The Banque de France has, on the other hand, a commercial function, consisting in the discounting of commercial bills on condition that they bear three signatures, represent a minimum value of five francs and can produce a minimum interest of 0 franc, 10 centimes The rate at which the commercial bills are dis counted varies according to the circumstances of the money and financial markets, but the right enjoyed by the Banque de France to reim burse its notes in silver enables it to keep that rate considerably more even than is the case in countries in which gold is the only recognized standard. During many years before the war the discount rate could be maintained prac tically at 3 per cent. On 29 Jan. 1914, in con sequence of the economic crisis, it was raised to 3% per cent; it was fixed at 4% per cent on 30 July 1914, at 6 per cent on 1 August, at, 5 per cent on 20 Aug. 1914, and has not varied since (January 1917).
The capital of the Ban.ue de France, origi nally 30,000,000 francs ( 000,000), has been raised successively to 45,111.000. later on to 90,000,000, and finally to 182,500,000 francs ($36,500,000) 9 June 1857, in 182,500 shares of 1,000 francs each. They are worth to-day about 5,125 francs. The banque is administered by a committee of 15 regents, five of whom are to belong to the commercial or manufacturing class and three are to be taken among the tresoriers payeursgenet-aux (the representatives of the French Exchequer in the various departments). It has a governor and two subgovernors ap pointed by the government. The banque has a total of 445 branches in the country.
Under the conditions which have prevailed during the last 10 years this privilege has been reinforced, the market of the coulissiers keep ing the designation of gmarche fibre and em bracing all the stocks for which admission to the official quotation has not been obtained.
The Credit Foncier, the governor of which is also appointed by the government, has an organization very similar to that of the Banque de France. Its special function consists in granting first mortgage loans to persons, vil lages, towns and departements. The Credit Foncier appeals to the public for the funds necessary to its operations by issuing bonds called obligations foncieres or communales. It has a capital of 200,000,000 francs ($40,000,000).
The following statistics will give an idea of the rate at which bills have been discounted at the banque during the last 50 years: 2. The firms which compose the Haute Banque are often older than the Banque de France itself. We find them at the origin of all great modern enterprises; their heads were the founders of the Banque de France and of the great railway and insurance companies and their successors still have seats in the councils of both. The government of Napoleon I re
warded their efforts at the time by creating among them the barons de to finance. Most of them have kept up the tradition and occupy an important place in the management of the financial market. The loans and other greater financial operations which they used to claim as their own are now partly in the hands of the financial societies which differ from the credit establishments in the receiving of money de posits; the discounting of bills is but a second ary part of their functions.
3. The discounting banks are organized on the three-signature principle and work in con nection with the Banque de France. The ma jority of tradesmen use them and they in their turn apply to the banque where they get their bills discounted. They are of varied import ance. Their number, which used to be very great in the provinces, tends to decrease owing to 'the constant development of the credit establishments.
There are of that kind in France, viz., three of the first class, the Credit Lyonnais, the Comptoir National d'Escompte de Paris and the Societe Generale, which have their statutory pr head offices in Paris, and the Societe Mar seillaise, the Societe Nanceienne, the Credit du Nord, the leaders of the financial decentraliza tion, the head offices of which are established in Marseilles, Nancy and Lille respectively. They occupy an intermediate position between the English joint-stock banks and the greater German societies. The credit establishments appeal to the public for funds, which they keep as deposits, they have created among a large part of the population the habit of having their money deposited in banks, and the parallel habit for bankers of relying for their operations upon the public's deposits as much as, if not more than, upon their own capitals. The credit es tablishments, like the joint-stock' banks, use the greater part of their deposits for discounting purposes, they also devote a certain amount of them to investments and even to loans, although their extreme parsimony in granting the latter somewhat justifies the saying that in France the credit establishments give no credit? At all events they never subscribe to an issue of commercial or industrial shares except in a very cautious manner and they are no more anxious to make issues of capital themselves than to invest in the ventures of others. It is true that beside the credit establishments are to be men tioned the %amines d'affaires? the best known of which are the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas and the Banque de l'Union patisienne, whose function is the issuing or introducing of shares, bond and debentures.