“In short, there was no competition in investments,” continued Bixiou. “Paper-mache manufacturers, cotton printers, zinc-rollers, theatres, and newspapers as yet did not hurl themselves like hunting dogs upon their quarry--the expiring shareholder. ‘Nice things in shares,’ as Couture says, put thus artlessly before the public, and backed up by the opinions of experts [‘the princes of science’), were negotiated shamefacedly in the silence and shadow of the Bourse. Lynx-eyed speculators used to execute (financially speaking) the air _Calumny_ out of _The Barber of Seville_. They went about piano, piano, making known the merits of the concern through the medium of stock-exchange gossip. They could only exploit the victim in his own house, on the Bourse, or in company; so they reached him by means of the skilfully created rumor which grew till it reached a _tutti_ of a quotation in four figures----” “And as we can say anything among ourselves,” said Couture, “I will go back to the last subject.” “_Vous etes orfevre, Monsieur Josse_!” cried Finot. “Finot will always be classic, constitutional, and pedantic,” commented Blondet. “Yes,” rejoined Couture, on whose account Cerizet had just been condemned on a criminal charge. “I maintain that the new way is infinitely less fraudulent, less ruinous, more straightforward than the old. Publicity means time for reflection and inquiry. If here and there a shareholder is taken in, he has himself to blame, nobody sells him a pig in a poke. The manufacturing industry----” “Ah!” exclaimed Bixiou, “here comes industry----” “---- is a gainer by it,” continued Couture, taking no notice of the interruption. “Every government that meddles with commerce and cannot leave it free, sets about an expensive piece of folly; State interference ends in a _maximum_ or a monopoly. To my thinking, few things can be more in conformity with the principles of free trade than joint-stock companies. State interference means that you try to regulate the relations of principal and interest, which is absurd. In business, generally speaking, the profits are in proportion to the risks. What does it matter to the State how money is set circulating, provided that it is always in circulation? What does it matter who is rich or who is poor, provided that there is a constant quantity of rich people to be taxed? Joint-stock companies, limited liability companies, every sort of enterprise that pays a dividend, has been carried on for twenty years in England, commercially the first country in the world. Nothing passes unchallenged there; the Houses of Parliament hatch some twelve hundred laws every session, yet no member of Parliament has ever yet raised an objection to the system----” “A cure for plethora of the strong box. Purely vegetable remedy,” put in Bixiou, “_les carottes_” (gambling speculation).