He removed his monocle, and the gestures of his hands with slightly parted fingers became the gestures of a blind man.
“But after all, we would have to know how far we were going into it! I don’t say that each of us could not involve himself to the extent of, say, five million. Good.” The minister shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly. ‘'But that’s not the question, since the Consortium must reimburse at a minimum 2 so,ooo,ooo in deposits. And then, what? If the State believes a crash of this magnitude would be serious, it has its own means of obtaining funds; to save the French and Annamite depositors, the Bank of France and the General Government of Indo-China are after all the ones who should be called upon rather than we, who also have our depositors and our stockholders. Each one of us is here in the name of his Establishment. ”
(It being understood, Ferral was thinking, that if the minister made it clear that he wants the Consortium to be refloated, there would no longer be either depositors or stockholders.)
“. Who among us can affirm that his stockholders would approve a loan made for no other purpose than to maintain a tottering enterprise? What these stockholders think, Sir-and not they alone-we know very well; they think that the market must be made sound, that enterprises that are not viable must blow up; that to maintain them artificially is the worst service one can render to all. What becomes of the efficacy of competition, which is the very life of French commerce, if doomed enterprises are automatically maintained?”
(My friend, thought Ferral, your Establishment demanded a thirty-two per cent raise in tariffs from the State, just last month; to facilitate free competition, no doubt.)
“. And so? Our business is to loan money on guarantees, as has very justly been observed. The guarantees which M. Ferral offers. You have heard M. Ferral himself. Will the State substitute for M. Ferral in this case and give us the guarantees against which we will grant the Consortium the funds it needs? In other words, is the State appealing to our loyalty without offering any compensation, or does it ask us-the State and not M. Ferral-to facilitate an operation of the Treasury, even on a long term? In the first case, of course, it can count on our loyalty, but after all we are bound to consider our stockholders’ interests; in the second, what guarantees does it offer us?”
A complete ciphered language, Ferral was thinking. If we were not engaged in playing a comedy, the minister would answer: “I appreciate the comic value of the word ‘devotion.’ Your principal benefits come from your relations with the State. You live on commissions, which determine the importance of your establishment, and not on independent activities. The State has given you this year one hundred million, in one form or another; it is taking back twenty-bless its name, and calling it quits.’’ But there is no danger of that.
The minister pulled out from a drawer of his desk a box of soft caramels, and passed it around. Each ate one, except Ferral. He knew now what the delegates of the
Establishments wanted: pay, since it was impossible to leave this cabinet without granting the minister something, but pay as little as possible. As for the latter. Ferral waited, assured that he was busy thinking: “What would Choiseul have appeared to do in my place?” Appeared: the minister did not ask the great lords of the kingdom for lessons in will, but in behavior or in irony.
“The Vice-Director of the Mouvement General des Fonds,” he said, tapping the table with his pencil, “will tell you as I do that I cannot give you these guarantees without a vote of Parliament. I have called you together, gentlemen, because the question we are debating concerns France’s prestige; do you think that bringing this question before public opinion is a good way to defend it?”
“No dlout, no dlout, but pelmit me, monsieur le Ministle. ”
Silence; the representatives, chewing their caramels, sought refuge from the Auvergnat accent in a meditative air. They suddenly felt that by opening their mouths they would be exposing themselves to an unseen menace. The minister looked at them without smiling, one after the other, and Ferral, who saw him in profile- the side with the glass eye-looked upon him as a great white Carolina parrot, motionless and bitter, in the midst of other birds.
“I see, then, gentlemen,” the minister went on, “that we are agreed upon that point. In whatever way we look upon this problem, it is necessary that the deposits be reimbursed. The General Government of Indo-China would participate in the refloating of the Consortium to the amount of one-fifth. What share could you offer?”
Now each one sought refuge in his caramel. “Just a small pleasure,” said Ferral to himself. “He wants a little distraction, but the result would have been the same without the caramels. ” He knew the value of the argument put forward by the minister. It was his brother who had answered those who asked the Mouvement General for a conversion without vote of Parliament: “Why shouldn’t I after that give two hundred millions on my own authority to my little girl-friend?”
Silence. Longer than the preceding ones. The representatives were whispering among themselves.
“Monsieur le Ministre,” said Ferral, “if the healthy enterprises of the Consortium are, in one form or another, to be continued; if the deposits are, in any case, to be reimbursed, don’t you think there is occasion to wish for a greater effort, from which the maintenance of the Consortium should not be excluded? Does not the existence of so extensive a French organization have in the eyes of the State an importance equal to that of a few hundred million in deposits?”
“Five million is not a serious figure, gentlemen,” said the minister. “Must I appeal in a more urgent way to the devotion of which you have spoken? I know you are anxious, that your Boards of Directors are anxious to avoid the control of banks by the State. Do you think the fall of enterprises like the Consortium will not arouse public opinion to the point of demanding such control in a manner that might become imperious, and perhaps urgent?”
More and more Chinese, thought Ferral. This merely means: “Stop proposing to me five ridiculous millions.” The control of the banks is an absurd threat when it is made by a government whose policy is directly opposed to such measures. And the minister has no more desire really to have recourse to it than the representative who holds the Havas Agency among his cards desires to launch a press-campaign against the minister. The State can no more play seriously against the banks than the banks against the State. They are accomplices in every way: a common personnel, common interests and psychology. A struggle between the department heads of the same firm-by which, for that matter, the firm subsists. But poorly. As at the Astor, not so long ago, he could save himself only by not weakening and by showing no trace of anger. But he was beaten: having made personal effectiveness his essential value, nothing could compensate for the fact that he was now facing these men, whose persons and methods he had always despised, in this humiliated position. He was weaker than they, and by that very fact, in his own system, all that he might think was of no avail.
“Monsieur le Ministre,” said the oldest delegate, “we are anxious to show our good will to the State once again; but, if there are no guarantees we cannot, in view of our stockholders, consider extending to the Consortium a credit beyond the sum total of the deposits to be reimbursed, and guaranteed by the resumption of the healthy affairs of the group. God knows that we have no desire for this resumption, that we are undertaking it through respect for the superior interest of the State. ”
This fellow, Ferral was thinking, is really extraordinary, with his air of a retired professor transformed into a blind CEdipus. And all the numbskulls, including France, who come to his agency-directors for advice, and to whom State funds are thrown like asses’ skins when it’s a matter of building strategic railways in Russia, in Poland, in the North Pole! Since the war, that skewer sitting on the couch has cost the French reserve billions in State funds alone. Very well. As he used to say, ten years ago: “Any man who asks advice about investing his money from a man he does not know intimately, deserves to be ruined.” Eighteen billions. Without mentioning the forty billions in commercial enterprises. Nor myself.