Chapter 229: International Railway Construction Joint-Stock Company (1)
In the British Empire, the City of London.
Inside the office of Price Accounting Firm, the front company of Ears of the Nation.
[TIMES. A Parisian innovation: a steam-powered means of transport appears in the world!
…(omitted)…
Ears of the Nation now enthusiastically recruiting new overseas investors for its railway construction company! You there! Have you seized your chance to ride a promising industry!?]
Inside the luxurious office, the young man in a neat suit folded the newspaper again, placed it tidily on the desk, and spoke with a smile.
“The article you placed on the front page this time pleased the head office very much. You worked hard, President Walter.”
“Hahaha, I did not put in such tremendous effort, yet they are so pleased that this old man cannot help but feel puffed up.”
“Judging by your writing, you could still remain in your current post instead of passing it to your son.”
“Hoho, I am sixty now. My days of standing before the printing press and smelling ink are long past. Now I only intend to write occasionally to pass the time.”
John Walter, former owner and editor of The Times, nodded in satisfaction, then slowly leaned toward the young man seated before him, sipping black tea with perfect composure.
“That reminds me, would it perhaps be possible for you to ask the head office to consider extending the cooperative relationship between The Times and Forbes a little longer…?”
“Ah, the American sales arrangement, you mean. Come to think of it, the ten-year contract period is nearly over now.
…Well, do not worry. Once Ears of the Nation establishes a cooperative relationship, so long as mutual trust continues to be upheld, we never abandon our friends.”
“Thank you! Thank you very much indeed! As expected, President Guillaume is truly a man who understands propriety!”
He asked for a handshake in gratitude, and the young branch manager of Ears of the Nation gladly clasped his hand and saw him off.
Left alone in the office, Branch Manager Nathan Rothschild set aside the tea before him and instead poured whisky into an empty glass.
“What in the world is the boss thinking?”
Nathan tossed the whisky into his mouth and reread the official memorandum delivered from Paris that morning.
[Secure as many British investors as possible for the soon-to-be-established railway construction company.]
A concise instruction, with a small cursive signature attached beneath it.
The memorandum delivered to Nathan followed exactly the same format the boss always used, yet it naturally made him tilt his head.
“Raising the proportion of outside capital does not seem as though it would benefit the boss or our company.”
Investors were conservative by nature. Rather than wanting a company to try something new and fail, they preferred it to keep doing only what it already did well.
If they were foreigners, it was even worse—company dividends would end up flowing overseas. Was this really the right course of action?
Of course, when Nathan considered the boss’s past record of devastating London, one of the greatest stock exchanges in the world, he thought, Perhaps he has a scheme in mind after all! But even then—
He wondered whether the boss had brought back some illness from America.
Had it not been said that in America mosquitoes carried terrifying fevers? Perhaps the boss had been bitten by some monstrous mosquito and lost his mind.
In the end, Nathan pressed hard against his throbbing temples with his hand and said,
“Ha, if it was going to make my head hurt this much, I should have gone to the Holy Roman Empire instead of my brother.”
Their father, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, had sent the three Rothschild brothers respectively to the Holy Roman Empire, Naples, and Britain so that Ears of the Nation could respond actively across Europe.
Hot-blooded Nathan had wanted the British branch, where the very flow of money was different, and had eventually seized the position of British branch manager. But as people said, great power came with great responsibility.
Nathan kept rolling about nonstop from one side to the other.
He raised glasses with countless officials, from the Admiralty to the War Office to the Treasury,
acquired several cotton mills in Manchester to bind the economies of Britain and France more closely together, just as the boss had wanted,
and the cooperative relationship with Boulton & Watt grew stronger by the day.
Come to think of it, that Mr. Watt was seventy now, wasn’t he? Perhaps Nathan should send him a few packets of fine Chinese tea.
In the end, Nathan had no choice but to pick up his pen with a sigh.
“What the hell does this even mean… I haven’t got a clue…”
[Need a more detailed explanation. The plan outline alone is difficult to understand.]
What else could he do? In the old days, the Rothschilds had been the keepers of the Elector of Frankfurt’s treasury. Now, they had no choice but to devote themselves wholly as the treasurers of the House of Toulon and Ears of the Nation.
There had been exactly one time in history when the entire world, all at once, had almost gone to ruin.
Rich or poor, citizens of prosperous countries or destitute ones, whatever their profession—
factory owners who had swaggered around throwing money about only a short while earlier ended up penniless on the streets, while beside them sat laborers from their very own factories, laying out newspapers to sleep on. It was a bizarre sight.
Later economists and ordinary people alike called it the Great Depression.
A massive calamity that occurred because the economies of the entire world had, without anyone noticing, become tangled up with one another.
In the old era, it would simply have been a matter of America collapsing and that being the end of it. But as transport and communications developed, and all manner of interests linked country to country, Britain fell, then France fell, then Germany fell, and then Italy and South America fell one after another.
That was how terrifying the relationships created by money could be.
“And what does that have to do with accepting investors into a railway construction company?”
“To put it simply, it is a financial bomb.”
