Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1921.djvu/917

 MONET AND CREDIT

«65

II. Posts and Tklegraphs.

la 1914, France had 15,769 post-offices. The receipts on account of posts, telegraphs, and telephones, amounted to 402 million francs ; the ex- penditure to 358 million francs. The number of letters, kc, carried in 1914

Internal million*

International

Transit

Dispatched

millions 87 5 9T

Received

(1918)

Letters

Post-car' Is ....

Other packages.

millions 81

5 48

millions 135

Total

M

134

279

The total length of the telegraphic lines in 1913 was 120,471 miles, with 151,195 miles of wire. There were 23,117 telegraph offices, of which 19,461 belonged to the State, and the remainder to railway companies and private persons. In 1913 there were despatched 67,771,000 telegrams, of which 51,410,000 were internal, 10,261,000 international, 2,124,000 in transit, and 3,976,000 were official.

In 1913 there were in France 11,451 urban telephone systems with 36,100 miles of line and 790,173 miles of wire ; number of conversations in 1913, 388,966,000. There were 20,331 inter-urban circuits with 72,181 miles of line, and 387,641 miles of wire ; conversations in 1913, 45,327,000. In 1913 the gross telephone receipts were 65,800,000 francs.

Money and Credit.

The nominal value of the French money coined in France during 6 years was : —

1014 1915 1916 1917 191S 1919

Gold

Francs

tffk,Ttt,gM

Total

Francs 193,598,95!!

87^O0,0i•- , 15\6«2,05$

101,833,199

The ordinary savings-banks numbered 502 \with about 1, 800 branch offices) on December 31, 1918 ; the number of depositors was 7,826,000, to the value of 3,583,200,000 francs. The National savings-banks, on December 31, 1918, held deposits and interest amounting to 1,590,000,000 francs due to 6,694,000 depositors. On December 31, 1919, the deposits amounted to about two milliards of francs.

The Bank of France, founded in 1800, and placed under State control in 1806, has the monopoly of issuing bank notes. The present privileges of the Bank were renewed on December 11, 1917, for a further 25 years, i «.. until December 31, 1945. The capital of the Bank is fixed at 182,500,000 francs (7,300,000/.)