-AN INDUSTRIAL DEFEAT.
Henceforward, by this infernal compact, in every part of the globe, abroad or at home, in the present and the future, France is tied to the British trust. If by chance one of our countrymen thought of working alone or with an American group, our Government would be com pelled to refuse him support, if not actually to discourage him.
Nothing will be seen anywhere but Franco-British groups.
Within these, shall we be on equal terms ? No. In actual fact, to have control of an affair it is not sufficient to hold a half, or even three-quarters, of the shares.
Indeed, everybody knows that the French shareholders are never present, even in France, at the general meetings held to decide on the appointment of directors ; still less will they make the journey to London, which is practically always the headquarters. The British banks are skilled in the art of " syndicating " shares to ensure for themselves a majority in meetings.
But even if our banks could beat them at this game, they would not be any better off, for, whatever may be the number of shares, there is not, and there never will be, equality between these two partners. The French group will bring only capital. The British group will bring capital also, and, besides this, its equipment, its technical experts, and its business experience. What can a board of directors, even exclusively French, reply when the agents of the Shell Transport or of the Royal Dutch assure it that a certain oil field is not exploitable, or that its return will be very poor, or that the expenses of installation will be excessive ? What means has it of controlling these forecasts when all the experiments, the borings, the materials, the managers and the technical agents belong to the British trust ? Technical equipment supported by capital must neces sarily have the advantage over capital without technical equipment.
It is exactly on this point that our associates count, and it is because of this that they have wished to keep out the Americans.
We have handed over our colonies. Our Parliament believed itself very prudent when it insisted that there, at least, three quarters of the shares—and doubtless, also, of the board, though the text does not say so explicitly— should be French.
But who can affirm that the one or more Franco-British groups referred to in the Agreement of 24th April will really exploit our colonial oil ? The Anglo-Dutch trust, from now onwards, has its own immense concessions in all regions of the globe ; among them there are much richer and better situated ones than ours, for instance, those in the neigh bourhood of the Panama Canal. Is it likely that it will disperse its efforts and its equipment at the same time over all the oil fields of the world, and if not, why should ours have the priority ? Let us not forget that if the trust has wished for a preferential right upon our oil fields, it is not to exploit them, but to prevent a rival from turning them to account. This Malthusian policy, which consists in obtaining concessions in order to prevent their development by others, we have seen practised in France itself by entirely French companies. Why should foreigners, even friends, behave more scrupulously towards us ? Besides, honour able pretexts, technical or otherwise, would not be lacking. And if we find that the development of our wealth in Morocco, Algeria, etc. is too long delayed, what can we do about it, since we have no technical equipment, and we are prevented from applying to America ? We fall into the same trap as regards the price at which oil will be sold to us. For the oil from our colonies—if it is ever extracted—we shall pay the current market price, which is no favour. It will be the same with Mesopotamian oil, for which we have to pay also the expenses of a garrison, and of which the yield will be small for a long time, since we have a right to only a quarter of the amount produced.