At Mr. Mayer’s words, I crushed my cigarette out in the ashtray and spoke.
“A financial bomb, you say?”
“Infrastructure like roads and bridges naturally takes quite some time to build, does it not?”
“That is true.”
Our valued investor, Mr. Louis Auguste, had indeed handed over a massive sum, but laying railways throughout France required even more money.
“Naturally, from the moment people begin investing, it will take time before they recover dividends equal to their investment, and our investors will become desperate to recoup their huge sums.”
Seeing Mr. Mayer nod, I continued.
“But is there anyone whose investment capital consists entirely of spare money?”
“…What exactly do you mean?”
“I mean, is there anyone for whom it is money they can afford to lose—money they can do without for several years?”
Mr. Mayer stroked his chin, then slowly spoke.
“I imagine the proportion would be low.”
“Exactly. And that is where our opportunity lies.”
“Opportunity?”
“Their dividends depend on us. If we cut off the dividends? Boom!”
As I clasped my hands together and mimed an explosion, Mr. Mayer immediately shot back,
“But that would be illegal.”
“Of course it would. When did I ever say it would not be?”
When I answered calmly with a shrug, Mr. Mayer swallowed dryly.
“……You are thinking about war, then.”
As expected of a Rothschild—you got it exactly right.
Of course. Naturally. I almost wanted to buy him a whole roast chicken for getting it right.
“I will say this in advance: I have not the slightest intention of starting a war. Nor do I intend to impose an economic blockade.”
From where I stood, France had already expanded as far as it could reasonably go. Saint-Domingue, Louisiana, America—and we were supposed to expand even further? Were you perhaps interested in bankruptcy, human?
From France’s perspective, if it simply held onto the land it already possessed until the twenty-first century, that alone would be like hitting the lottery.
Besides, I had no nasty hobby of driving ordinary people into the jaws of death, and as for foreign land and all that, if it truly bothered me later, I could simply buy the land.
As far as I knew, aside from the Chinese Reds, I had never seen a country that forbade foreigners from owning land.
“Then what?”
“That does not mean I intend to sit there and take blows.”
This was insurance. Insurance.
In this harsh world, how could one not keep at least one insurance policy?
In peacetime, dividends would be paid just fine. To everyone according to what they invested, regardless of nationality.
But if war broke out? Then I, as the parent company, would declare insolvency or suspend payment and seize them by the throat.
Investors! Can you see it? Can you feel it? The leaders of your own country are blowing your money to pieces! Why not take up your signs and tell them to stop the war?
After all, in this idiotic late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, asking people to distinguish between a nation and its corporations, or to lift export bans and import bans, was all utter nonsense.
I took a well-aged bottle of wine from the cabinet and filled Mr. Mayer’s glass.
“Here, drink while you listen.”
“Thank you, boss.”
“A few years ago, a certain diplomat said something to me.”
Now my own glass.
Dark red wine streamed into it.
“He said that someday in the future, whether sooner or later, war would break out for certain.”
“Cough! Cough!”
“He said that the fate of the revolutionary legacy France had built—and of the company I had built—would depend on the outcome of that war.”
Sooner, around 1803. Later, around 1813, was it?
“So I am preparing in advance for that time.”
If nothing happened, then it was merely ordinary investment and there was no problem. If something did happen, then regardless of who it was, it would become a landmine capable of blasting off their ankles into the sky.
“Ah, one more thing.”
“What is it, boss?”
“Tell Nathan to keep the vault filled with livre banknotes at all times. Not pounds.”
[Zeitschriften der deutschen Aufklärung, great success in Paris! Invest now, and you too can become part of success! Ears of the Nation Railway Construction enters the Frankfurt Stock Exchange!]
“Ten shares! Give me ten shares!”
“I want thirty!”
“To hell with all of you! I’ll take one hundred shares, at fifteen imperial florins each!”
The Holy Roman Empire.
[Gazeta de Madrid, Ears of the Nation launches full-scale investor recruitment!]
“Rather than depositing my money in that idiotic Royal Bank only for the king’s extravagance to squander it, buying a sound foreign company is a million times better!”
“Boo! The French Prime Minister runs about working his tail off, but what can our idiotic Prime Minister Godoy do besides lick the queen’s toes?! Hand over colonies to France?”
The Kingdom of Spain.
As the successful news of the steam locomotive spread, and with it the railway construction company—said to be essential for maintaining that locomotive—was listed on stock exchanges across Europe, every pro-Enlightenment magazine in Europe began promoting it, and the continent’s stock exchanges were suddenly thrown into turmoil.
And among them all, the foremost of course was—
“Seven pounds a share! Seven pounds!”
“I’ll buy everything below seven pounds five shillings!”
“…Say, is it really alright to buy this?”
“Hah! If you don’t want it, then don’t buy it! All those bastards who mocked the steam engine when it first appeared, asking what use it was, ended up drowning in the Thames! They were all so eaten alive with envy they could not bear it! This time it will be the same—those who ride the wave of change will live! Those who can’t will end up plunging their heads into the Thames! I’m going all in with my entire fortune!”
It was Britain.