French Railway "Kings."

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 31 July 1914, Page 7

French Railway "Kings."

Emile Pereire, born at Bordeatix on December 3, 1800, came of a Jew family.. which had migrated from Portugal to France. In partnership with his younger brother Isaac,, he carried on a brokery business at the French seaport in question, when the development of railway from Paris to St. Germain— the; first line which started from the Northern Railway, which is now the principal artery of Paris-Lon-don traffic.

In 1852 they founded the Societe Generale de Credit Mobilier, the boldest of financial speculations of the epoch, and from that date their enterprises formed the financial history of France. They amalgamated the various French gas companies,

t!•)•■;/ J^a-iLi-lly organised the Parisian orni.iiuTs service and the Louvre Hotel, and were also largely interested in Spanish, Russian and Austrian railways.

They advanced, in five years (1852----7), sixty millions sterling for French railways alone —a sum which, it need hardly be said, was much more striking- sixtj' years ago than today, when railway construction is a recognised and regular form of speculation.