itself, recent heavy arrivals at Genoa have reduced German sales there, and the fear is expressed that the American coal will in the near future compete with all foreign coal in neutral markets. In¬ deed, one of the great Rhine Westphalian operators is quoted, though not by name, as saying that in ten or fifteen years Amer¬ ica will supply almost alone, all JMediterranean countries with iron and coal. The direct interest of this to us is, that it ex¬ plains where a good deal of our increased production is going, and why our i;oal stocks advance in the market. To the for¬ eigner it ought to suggest one of those "straddles" we spoke of above, because he might save himself from loss by buying iron and coal stocks in this market and selling in his owu. The Debt 3 imit Again. P there is a scare on the subject of tbe d^bt limit, as Comp¬ troller Coler says, he himself is responsible for it. Last week he allowed himself to be quoted as saying that when Mayor-elect Low took office, the appropriations would reach the limit. This coming from the head of the financial depart¬ ment of the City Government was, naturally, accepted as an accurate presentation of the case, and it was fair for anyone to comment on the probable consequences. Naw the Comp¬ troller complains because tbat was done and talks about the subject being an elastic one, whatever that may mean, aud says the new administration will be better off than the old one; that the city's credit is better to-day than it has ever been, etc. Prom all this, it looks very much as if the elasticity is in the Comptroller's lingual apparatus. It is not a question of whether this or that administration will begin their work with a few millions of dollars more or less to their credit, or of the city's standing as a borrower. The great and important question is whether the restrictions put upon the city's borrowing capacity by the Legislature—necessary and wholesome in the past—have not become irksome and injurious to tbe city's prospects to-day? This is the question we are anxious about. The city's credit is all right and would be if its bonds outstanding were twice as great as the-y are to-day. The only people who are timorous about that are the bond brokers, and they ouly because they fear a scarcity of bonds to sell. It is to the question we have outlined that we want an an¬ swer. No sane person acquainted with the circumstances, will contend that the want of money, which, but for the legal re¬ strictions, might have been had by borrowing, has not been the bar to many needed improvements in the past four years. Then, how are we to prevent a recurrence of similar trouble in the future? Comptroller Coler says exclude from the limit bonds issued for self-sustaining work; we say let much of the work now done, by the city, and which could be done by private capital, be done by private capital; now Tax Commissioner Feitner, throws out the suggestion, which is a good one and worthy of consideration, that the real estate valuation, from which the debt limit is measured, should be made to include the exempt real estate owned by the city. By this the real estate valu¬ ation would be increased, according to tbe Tax Department's es¬ timate of the value of the city's realty, by $358,109,500. This would give the city new power to issue bonds to the amount of $35,S10,- 950. There is something entirely appropriate in the city's real es¬ tate being included in the security for its bonds. This is a simple proposition capable of easy comprehension and, therefore, likely to flnd ready approval with the public, whieh the other sug¬ gestions may not do because of their complexity and the dif¬ ficulty of removing prejudices that stand in the way of the adoption of either of them. But, as this is an important subject, let us follow it a little further, and ask, suppose either the bonds for self-sustaining works excluded from the debt limit, or private capital called in to assist public developments, or the city's real estate included in the valuation for debt purposes, what then? Will the time not come when the relief so oDtained will prove to be inade¬ quate. If this is so, would not another expedient have to be found later on? Is not the true remedy for the condition of affairs, of which complaint is made, after all, simply the one of raising the limit itself? A restriction suited to small cities proves to be irksome and injurious to large ones, yet a restric¬ tion is necessary to curb possible extravagance, then why not raise the limit for the large cities. In tbat case there would be no need of excluding any class of bonds, nor would the pre¬ judices of the public against dealings between the city govern¬ ment and private capital have to be overcome; relief would be found simply through the application of the familiar princi¬ ples and machinery that have heretofore governed the creation of public debt, and our development could proceed along line's already laid down. I