REAL ESTATE RECORD AND BUILDERS' GUIDE. VOL. XXVII. NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1881. No. 676. Published Weekly by have never charged more than 10 cents, and tions and industries, and in the mean time they have, on their own motion, increased give them for two long years something to C^£ Eeal Estate %ttaxti%Bsacmiian,th e commission hours so that any one can talk about in anticipation of an event, which TERMS. ride for 5 cents six hour a day. This is the New York city will crown with success, OS& YBAfC. in advaaca 9lU.0<l. cheapest railway traveling known to any financially and otherwise—whenever the part of the world. proper time arrives. In the meantime Communications should be addressed to In view of these facts, why should not the General Grant himself, as chairman of the C. W. SWEET. city agree with the elevated roads that in Executive Committee, will support the de­ No. 137 BROAOWAY consideration of a reduction of fare to a uni­ mand of a pretty well satiated metropolis, form rate of 5 cents at all hours that the when fully two years beforehand it ex­ HOW TO DEAL WITH THE ELEVATED roads should be relieved of all taxation. The claims, " Let us have peace." ROADS. companies might be permitted to run extra It is understood that negotiations are cars for exclusive customers, in which 10 CORPORATIONS AND MONOPOLIES. cents would be charged. Then, to acccom- pending between the city and state govern­ There is a disposition in certain quarters to ments and the elevated roads, as to what modate out-of-town travel, the elevated roads ought to be permittted extra track's to ac­ look upon all corporations as monopolies, a taxes the latter shall pay the city. The de­ mistake that ought particularly to be avoided cision of the Court of Appeals has settled commodate through passengers, and, during the night, freight trains. at a time that an attempt is being made to the question of the power of the city to tax create agitation on a subject, heretofore fche line and the tracks as real estate. The It may be that the Comptroller will not take this view of the matter. It is his busi­ little discussed in this section of the country. proper officers are now at work to fix upon True,exceedingly wealthy corporations may, what would be a fair rate, one that would ness to increase the taxes and to collect them. But surely all who are interested in by this very accumulation of capital, become not be irksome to the companies, while do­ for the time being monopolies, but as wealth ing justice to other tax-payers. the city's prosperity should see to it that our elevated roads are no!, so crippled by taxes as increases in our midst, so does competition In times past we have criticised unspar­ to force on them economies which result in which soon strips such a corporation of the ingly the speculative methods of some of discomforts to our citizens. Five cent fares monopoly feature. A country like this, and tlie projectors and manipulators of the ele­ and a night service will be worth more to a city like ours for instance, could never have vated roads. We can afford, therefore, to the mass of the traveling community in been developed in so short a time as it has present a point of view which is not often this city than the few thousand dollars that been without the aid of corporations given to the public, that of an impartial can be raised by imposing taxes upon corpo­ that built the various railways and also our arbiter between the claims of the companies rations, who regard them as an unfair impo­ surface roads. Our Third, Fourth, Sixth and and the demands of the public. sition upon capital which has been used for Eighth avenues would not be the great It cannot be denied that our system of the benefit of the metropolis. arteries of traffic and trade but for the cor­ steam elevated roads has been an almost un­ porations that built the surface roads. We mixed benefit to the city and property of now also see what the Elevated roads are New York. It has rendered our inter-mural NEW YORK CITY AND THE WORLD'S doing for the upper part of the island. All travel the pleasantest, swiftest and cheapest FAIR. such corporations are the pioneers in enter­ Icnown to any city in the world. This no "It strikes me now that some movement is prises that add to the grandeiir of a country necessary to interest this city in the enterprise. one can gainsay. Our elevated roads have Just what is best to do I am at a loss to recom­ or city, and the very nature of such enter­ added enormously to the taxable value of mend." prises requires a vast outlay of capital, afc the New York realty, and as to the matter of These are the words uttered by General start at least. Somebody must begin the damage, where one property holder has been Grant at a meeting of the International work, and if a single individual cannot do it injured, five hundred have been materially Executive Committee held on Wednesday owing to his want of capital, a group of in­ benefited. afternoon last, and, with aU due respect to dividuals forming themselves into a corpo­ But, it may be said, the projectors and the General, we may be allowed to say that rate body can, owing to the aggregate of managers of the elevated roads have made a the longer he continues to be a resident of capital possessed by them. It is unfair to j^reat deal of money and do not deserve any this city, he will be still more at a loss what cry this system down with the hated word special consideration- to recommend. New York city takes as yet of "monopoly." As time progresses other Well, they deserve all the money they very little interest in the Exhibition of 1883, bodies of equal volume and importance can made. The elevated roads were a new simply because it never permits itself to get and will form themselves, and competition tiling, and it was a great risk to invest into a fever of enthusiasm in regard to any­ results as sure as night follows the day. capital in an enterprise so novel. But it thing, as its population lives, exists and has There is another aspect of this question must be borne in mind that if Messrs. Field, its being in the midst of ever-continuing, which is'frequently overlooked. It is claimed, Harrison, Navarro, Foster and their friends never-ceasing periods of excitement. It that corporations are the enemies of labor. liad invested thsir money in Iron Mountain, would take more than an ordinary earth­ The very contrary is the fact as abundantly Kansias & Texas, Kansas Pacific, Wabash, quake to get NewYork interested in any­ proven for instance by the Massachusetts and a score of other properties which might thing that is more than two years off. But Bureau of Statistics, the very best bureau of be mentioned, they would have made ten when all is pre-arranged and the projectors the sort we have in this country. The larg­ dollars where they made one doUar in build­ of the Fair require the enthusiasm backed est mills in New England, the most extensive iug and managing their system of elevated by capital that will carry them on to success, shoe factories are now-a-days owned by cor­ roads. The past four years have rolled up we may safely count for assistance on our porations, and the figures as given by said enormous wealth for men of capital and en­ enterprising citizens, wherever may be the bureau show that though the number of sin­ terprise who invested wisely. site selected for the Fair. Until then the gle firms is much larger than that of the cor­ The city of New York can afford to be ball set in motion right here will be suffi.- porations, the latter, in the aggregate, em­ generous as well as just to the builders of cient to keep other states wide-a-wake, and ploy a much larger number of Lands than do tiie elevated roads. Their charter gives show what a fine opportunity is afforded the single firms. Even in the Western part them the right to ask 15 cents a ride, but they them for the display of their particular no­ of Pennsylvania, where not less than fifteen 176 THE REAL ESTATE RECORD. February 26,1881 years ago there were constant collisions be­ terprises, and in investing in real estate. since Hibernia has been put upon the lists, the tween the ironmasters and the hands they We have repeatedly told our readers that the effort has clearly been to unload the stock on the employed: there the corporation plan of time had come to leave the stock market public. working is now regarded with favor even by and to purchase realty. We have nothing Is there not danger that some day it will be the laborers themselves. In fact these very new to add on that point. found there has been an over issue of the shares men have, with the aid of their accumulated of some one or more of our numerous mining savings gone into the corporation busmess, WHO CAN EXPLAIN? conipanies ? In stocks which pay dividends there and of late years quite successfully.