LOUIS NAPOLEON AND THE BOURSE.
Ix has transpired that the Emperor of the French has been en- gaged in communication with some kind of council or commission convened for the special purpose of considering the state of stag- nation and distrust in French commerce. Several attempts have been made to impart new life and movement to trade by opera- tions on the Paris Stock Exchange ; but although a slight im- provement has appeared on one or two occasions, it has turned out impossible to maintain by contrivances of this kind any healthy action in the industry of the country. Now a positive progress and extension were absolutely essential to the domestic policy of the Emperor ; for, with some ability and much energy, he had actually succeeded in calling out a greater degree of commercial activity in the French people. He had to a certain extent re- called their attention from the mere gaining of money, which is usually the French idea of trading, to the more English notion of energetic production, credit, and investment, seeking individual profit through subserving the general advantage. lie had largely contributed to wean the French people from their habit of hoard- ing. The gambling propensity which is inherent in the race had seized upon those Imperial encouragements as pretexts for joint- stock schemes and jobbing of every conceivable kind ; and a year back we saw the Emperor anxious to put a check upon that spe- cies of activity. He was then apparently holding the reins of government with his own hand, and keeping some sort of check upon the inferior adventurers who cluster around him. The time came when the indulgence of his own personal objects, whether of ambition or of recreation, induced, him to leave more to his subordinates ; the strong hand was taken off, and one of the first open deviations from the Imperial policy was the removal of the discreet, prudent, and respected Count d'Argout from the govern- ment of the Bank of France, and the appointment of the Count de Germiny, president of the great society of Credit Fonder, or joint-stock company for dealing in advances upon real property, one of those great socialistic banking-houses which have ema- nated from the modern Pereire school of French financiers. We now see that same Emperor in consultation upon schemes for re- viving French commerce from the stagnation brought upon it by well-founded political distrust. The reports of the consultations have been very meagre and not entirely trustworthy. Devices for facilitating speculation on the Bourse, and consolidation of rail- way stock, are the nostrums generally said to have been pro- posed, and on the latter it is said the Council was unanimous. This is the sort of counsel that might be expected rather from a conclave of our wilder joint-stock gentry than from a meeting of real financiers to advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Downing Street. But of whom was the Council composed.? The names which we have before us are those of De Germiny, Roth- schild, Pereire, Damon, (a financier of Louis Philippe's day,) Bartholony, and Mires. Certainly these names lend considerable plausibility to some of the reports that have been current. We know them well ; we are only too familiar with them. One of the first things that strikes us is the thorough identification of the circle thus repre- sented with the railway, joint-stock, and speculative property of France. We have before pointed out this interwoven state of the personal connexions of joint-stock speculation—end if we could ever forget it it would certainly not be at this moment. The names turn up on every side. In the Sow- Cotriptoir des Metauz we find the name of Be Moray ; in the Sous-Co' mptoir des Che- mins de Fer, Mathieu, Emile Pereire, J. Pereire, Thurneyssen; in the Credit Fonder, Be Germiny, F. Bartholony, Emile PLreire ; in the Credit Mobilier, Isaacs Pereire, president, Benoist Fould, Be Moray, Emile Pereire, Auguste Thurneyssen. All these are companies professedly for the encouragement of speculation, mostly by some kind of discounting process or advance upon se- curities. We pass by various companies for fire insurance, &c., in which we see the names of Hottinguer, Rothschild, De Germiny, Mathieu, Mien, and turn to the instructive section of railways, taking the principal ones only. Look at the Paris and Orleans Company, which has fairly eaten up some companies and is closely associated with others : here we find the names of Bartho- lony, De Moray, Benoist d'Azy ; in the Northern of France, Rothschild, four of them, Hottinguer; the Eastern _Railway Company, Rothschild, two of them, Pereire; Paris and Lyons, Henri Hottinguer, Mathieu, Pereire, Rothschild ; the Southern _Railway and Garonne Canal, Emile Pereire, Isaac Pereire; the Grand Central, which has absorbed some others, Be Moray ; Lyons and Geneva, Bartholony, Benoist d'Azy ; St. Rambert and Grenoble, Emile Pereire • the Railways of the West, the Baron Paul Benoist d'Azy, Emile Pereire Auguste Thurneys- Ben; Lyons and Mediterranean, Benoist d'izy, Barthelemy, and Damon. Some of those railways are paying fine dividends, not all of them; in all of their accounts, if we are not mistaken, fi- gure large sums under the head of emprunts pa). obligations, with large annual interest ; some of them have received a subvention from the State.* But perhaps the most curious name in the list of the Emperor's financial advisers is that of Mires-31. Jules Mires, we conceive, the head of the house Jules Mires et Compagnie, the firm which manages the Societe en Commandite, entitled Caisse General dcs Chemins de Fer, formerly that with a title slightly different, " Caisse et Journal des Chemins de Fer." The object of this last Company is indeed curious. It is to subscribe and procure public securities, shares, obligations, and bonds of "different in- dustrial enterprises, credits consolidated in societes anonymes, and especially of railway companies, canals, mines, and all other companies, commercial or civil, founded, or to be founded." It is to sell, exchange, lend money upon securities, negotiate loans, and to conduct a kind of business which to us appears very much like combining an open shop, a general agency, and a pawnbroking establishment in connexion with all sorts of speculations. The name of Mires has been rendered immortal by the Spanish loan, in which remarkable operation, if we remember rightly, of the sum advanced the Spanish Government was to have something not ex- ceeding 27 per cent of the nominal advance. We have seen whom the Emperor is reported to have called around him as councillors in his desire to deliver the country of France from commercial stagnation. We all know the distinction between the commercial depression of a country, and the oppor- tunities of individual profit. There are certain classes of specu- lators who can always make a profit both ways—can share in the prosperity of a man or a country, or take advantage of ex- tremities to share in the proceeds of a loan or a bankruptcy. Who expects that any of the names which have been paraded before the reader will come to beggary through the distress of France: What real sympathy can exist between such counsellors, and the French sailors who are asking for employment, the artisans who find their labour not wanted, the shopkeepers whose customers at present are saving, perhaps hoarding, the country-gentlemen who have, not a hundred years since, been encouraged to invest their hoards and find no present returns, perhaps an ominous con- sumption of the capital ? What real sympathy can exist be- tween persons actually suffering under the stagnation and
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gentlemen whose life s devoted to making profit at stagnation, whether it be by exciting the spirit of the Bull or the Bear? Well may it be said that Louis Napoleon is not what he once was, (if indeed he ever was what hasty admirers gave him credit for being,) when we find him thus calling in the wolf to play the part of watch-dog for the flock.
* By an announcement this week, we see that M. Be Moray has resigned the Chairmanship of the Board of Directors of the Mines de is Loire—" the only post of the kind he had retained." We knew already that the Count had resigned several other posts of the kind. 'We have at hand no informa- tion coming down later than 1856—the latest edition of the "Operations de is Bourse" ; but although the state of things may have changed in detail, the general facts remain unaltered.
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