[167] "Compte rendu de l'assemblée générale des actionnaires de la Banque de France," 1891.
[168] Burdeau, "Discours sur le renouvellement du privilège de la Banque de France," June 29 and July 6, 1892, in the Officiel of June 30 and July 7.
[169] The Bank of France, during periods of quiet and prosperity, aims at a gradual effacement, at a more complete retreat toward a very high but very restricted sphere of economic activity. But as soon as the least trouble appears ... the Bank assumes again its place at the head of our great financial institutions. (Brouilhet, "Le nouveau régime de la Banque de France." Revue d'Economie Politique, 1899.)
[170] The discounts and loans of the financial institutions are growing in importance, and are steadily increasing in proportion to those of the Bank. This condition, revealed by statistics, is in itself not alarming, but it once more justifies that intervention, so many motives for which we have brought out.
[171] It seems that this protective mission especially applies to the department for stock market orders, originally reserved for the customers of the Bank, and later opened to everybody. Thus it prevents the financial institutions from driving us toward excessive speculation. This purpose explains, according to our notion, the growth and broadening of the business of stock market orders at the Bank of France.
[172] P. Coq, "Les circulations en Banque," Paris, Guillaumin, 1865, p. 38.
[173] The indirect expansion might be increased by wider use of the "crossed check." It will be long before we may expect good results from this practice, since we are as yet too far from the time when this check, almost unknown in France, will be currently used.
[174] Journal Officiel, 1845, p. 2471.
[175] The main reason lies in the numerous formalities which the law of April 30, 1906, has simplified but not suppressed, in the many expenses caused by the organisation, and also, it appears, in the inexperience of some of the officials. The clerks of the justices of the peace, intrusted with the delicate and novel functions of registrars of chattel mortgages, are, as a rule, little fitted to perform them.
[176] The model of these institutions came to us from foreign countries; but the foreign differ from ours materially, because of the diversity of their origin. With our neighbors, the movement began slowly in the lowest levels of the rural population. With us, on the contrary, the system of agricultural associations began at the top. Thus, these institutions penetrate only with difficulty into the rural districts, where economic education has but just begun.