The trial of M. Bontoux, Director of the Union G6n6rale,
and M. Feder, his principal manager, for raising the price of shares in the undertaking by fraudulent accounts and purchases,. has ended in a verdict of guilty, and a sentence of five years' imprisonment. The sentence, against which the accused have appealed, to men in such a position, is a crushing one, but if they. are guilty it is hardly too severe. They wasted eight millions and a half sterling of money for which they were virtually trustees, and ruined thousands of families by declaring false dividends and creating a false market for shares, which they bought at extravagant prices, with the bank's own money. Their glowing representations were not the result of enthusiasm, or stupidity, or ignorance. They were both eminent men of busi- ness, they were absolute masters of the concern, they both agreed to the payment of 60,000f. to a pauper tool for sending in fictitious applications for shares ; and they both made fortunes by selling their own shares after they had forced the market up, M. Bontous clearing 273,000, and M. Feder £116,000. We can see no moral distinction between such conduct and swindling, and only wish, in • the general interest of business, that our own law were a little more severe. We do, not believe enterprise would be checked at all, as the law, by guaranteeing investors against direct fraud, would encourage speculation.
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