THE CITY OE MONEY AND STRIKES.

Hokitika Guardian, 27 December 1919, Page 4

THE CITY OE MONEY AND STRIKES.

.WHERE LIVING GIIOWS DEARER DAILY. (By A. McKenzie.) NEW YORK CITY, j To-day the Wealth of America is con- ■ centrated in New York, as are many of the strikes. Forty-four per cent in bulk and seventy-five per cent in value of America’s record-breaking world trade passes through this port. Last month America sold the world a hundred and twenty million pounds more goods than it bought from it. Every one of those millions brought its percentage of profit to New York.

It is among the people that oue can study best the results of this wave of prosperity in this most prosperous of cities. The charwoman who cleans the staircase of the house where I live wears white kid boots (£3 a pair) while at work. The shop girls come to business on Saturday morning dressed as though j bound for a garden party in Mayfair. Yesterday I sat in the Elevated Hallway opposite a dear old Irish woman. If her general aspect told anything, her husband had spent most of his life jas a janitor and she had helped him by taking in washing. But liei; hat could not have cost less than £5. Her dress was worthy of Dover-street, Piccadilly.

j But you can spend, more money here in less time than in any other city known to mo. Some things are dearer in the West, but Western places do not offer such variety. A sandwich, a large glass of beer, and a moderate tip for the waiter will cost yon five shillings in an hotel bar around 34th-street. Half-a-crown a glass for temperance drinks, disguised under a fancy name, is nothing out of the way. The department stores are issuing warnings that before long shoes may be four guineas a pair, and clothing £2O a suit. Imitation silk stockings, once 4s a pair, are to be 14s.

Rents are jumping up all the time An increase of from 25 to 60 per cent is normal. Young married couples, without family, could formerly rent a suitable apartment in lower Manhattan itself for £l2 a • month. Eighteen pounds is now the price. Once the maximum rent of apartments for the newly rich was £6,000 a year. I hear now of apartments renting at £20,000 a year. Offices down town are almost unobtainable. You may search for six iweeks and find nothing at a price possible for any but plutocrats. It is a city to keep away from just now. , ***** I New York is ambitious to be ranked to-day as the metropolis of the world. How far can she claim the title? London still leads in population. The inhabitants of Greater New York will

number this year over six millions, as 1 against considerably over seven millions in Greater London. But New; York is_ rapidly catching up. At the j beginning of this century London was j twice as big as New York; in 1932 the j two may be a tie, with a population of ■ eight millions each, the twin world capi- | tals. I

If by the financial capital of the world one means the city that has the most money, then New York can claim the title, at least for the time. The spare gold of the world poured into New York during the war. New York is now becoming the centre for the flotation of international loans. The machinery of exchange and the control of the great banking facilities of the world remain with London. We have the machinery of finance; New York has the money. In shipping—on which the position of a city as the world capital must ultimately largely depend—New York and London run a neck-to-neck race. New York has many natural advantages over London as a port. Its harbour is one of the most spacious and safest in the world, and there are over seven hundred miles of water front available for docks and wharves.

But—the condition of the port of New York is chaotic. Control is divided between two States, many cities, and various authorities, and strikes are chronic. They all distrust one another and refuse to unite their forces. There is an absence of elementary facilities such as can be had in many sixth-rate ports elsewhere. There is—except for one trifling industry—no direct landing of car-goes by labour-saving machinery on to railway cars waiting on dockside sidings.

Cargoes have, as a rule, to be taken from ship to lighter, from lighter to shore, from shore to truck, and from truck to railroad depot. The expense is heavy—far more than in London —and the continual delay is worse than the expense. The labour is always restless.

London possesses another enormous advantage in her warehouse system. The producer of almost anything in any part of the world can send his goods to London with absolute confidence that they Avill be graded properly, warehoused under the best conditions, sold at the world price of the moment, and the money will be fairly paid over. The sale rooms of Mark-lane and Mincinglane set the prices of the world and have drawn a thousand trades around the port. New York is attempting by private enterprise to build up a big warehousing system, but the thing cannot be done in a day or a year.

Historically New York and London have always had special intercourse and friendship. Despite the Irish crusade, this. remains. I could fell a hundred tales of kindness received and of appreciation of England voiced. But to me one little tale summarises the general sentiment here. I went to the letter clerk of one of the big hotels one night and asked her the foreign postage on a letter I had with me. “Five cents (2jd),” she replied briskly. This was in the days before war postage was reduced. “Surely you are wrong,” I maintained, “I know that a friend sent a letter to England for three cents (lid) a few. days ago.” “England three cents, yes,” she said, “but you asked for foreign postage.” “Don’t you call England foreign, then?”

She looked hard at me, as though astonished at so stupid a question. ‘ ‘Of course not,” she replied with tremendous emphasis.