-AN INVESTORS' POLICY.
However, we must be fair. The San Remo Agreement brings us advantages too. From the moment when French interests are everywhere associated with those of Britain, and when mixed companies begin to exploit their common oil fields, shares will be issued simultaneously in London and Paris. This will be an opportunity for the bankers of lucrative commissions, for the stockbrokers of advantageous speculation.
Shares so attractive as those of the British trust, showing a dividend of 35 per cent., are easily sold, and certain to advance. All our middle classes will buy them eagerly. Do they not already hold a considerable part of the shares in the Royal Dutch and the Shell Transport ? And if, by chance, the price of petrol rises in France, who will complain ? The dearer oil and mazut become, the higher will be the dividends of the trust, and the richer the French share holders.
No doubt, at this game, the export of large amounts of capital from France will continue, to the great harm of our exchange and our industries. But who among those in high places gives a thought to our workshops and our manufactures ? Are we not, above all, a nation of investors, and is it not enough to consider " national thrift " ? It is a pernicious and often denounced policy, which by the divorce of banking and industry, turns aside the nation's capital from national enterprise How can we expect the British not to take advantage of it, since by placing the shares of the trust in France, they give the French investor an interest in the weakening of French trade ? Let us not be indignant, nor cry " Machiavellism." We
have understood this policy for a long time. It is the kind of association that the Germans formerly proposed to us in connection with their famous Bagdad railway. " You furnish the capital," they said, " and you will get the same dividends as we get ourselves ; but our workshops alone will manufacture the materials, and the tariffs will favour our merchants." Thus Germany grew rich on the proceeds of French savings.
To-day, Germany is laid low, but the frame of mind of our rulers has not changed. They have always the same liking for commissions and dividends, the same fear of risk and effort ; and finding no more " Boches " available to develop our resources, they hand them over to the British. Our friends and allies would be very foolish not to take advantage of it. At bottom, the fault is not with them ; the evil is in us.
Since the death of the last follower of St. Simon, French business men seem to suffer from a paralysis of the will. In this important matter of oil they have followed the line of least resistance : an association of investors and men of action, in which the latter should have the work and the risks—and also the power,— the former a modest profit without trouble or exertion.