Full text: The work of the Stock Exchange

APPENDIX 
667 
and offers can almost always be furnished, but in which actual pur- 
chases and sales occur only intermittently. 
(XVIIIb) “Negotiable securities which are quoted upon the ex- 
-hanges rank next to hanking credits as a medium of exchange because 
they are more readily convertible into money or credits than any 
specific commodity. Their value in this respect was recognized at 
least a century ago in the London market. It was declared by 
Thornton, in 1807, that stocks, by being at all times a salable and 
-eady-made article, are, to a certain degree, held by persons in London 
on the same principle as bills, and serve, therefore, in some measure, 
like bills, if we consider these as a discountable article, to spare the 
use of bank notes. Such securities partake of the exchangeable char- 
acter of money because they are not themselves specific commodities 
of limited consumption, but are titles to the earnings of corporations 
or pledges for periodical payments of sums of money in the form of 
lividends or interest. They come nearer than any other article to 
performing the function of money, in commanding all commodities, 
secause they are desired for their power to earn money, rather than 
for their power to satisfy any special want.” (Charles A. Conant, 
Principles of Money and Banking.) 
(XVIIIc) The Compagnie des Agents de Change has for cen- 
turies held the monopoly in France of acting as brokers in bullion 
and bills of exchange, and in furnishing public quotations for them. 
The development of French banks, however, made this privilege 
largely useless and without significance to the official stock brokers. 
Accordingly, they gradually waived this right. As a result, there is 
today an official foreign exchange market in the Bourse where official 
foreign exchange quotations are made, yet actually Agents de Change 
take little or no part in it and buyers and sellers are mainly repre- 
sentatives of the large Paris banks and credit institutions. 
In the Berliner Borse, a room is also set aside for foreign ex- 
hange trading and the establishment of official rates. Dealers in this 
market are mainly the representatives of the great Berlin banks and 
credit institutions, who in Berlin are permitted to make contracts 
directly on the Borse floor in securities as well. Although accom- 
panied by certain official formalities, foreign exchange dealings on the 
Berliner Borse really represent only the market between Berlin 
banks. 
A proposal to inaugurate dealings in foreign exchange on the 
New York Stock Exchange was made in 1920-21, and arose from
	        
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