Music Trade Review

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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
TWENTY-FIRST YEAR.
•EDWARD LYMAN BILL.
Editor and Proprietor
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY
3 East 14th St., New York
SUBSCRIPTION (Including postage), United States.
Mexico and Canada, f aco per year; all other countries,
$4-oo.
ADVERTISEflENTS, $2.00 per inch, single column, per
Insertion. On quarterly or yearly contracts a special dis-
count is allowed. Advertising Pages $50.00, opposite read
ing matter $75.00.
" REMITTANCES, In other than currency form, should
b* made payable to Edward Lyman Bill.
(
Altered at the iV«e York Pott Office at Second Clou UaM.tr.
NEW YORK, MARCH 24, 1900.
TELEPHONE NUMBER. 1745-E1QHTEENTH STREET
THE KEYNOTE.
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The first week of each month, The Review will
contain a supplement embodying the literary
and musical features which have heretofore
appeared In The Keynote. This amalgamation
will be effected without in any way trespassing
on our regular news service. The Review wilt
continue to remain, as before, essentially a
trade paper.
CHEERING PROSPECTS AHEAD.
T H E remarkable prosperity of the coun-
try during 1899, prompts the natural
question as to how long we may reasonably
count on the continuance of present day
conditions. At the close of our national
fiscal year on June 30, 1899, there were not
wanting critics of approved character who
declared that the record of prosperity then
exhibited, was in all probability the high
water mark of such prosperity for many
years to come. This view appeared to be
well-founded, yet the fact stands that dur-
ing the opening months of the present year,
for instance February, not only was the
volume of exports larger than in the pre-
vious month, which in view of February
being a short month, would alone be
worthy of note, that there was a gain of
over twenty-eight per cent, in exports as
compared with February, 1899, the e x "
ports exceeding by nearly fifty-one millions
of dollars, the heaviest excess ever re-
corded during any month of February in
our history.
Judging from the government reports,
it is now as sure as can be, that the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1900, will show a
balance in our favor far in excess of any
previously recorded. The shipments for
the eight months ending Feb. 29, amounted
to $919,883,076, which is by far the largest
amount recorded for a corresponding per-
iod, and more than $77,000,000 in excess
of the exports during the first eight months
of the fiscal year of 1899.
So far as human experience and fore-
sight have any value, there is to-day no
prospect of any abatement of the current
prosperity. As Mr. L. E. Thayer, the Stan-
ambassador, said when speaking with The
Review last week: "Prosperity to-day is
not a matter of administration or politics.
It is due to the prosperity of our agricul-
turists and our vast mineral wealth. The
rising tide of piano demand will not be
affected by the Presidential campaign.
The prosperity we are enjoying to-day is
here to stay, there is no mistake about it.
This country is fast becoming a great
world power in agriculture, in manufac-
tures and in a financial way."
Well said Mr. Thayer. American credits
are affecting the finances of the world.
The British war loan and the Russian loan
have sought American takers, and we sup-
ply these calls, as we did the payment to
Spain, without strain, out of our abundant
commercial credits abroad. These are mo-
mentous events. They show the marvel-
ous development of the United States and
the power to command the markets and
control the finances of the world. Finan-
cial greatness is before us, and, following in
the wake of commercial superiority, New
York ere long will have supplanted Lon-
don as the clearing house of the world.
This is but a part of our great forward
movement. It is but one terrace in the
height of destiny this nation is climbing.
The English financial newspapers esti-
mate that the purchase of American cotton
between March 1st and September 1st, will
necessitate an additional expenditure of at
least $50,000,000 of English money in this
country for cotton during the coming sum-
mer, while it is clear that the foreign de-
mand for iron, steel and copper, and the
various manufactures of them will continue
wholly unabated. Even coal, which five
years ago America never thought of ex-
porting, is to-day in the greatest demand
through the shortage in the coal supply all
over Europe. Consul General Mason at
Berlin reports that in Silesia and Saxony
many establishments are curtailing produc-
tion and even shutting down as a result of
the scarcity of coal, and that the Russian
coal situation is critical. The only possi-
ble source of supply is this country.
of unexampled prosperity for one and all.
The great masses of the "common people"
will have money laid aside this year for the
purchase of luxuries, and their first selec-
tion in this line invariably is a musical in-
strument. Let us all work to make 1900 a
record breaker.
PIANO ARCHITECTURE.
A VERY interesting article will be found
in another part of The Review bear-
ing on " T h e Esthetics of the Piano Case."
It is a veritable symposium on this im-
portant topic wherein are given the views
of such members of the trade as Ferdinand
Mayer, Hugo Sohmer, J. Burns Brown,
Wm. P. Daniels and Theodore Pfafnin.
The subject is a timely one, in view of the
steadily accentuating interest in the matter
of piano decorative art. Leading manu-
facturers report an increasing demand for
pianos of special design, due no doubt to
the fast growing wealth of the country, and
the fact that people are building music
rooms after special decorative schemes and
desire instruments to match them.
Piano case designing is a subject to which
manufacturers are giving considerable at-
tention, and rightly. The tendency to-day
in piano architecture is toward plainer but
truer lines as compared with the abnormal
creations of a decade ago. Development
in this department of the industry is in
keeping with the general improvement
made in tonal quality and perfection of ac-
tion mechanism. As Hugo Sohmer well
says: "We Americans make the best pi-
anos in the world from every standpoint
of tone. . . . We have as much origin-
ality and boldness, and when the public
taste shall have progressed far enough pi-
ano cases will be as beautiful."
PROFITS AND PRICES.
A PIANO manufacturer writes us: "Not-
withstanding your active campaign to
bring manufacturers in line in the matter
of higher prices in view of the rising mar-
ket for materials, there is little unanimity
prevailing on this subject. For the one
All this means steady employment of who has had the courage to raise prices,
labor at good wages, ample commerce, as there are five selling at the old rates or at
the result of the disbursements of the a percentage of increase that is out of all
workers, large traffic for the railroads, and proportion to cost."
the expansion of our industries to meet
If this arraignment is correct, the situa-
the growing demand of them. Why tion is regrettable. Why manufacturers
shouldn't the traditional bug-bear of the should hesitate to ask and obtain the profit
Presidential year entirely disappear in the that is their due in the conduct of a busi-
bright prospect which is assured by every ness enterprise is not comprehensible. In
expert testimony or authority on the situ- every other industry manufacturers are ob-
ation?
taining advances commensurate with the
conditions
prevailing in the material field
Mr. Thayer is right. Prosperity is here
to stay, and the members of this industry for the past six months. Why not the
can plan ahead with every confidence that members of this industry?
There is but one way to operate a legiti-
the year so auspiciously opened will be one
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