Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1906-09-06
THE WORLDS BANKER.
How French Thrift is Making Itself
Felt in the Money Market.

Review OF Reviews.-France is now
playing the role of the worlds banker;
England lost her claim to the title
when she went to war in South Afri-
ca. A generation ago one had to go
to London to feel the pulse of the in
ternational money market Today
one makes better diagnosis in Paris.
The strides toward financial SUI
premacy which France Is making have
been most rapid in the past five years.
In that time French investors have
taken up many milliard francs of for
eign obligations. They furnished
Great Britain with much of the CAPT
tai that went to finance the Boer War,
they loaned enormous amounts to Rus
STA. practically supplying the money
needed in the struggle against Japan;
they provided Germany with 100000
marks In 1904-5 to carry on her tre-
mendous industrial enterprises; they
took liberal amount of the last
Japanese loan, more than half of the
Russian loan of last April, and, final
ly, they supplied borrowers in the
United States with fully $150,000,000
during the tight money period of last
winter and sare now financing the
bond and note issues of some of our
greatest corporations.
Although the annual gold produc-
ton of the world is nearly $500 000, 600
there Is such tremendous trade activ-
ity In every quarter of the universe
that capital is in demand as never be-
fore. One thinks of the usually well
supplied money markets as today
cleaned up bare, in condition of
drought; but then there is great
reservoir of free capital in France
which is being tapped by the other
thirsty aations, and which, in spite of
the drain on it, keeps well filled and
shows no sign of exhaustion. The
Bank of France. the largest boarded
of gold next TO the United States
Treasury. has in its vaults today
nearly $500, 100000 of the precious
meal; two years ago it had
S465,000, 900. and in 1900, when Paris
began slowly to forge ahead of Lon
don as The centre of largest money
supply. the institution held only
1916 100000.
How has France, a nation indust-
rally inferior to Germany and with a
commerce very much below that of
Great Britain, gained such a power in
H.
through her domestic economy For
frugality. thrift, intense application to
the work in hand and the very COM
mendable ambition to carve from
lifes labors enough to make bright
the inevitable rainy day and to cheer
old age the Frenchman has no peer
To save is an inherited desire. The
poorest peasant in the least produc
tive parish of the republic manages
to put aside a little each year for
competency. and the fishermen down
on the Brittany coast would have
starved few winters ago when the
catch was almost nothing, had they
not been able to draw from the saw
ings of more fruitful years, Tens OF
thousands of small shopkeepers are
investors and their combined savings
have provided the FUNDS ~ finance
many nation and carry it through a
lean priod.
The population of France is about
0000.600 people; the wealth of
France is nearly $4,000. 600 600.
This wealth is evenly distributed
The number OF estates administered
in 1904 was S94.7S7. and of these one
half were for values ranging from
less than $4,000 to little under
1900 600, Only three were over
$40 ,0O0. 900.