Aus:
The Economist, 22. August 1868. S. 969/970.
Schließen

The French Loan. Paris Correspondent. August 20. 1868.

The Minister of Finance, with that desire for theatrical effect which characterises the French, issued on August 15, because it was the Emperor’s fête, a report on the subscription to the new loan which closed at 5 p.m. on August 13. And yet, seeing that the subscription had been opened in every part of France and in England, it was impossible for him to be in possession of the precise Results. This he himself admits; but the importance of striking the popular imagination on a festive occasion, by the publication of startling figures, outweighed the desire, which, as a financier, he must have felt, to be precise. And startling his figures were: he wanted a capital of 450,500,000 fcs (18,020,000£), representing 19,516,245f. of Three P.Ct Rente, and the subscription gave him, he says, in round figures, a capital of 15,000 Millions fcs (600 Mill. £ St.) being equal to 660,184,270f. rente, nearly 34 × more than he demanded. Of the rente (of 19,516,245f.) f.3,141,170 were in the minimum subscription of 5f., and were taken by 628,234 subscribers. The rest, amounting to 657,043,100f. was taken by 153,058 persons. The 5f. subscriptions will be accorded entire, but the rest will be reduced pro rata. The amount of cash deposited as guarantee by the subscribers exceeded 660 Mill. f. (26,400,000£.) On these results the minister is triumphant. They surpass, he says, what was attained in any preceding loan, and surpass the last one, that of 1864, by 240,000 in the number of subscribers, 440 Mill. f. in the amount of rente subscribed, 430 Mill. f. in the guarantee deposited; 3 × the amount of capital. And he draws from these „really unexampled figures“ the conclusion: That the extraordinary desire of the public to obtain the largest part possible in the sum to be divided evidently shows regard being had to the price of issue, that the Credit of the State does not find in the present rate of the public funds its true and definitive expression. That the importance of the sums deposited with such facility in the space of a week, and which alone cover almost 11/2 of the total of the loan, is a sign of an immense force, and gives the highest idea of the accumulated wealth of France; and, lastly, he says in language somewhat awkward, „the most striking manifestation of the grandeur of the country, and of its confidence in itself, in its political institutions, and in the wisdom of the Sovereign.“ But in sober truth considerable abatement must be made from the minister’s exultation. The thing shows ways of unemployed wealth and confidence in the public funds as a security. But in great part the subscription quite fictitious, inasmuch as 1000nds of the larger subscribers knew well that they would not get what they demanded, did not want to get it, and would not be able to pay for it if they they had; the far greater part of the petty subscribers put down their names with the intention, not of making a permanent investment, but of realising a small profit by an immediate sale of their scrip at the Bourse. Und selbst das deposit of 660 Mill. fcs as a deposit bedeutet something queer wenn considered that political distrust for some time past has been so great that scarcely any investments have been made in commercial or industrial enterprise, and that |79 really money holders have little choice between placing their money in the funds or hoarding it.

To prevent as far as possible inconvenience from the locking up in the Treasury of the vast sums deposited for the subscriptions liable to reduction, the Minister of Finance began on 16. August the reimbursement of them at the rate of 9/10, and continued it on the following days.

Switzerland ausgelassen im Export von Gold Coin für 12,826,078 fcs.