The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-11-25
THE CREDIT MoBILIER OF FRANCE


There is no possible subject of dissertation
by the press of England or this country, which
has been so much handled as the Credit MobI-
lier the new and anomalous financial scheme OF
France Its explosion and utter ruin have
been predicted week by week. for the last three
years. and it has been twenty times over shown
to be utterly irreconcilable with all the primer
Piles of finance admitted to be sound or tolera-
BILE. But this scheme still lives and fiourishes,
and its shares are almost one hundred per cent.
above par to-day. Our Paris correspondent re-
ports them as rapidly rising now to 1000 francs
the share, 800 francs being the par. Immense
profits were paid by the concern in 1854 and
1855, and the shares then rose to nearly twice
their present value. 1t has been dealing in al
most every form ofinvestmenta and ofenterprise-
railroads, mining, and improvement companies,
being the principal, however, and those on
which the greatest profits have been made. A
parallel to the Credit Mobilier in this country
would be joint stock company, which would
take the deprecated railroad properties into its
hands, and, by placing large sums of capital anew
in their management, would restore their stocks
to par in the market, or carry them up to high
er prices. If the Pennsylvania Central, the
Reading the Erie, and Hudson River roads
were so invigorated, the weak equally with the
strong, and the vast sums of stock they repre-
profits to be realized by the successful omnibus
company which should SO build them up
1t is easy to say that all this is loose and
weak financially, but it has an element of
strength which our people disregard to their
cost. 1t invests idle capital in productive en-
terprise. 1t is the agent by which the prosper
ity of entire provinces is advanced. By this
general prosperity which now pervades every
part of France, the special investment of the
company is made to pay profits. If the country
traversed by one our great railroads were ten
times rich it now is, the profits of the road
would be more than ten times as great, and the
depressed stock would instantly rise above par.
There is no great road in the Union whose dis
trict may not be immensely improved, and which,
with its full occupation and cultivation, would
not be overburdened with business. But we
proceed on the destructive policy--we under
value the road because the country it traverses
is poor, and we undervalue the country because
the road by which it may be reached is bank
rupt Capital in vast masses lies idle in bank
vaults, while the natural wealth of the country
remains undeveloped, and the bears plumber the
railroad investments in the market places.
The Credit Moblier is rude and somewhat
loose way of doing better than we do. and It's
one doctrine of good is a match for all its weak
nesses, and the cause of its triumph over the
SelI-Sumclent hnanclal crOakerS OF all the world.
Declared to be on the brink of dissolution on
almost every day of the last year, it is now
stronger than ever aad France is. in all its
provinces, more than ever proving the wisdom
of putting capital to the Improvement of the
State. That an omnibus establishment like
this should so flourish and so invigorate in
dustry, does not prove its principle sound for all
countries and all places; but it does prove that
capital put to use in developing the country, is
infinitely more profitable to all parties than
capital used in bearing stocks in Wall street.