The Suez Canal by S. C. Burchell

Author:S. C. Burchell [S. C. Burchell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History/Middle East/Egypt
ISBN: 9781612309996
Publisher: New Word City, Inc.
Published: 2016-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

Baron James Rothschild was amused. His visitor on this late-summer morning in 1858 did not seem to have a clear grasp of financial matters. But de Lesseps had come to Paris to raise money. As he told Rothschild, he was interested in setting up a public subscription and selling shares of stock in a Suez canal company.

“If you wish,” said the Baron, “I will open your subscription at my office.”

De Lesseps considered the proposal. Certainly he needed 200 million francs ($40 million). But he was suspicious of bankers, particularly since they had been so opposed to his project in the past. Finally, he asked a question.

“And what will you charge me for it?”

“Good heavens!” said Rothschild with a smile, “it is plain you are not a man of business. It is always five percent.”

De Lesseps thought for a moment. “Five per cent on two hundred million? Why, that makes ten million! I shall hire a place for twelve hundred francs and do my own business equally well.”

And this is exactly what he did. The office he rented in Paris in the Place Vendôme was barely large enough for himself and his three assistants. But it was in keeping with the method that he had chosen to raise money in the early autumn of 1858. It was a simple method, and one that cut through all the complexities of international finance. He had decided to operate alone, on what amounted to an amateur basis.

He was motivated by pride and stubbornness and more than a little desperation. Although he had shifted his attack from London to Paris, his position had remained unchanged. The Suez project was at a standstill. It was true that the Viceroy had given him the assurance of complete cooperation. But permission still had not come from the sultan at Constantinople. Great Britain, at least on an official level, continued to oppose the whole idea.

In addition, no financial help had come from France or any other European country despite his many propaganda trips around the Continent. Money simply was not available to him. It was an unhappy fact that most bankers, since the granting of the First Concession in 1854, had turned their backs on him. De Lesseps felt that he could not afford the commission of reputable bankers like Rothschild. “They are not reasonable,” he complained.

However, Paris, during the time of the Second Empire, was full of speculators, shady financiers, and gamblers more than willing to slice into a pie worth 200 million francs. Their motives, however, were not above suspicion, and de Lesseps was on guard in this financial underworld. As he said to his mother-in-law one day, “I am not tempted to turn over my affairs to birds of prey and wolves of high finance.” And he told her that more than anything else, he wanted to create the canal “without sordid motives and without greed of gold.”

Under the circumstances, his decision to sell shares in a canal company himself was the only remaining alternative. But a great deal of work was necessary before any stock could be put on the market.

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