the world of private banking

228
THE WORLD OF PRIVAtE BANKING
In Britain, Cassis has listed forty-six active bankers belonging to thirteen
prominent banking families of the City who sat in Parliament between 1832 and
1918. Among them there were four members of the Rothschild family and two of the
Samuels, not to mention the three Hambros whose family had been converted since
the eighteenth century and belonged to the old banking aristocracy. In government,
they were still less represented, the most-known figure being the liberal minister
Sir Herbert Samuel. This weak political representation was not specific to Jewish
bankers but a common feature of the banking community of the City. However,
members of the bankers’ families who were not in business might still go into
politics, thus forming a link between the banking world and political circles.
In France, few members of the Jewish haute banque were openly in politics.
The case of Achille Fould was rather exceptional. He began his political career
during the July Monarchy, and became Minister of Finance during the Second
Republic. He was called back to the Ministry of Finance by Emperor Napoleon III
in 1860 to remedy the budget deficit. With the support of major interest groups,
particularly the Rothschilds, Fould acted more as a representative of high finance
than as a docile servant of the Emperor. However, some gentile politicians were
close to the Jewish haute banque and defended their interests. The case of Léon
Say, one of the Rothschild’s Compagnie du Nord managers who was several times
Minister of Finance during the Third Republic, is well known. Say’s refusal to join
the Gambetta cabinet in 1881 wrecked the republican left’s project to nationalize
railway companies.
Direct involvement in politics was also unusual among private Jewish
bankers in other countries. However, some of them played a prominent role in
politics concerning the monetary and credit system of their country. In Belgium,
indeed, Jonathan Bischoffsheim was a member of the Liberal party, holding a
seat on Brussels municipal council and on the Senate for twenty years. He was
an influential counsellor of Minister Frère-Orban, who thoroughly reformed the
Belgian monetary system by creating a central bank and developed municipal credit
and saving by the lower classes by establishing public specialized institutions. In
Germany, the famous banker and National Liberal politician Ludwig Bamberger,
whose mother was Jonathan Bischoffsheim’s sister, started his career in his uncle’s
bank at Amsterdam. During the foundation of the Empire, despite his political
opinions, he played a major role as a close adviser of Bismarck in unifying German
currency and setting up the German central bank, the Reichsbank. Although
during the Empire Jewish bankers had some involvement in politics at a local or
national level, the rise of anti-Semitism after World War I turned them away from
the political scene. Significantly, Max Warburg refused to enter the Cabinet in
1921. He also refused to be German ambassador to the United States, in a desire
to reduce his political visibility.
Though open political activity was uncommon among the Jewish private
bankers, it did not mean that they were not interested in politics at all. Indeed,
bankers’ concern for politics was generally linked to their business interests.
Despite their strong support for the restoration and stability of the conservative