of Banque Foncière de Paris. The parent institution in Paris was followed by similar institutions in Nevers and Marseilles. These two were afterwards amalgamated with the first under the title of Crédit Foncier de France. The capital was increased to 60,000,000 francs, the government giving a subvention of 10,000,000 francs, and exercising control over the bank by directly appointing the governor and two deputy-governors. The administration was vested in a council chosen by the shareholders, but its decisions have no validity without the approval of the governor. The Crédit Foncier has the right to issue bonds, repayable in fifty or sixty years, and bearing a fixed rate of interest. A certain number of the bonds carry prizes. The loans must not exceed half the estimated value of the property mortgaged, upon which the bank has the first mortgage. The bank also makes advances to local bodies, departmental and communal, for short or long periods, and with or without mortgage. Its capital amounts to £13,500,000. Its charter was renewed in 1881 for a period of ninety-nine years.
In 1860 the Crédit Foncier lent its support to the foundation of an organization for supplying capital and credit for agricultural and allied industries. This Crédit Agricole rendered but trifling services to agriculture, however, and soon threw itself into speculation. Between 1873 and 1876 it lent enormous sums to the Egyptian government, obtaining the money by opening credit with the Crédit Foncier and depositing with it the securities of the Egyptian government. On the failure of the Egyptian government to meet its payments the Crédit Agricole went into liquidation, and the Crédit Foncier suffered severely in consequence. The impracticability of the credit system to aid agriculture as worked by the Crédit Agricole was very marked, and, as a consequence, the financing of agricultural associations is now entirely in the hands of the Banque de France.
The Crédit Mobilier is an institution for advancing loans on personal or movable estate. It was constituted in 1871, on the liquidation of the Société Générale de Crédit Mobilier, founded in 1852, which it absorbed.
CRÉDIT MOBILIER OF AMERICA, a construction company
whose operations in connexion with the building of the Union
Pacific Railroad gave rise to the most serious political scandal in
the history of the United States Congress. The company was
originally chartered as the Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency in 1859.
In March 1864 a controlling interest in the stock was secured by
Thomas Durant, vice-president of the Union Pacific Railroad
Company, and the Pennsylvania legislature authorized the
adoption of the name Crédit Mobilier of America. Durant
proposed to utilize it as a construction company, pay it an
extravagant sum for the work, and thus secure for the
stockholders of the Union Pacific, who now controlled the Crédit
Mobilier, the bonds loaned by the United States government.
The net proceeds from the government and the first mortgage
bonds issued to the construction company were $50,863,172.05,
slightly more than enough to pay the entire cost of construction.
According to the report of the Wilson Congressional Committee,
the Crédit Mobilier received in addition, in the form of stock,
income bonds, and land grant bonds, $23,000,000—a profit of
about 48%. The defenders of the company assert that several
items of expense were not included in this report, and that the
real net profit was considerably smaller, although they admit
that it was still unusually large. The work extended over the
years 1865–1867. During the winter of 1867–1868, when adverse
legislation by Congress was feared, it is alleged that Oakes Ames
(q.v.), a representative from Massachusetts and principal promoter
of the Crédit Mobilier, distributed a number of shares among
congressmen and senators to influence their attitude. Shares
were sold at par when a few dividends repaid a purchaser at this
price. Some in fact received dividends without any initial outlay
at all. As the result of a lawsuit between Ames and H. S.
McComb, some private letters were brought out in September
1872 which gave publicity to the entire proceedings. The House
appointed two investigating committees, the Poland and the
Wilson committees, and on the report of the former (1873) Ames
and James Brooks of New York were formally censured by the
House, the former for disposing of the stock and the latter for
improperly using his official position to secure part of it. Charges
were also made against Schuyler Colfax, then vice-president but
Speaker of the House at the time of the transaction, James A.
Garfield, William D. Kelley (1814–1880), John A. Logan, and
several other members either of the House or of the Senate. The
Senate later appointed a special committee to investigate the
charges against its members. This committee, on the 27th of
February 1873, recommended the expulsion from the Senate of
James W. Patterson, of New Hampshire; but as his term expired
within five days no action was taken. The evidence was exaggerated
by the Democrats for partisan purposes, but the investigation
showed clearly that many of those accused were at least
indiscreet if not dishonest. The company itself was merely a
type of the construction companies by which it was the custom
to build railways between 1860 and about 1880.
See J. B. Crawford, The Crédit Mobilier of America (Boston, 1880), and R. Hazard, The Crédit Mobilier of America (Providence, 1881), both of which defend Ames; also the histories of the Union Pacific Railroad Company by J. P. Davis (Chicago, 1894) and H. K. White (Chicago, 1895); and for a succinct and impartial account, James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States, vol. vii. (New York, 1906). The Poland and Wilson reports are to be found in House of Representatives Reports, 42nd Congress, 3rd session, Nos. 77 and 78, and the report of the Senate Committee in Senate Reports, 42nd Congress, 3rd session, No. 519.
CREDITON, a market town in the South Molton
parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, 8 m. N.W. of Exeter
by the London & South-Western railway. Pop. of urban district
(1901) 3974. It is situated in the narrow vale of the river
Creedy near its junction with the Exe, between two steep hills,
and is divided into two parts, the east or old town and the west
or new town. The church of Holy Cross, formerly collegiate, is
a noble Perpendicular building with Early English and other
early portions, and a fine central tower. The grammar school,
founded by Edward VI. and refounded by Elizabeth, has
exhibitions to Oxford and Cambridge universities. Shoe-making,
tanning, agricultural trade, tin-plating, and the manufacture
of confectionery and cider have superseded the former large
woollen and serge industries. In 1897 Crediton was made the
seat of a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of Exeter.
The first indication of settlement at Crediton (Credington, Cryditon, Kirton) is the tradition that Winfrith or Boniface was born there in 680. Perhaps in his memory (for the great extent of the parish shows that it was thinly populated) it became in 909 the seat of the first bishopric in Devonshire. It was probably only a village in 1049, when Leofric, bishop of Crediton, requested Leo IX. to transfer the see to Exeter, as Crediton was “an open town and much exposed to the incursions of pirates.” At the Domesday Survey much of the land was still uncultivated, but its prosperity increased, and in 1269 each of the twelve prebends of the collegiate church had a house and farmland within the parish. The bishops, to whom the manor belonged until the Reformation, had difficulty in enforcing their warren and other rights; in 1351 Bishop Grandison obtained an exemplification of judgments of 1282 declaring that he had pleas of withernam, view of frank pledge, the gallows and assize of bread and ale. Two years later there was a serious riot against the increase of copyhold. Perhaps it was at this time that the prescriptive borough of Crediton arose. The jury of the borough are mentioned in 1275, and Crediton returned two members to parliament in 1306–1307, though never afterwards represented. A borough seal dated 1469 is extant, but the corporation is not mentioned in the grant made by Edward VI. of the church to twelve principal inhabitants. The borough and manor were granted by Elizabeth to William Killigrew in 1595, but there is no indication of town organization then or in 1630, and in the 18th century Crediton was governed by commissioners. In 1231 the bishop obtained a fair, still held, on the vigil, feast and morrow of St Lawrence. This was important as the wool trade was established by 1249 and certainly continued until 1630, when the market for kersies is mentioned in conjunction with a saying “as fine as Kirton spinning.”
