But the old hostility will break out again when business slackens, for the French have a saying that “horses fight when there is no more hay in the manger.” The problem is a pretty one from any angle, especially from the standpoint of American stockbrokers. It would seem plain that the monopoly, as such, cannot forever continue, yet the government faces a financial power of tremendous strength--a Frankenstein which the State itself has created--“and of which,” to quote M. Vidal, “it can rid itself only by indemnifying it.” At the present time the 70 memberships are worth 96,000,000 francs as a grand total; meantime, the longer the problem is postponed the more valuable they will become as the size and importance of the Paris market increases.
“But the French government does not seem inclined to study the question seriously; first, because the stockbrokers would have to be indemnified; and, secondly, because the stockbrokers themselves are desirous of holding on to their present monopoly. As time passes, the securities, continually on the increase, tend to increase their profits. A financial power has been created whose existence, whose ever spreading influence, forms the subject of a serious economic problem, which some day may turn out to be an even more serious political problem.”[127]
It is interesting to note, in passing from this subject, that a much larger business is done in the coulisse than in the parquet, due to the fact that the curb brokers are not restricted in their securities as are the stockbrokers. The market for foreign securities alone, on the curb, has made wealthy men of many of the coulissiers. They publish a special quotation list, and while they have no officially fixed commission rates, these are established by custom and in practical operation they work satisfactorily. As might be expected, the curb brokers require from their customers smaller margins than those exacted by the stockbrokers--another reason why their business is large; again, the clients of the curb broker may attend the Bourse with him, be present and confer with him while he buys or sells for them, and in this way get into close touch with the market, a privilege not so easily enjoyed by the client of the stockbroker.