While the government took no hand in the matter, it was recognized that the coulisse gave to the public market a breadth and activity that did great good; as a matter of fact it benefited the stockbrokers themselves in a large way, for it enabled them to obtain from the government liberties not formerly enjoyed, but practised freely by the coulissiers, such as transactions in time bargains, dealings in foreign securities, and similar concessions. This grant of a right to do business on time, or as we term it “future delivery,” was a tremendous step forward, since it removed an obstacle in the way of large speculative markets that had long been abolished in other financial centres. It put a stop to the “welching” of speculators on the plea of the gambling act, it legalized short sales, and it established a distinct advance in economic progress. To that extent the stockbrokers are indebted to their neighbors on the curb.[125] Meanwhile, the opposition to the monopoly of the stockbrokers continues. “At all times,” says M. Vidal, “whenever there have been privileges, some men have been found to oppose them. Of course, these men are not theorists or pedants; they are simply men whom this or that privilege prevents from working freely, and who represent the manifestation of that mysterious force of things which tends toward freedom of trade. Commercial law owes its birth only to these protestations of practical men in apparent revolt against the laws, which become the unconscious shapers of future legislation. From the day when there was an _Agent de Change_ there was a “coulissier.” The first called the second a thief, because he encroached upon his privilege. The second hurled back the compliment, because the privilege robbed him of his natural right.”[126] This has a familiar American ring. In 1843 a voluminous report to the Minister of Justice by the stockbrokers asked that the coulisse be destroyed. Nothing came of it, but in 1859 another attempt succeeded; the coulisse was suppressed. But the level of public credit which, it was hoped, would be raised by the suppression, actually sank. The business of the coulisse, and the market it created, disappeared with the coulisse itself. The government was very sensitive then as now in the matter of market prices for its rentes, and after the laborious process of hoisting them to 71, it was distressing to find that, coincident with the abolition of the curb market, they had fallen to 69. So, in 1861, the coulisse was permitted to reappear, and I fancy the days of its suppression are now at an end.