Chapter 688 International Diplomatic Pressure

Chapter 689 International Diplomatic Pressure

French businessmen were immediately ecstatic, waving franc notes and squeezing aside foreign competitors.

Many British, Dutch and Italian businessmen looked sadly at the contract market. One month later, the sucrose futures price had been quoted at 2 francs 1 sous, and the price quoted three months later had reached an astonishing 2 francs 3 sous!

The look in Weigel's eyes was like someone who had been trapped in the desert for more than half a month and saw a source of water.

However, the guilders in his hand could not be used to buy water...

Someone suddenly grabbed his arm and whispered in his ear:

"Why are you still standing here?"

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Weigel turned around. It was Van Schijk.

"But I didn't..."

The latter said in his ear: "You forgot, Fa Chu Bank is downstairs!"

"?"

"France is on the gold standard."

"I have a mind like a pebble!" Wiggleton was enlightened, turned around and ran downstairs, "Thank you so much!"

The gold standard means that anyone can exchange franc notes for gold at the Bank of France at any time, and in turn, gold can be exchanged for francs at any time!

The counter of the French Reserve Bank is still relatively empty, after all, most people have not yet reacted.

Weigel immediately converted more than 10,000 Dutch guilders in his hand into francs.

Although the Dutch guilder, as a currency, cannot be absolutely valuable - officially one Dutch guilder should contain 3.75 grams of gold, but in fact it is less than 3.7 grams - Weigel can only treat it as gold, not gold. The currency was converted into francs.

Fortunately, he could get a 2% subsidy when exchanging real gold for banknotes, which reduced his losses somewhat.

Afterwards, Weigel returned to the futures trading floor with great momentum, bypassed a group of foreign businessmen, and bought 4 contracts in one go.

Others quickly noticed the Dutchman, and then, suddenly realizing it, they rushed downstairs like a tide.

The counter of the Reserve Bank of France also experienced the scene at the futures exchange yesterday - the counter was overwhelmed. Fortunately, there were many police officers maintaining order today, but there were no casualties.

As of 5 p.m. that day, when the futures exchange closed, the Reserve Bank of France had received a total of more than 8,000 ounces of gold, equivalent to approximately 900,000 francs.

This is because the French bank's maintenance counter was closed for 3 hours, otherwise it would be easy to exceed one million.

Just half a month after the Paris Agricultural Products Futures Exchange opened for business, European countries began to feel the severe market turmoil caused by the skyrocketing price of sucrose.

So under the call of the United Kingdom, representatives from various countries gathered in Frankfurt to participate in the "European Sugar Special Conference."

Without much greeting, the British representative Lord Marquis stood up, looked around the crowd proudly, and said loudly:

"Obviously, it is France that is primarily responsible for the sugar crisis!"

The conference hall suddenly fell silent. Some representatives looked at the French representative Bayi, while others bowed their heads and remained silent.

Marquez continued:

“As we all know, the core cause of the sugar shortage was the outbreak of black slave riots in the Caribbean, which caused a large number of plantations to reduce production or even stop harvesting.

“The first area where riots occurred was the French colony of Saint-Domingue.

"I have a lot of evidence to prove that the riots in other places in the Caribbean are related to the abolitionist organization in Saint-Domingue."

As he spoke, he threw several documents on the conference table angrily:

"These are records of the activities of Frenchman Jacques Pierre Brissot in Saint-Domingue. We have reason to believe that it was he who led the abolitionist movement there.

"That damn Vincent Auger was always under Brissot's command!"

This is not because the British intelligence agency is so powerful, but mainly because there are more and more people in the Saint-Domingue abolitionist organization, and it will be difficult to ensure that confidential information is not leaked in the later stage.

“Furthermore, most of the weapons used by the niggers in the Caribbean were supplied by France.

"I think the French government must give other countries an explanation for the situation in the Caribbean and the current serious sugar shortage!"

The British are obviously fully prepared, and their purpose is to use international diplomatic pressure to get France, currently the largest sugar source in Europe, to make a commitment to proactively stabilize the price of sucrose.

The UK is the world's largest consumer of sugar. Right now, the price of sucrose has increased by 67% compared with the same period last year, and futures half a year later have increased by as much as 160%!

Even though the British government has begun to implement measures such as tax exemptions for sugar merchants, sugar prices continue to skyrocket.

It is foreseeable that the British, especially the lower class people, will soon be unable to afford sweets.

Sugar is the British's biggest daily pastime, and even their spiritual sustenance - no one drinks tea and coffee without sugar, black bread must be dipped in syrup, porridge must be added with sugar, and fried fish must be sprinkled with icing sugar.

It can be said that without sugar, British housewives cannot even cook.

With the current trend of rising sugar prices, the British people are going to riot!

Several of Britain's "old friends" - Prussia, Denmark, Portugal, etc. immediately joined in the uproar and condemned France for "destroying the international environment and trade pattern."

Bai Yi waited until these guys were almost finished performing, then he slowly took out a stack of pamphlets and motioned to his assistants to distribute them to the representatives sitting here:

"Perhaps you have learned from other channels that the Duke of Leeds in England was the first culprit to incite the black riots in Saint-Domingue.

"You can take a look at these materials, which clearly show how he contacted Auger and others and provided them with a huge sum of 300,000 pounds. Later, the Duke of Leeds also planned to take Booker's gang to the United States."

He gestured around the conference table:

"If the United States also sent representatives, he would tell everyone about this in detail."

The representatives of various countries flipped through the evidence provided by the French, only glanced at a few pages, and then looked at Marquis with strange expressions.

This evidence is too detailed!

Just kidding, Auger, as a direct participant in the Duke of Leeds' plan, naturally provided solid evidence. Even the remittance channel of the 300,000 funds was clearly written.

Bai continued:

"As for Brissot, everyone knows that he is a fanatical abolitionist lunatic.

"It was after the Duke of Leeds set off the black riots in Saint-Domingue that he was attracted and went to the Caribbean. Oh, the time when he left Europe can be easily found out.

"Our country is also very troubled by this man. You know, his behavior in Saint-Domingue has caused our country more than 50 million francs in losses every year!

"For this, I hope the British government can give our country an explanation!"

Lord Marquis saw that all countries were glaring at him, especially Spain, and his heart tightened immediately.

I didn't expect that the French were more prepared than himself, and he knew that the French were confusing right and wrong, but he couldn't defend himself at all.

He suddenly thought of something and said loudly:

"No, France has not suffered any losses at all! On the contrary, you have gained huge benefits from the situation in the Caribbean. "