Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

174
Paul Martin Howell
fit well witli the logie of amalgamation which was then emergìng on the Continont and it offered the prospect of greater efficiency and convendence for the state, the Cuneo line, and the customers of both. For Bolmida and his associates, it made added sense because the restriotions on bank involvement cast a pali over the admdttedly limited prospeets that the Cuneo company had as the core of a large and expandhig operational system. Furthermore, if implemented the proposai would have had no appreciable impact on the earnings of the Cuneo company's shares.40) At the saune time, the eventual revival of the market promised to open new prospeets for the administrative and technical personnel dose to the bank who had developed in the Cuneo company. Similarly, the likelihood of the state's eventual sale of its system made it ali the easier for Bolmida and his associates to favor amalgamation and anticipate a return to invol­vement in railroad operations as well as ownership.
Even as Bolmida and his colleagues sought to withdraw from rail­road operation, they proposed to build a short spur from the Cuneo line to the Piedmontese city of Saluzzo. That idea won ready acceptance in ParMament, although final approvai was delayed until the beginning of 1855 by the negotiations and studies entrained by the proposai concerning the company's operation. The government speedily agreed to the rail company's pian to float a 4.4 million lire bond issue to finance the construc-tion and it just as promptly gave the Cassa del Commercio permission to take part in the bond issue. At the same time, early in 1855, the bank was also granted permission to participate in a bond issue by the Novara railroad company, which it did to the tune of roughly naif a million lire.41) Hence, by the end of the first quarter of 1855, the Cassa del Commercio had taken on many operations typical of an investment bank, having acquired a dominant position in the kingdom's only functioning private railroad company and having taken part in two bond issues by private railroad firms.
In the summer of 1855, as the Crimean War appeared to be headed toward its conclusion, business began to revive aoross the Continent and railroad promoters and financiers large and small started putting together new proposals and resuscdtating old ones. In the more developed areas amalgamation became the order of the day, as potent rivai groups sought to piece together individuai trunks into comprehensive, nation-spanning systems under unified control. In less developed areas competkig combina-tions no longer proposed to iconstruct just the first and most important trunks. Instead, they offered to undertake the creation of complete rail-
*0 AP, v. 37:1740-1754, 2071; MAIC, b. 174, f. 52, Cuneo company Statuti; and Cuderzo, p. 75.
4D MAIC, b, 155, f. 107, sf. I, Bolmida to Mlnlstry of Finance, 15 Feb. 1855; Ministry of Finance to Bolmida, 26 Feb. 1855 (copy); b. 175, f. 52, extract of minutes of Cuneo company shareholder meeting of 22 March 1855; royal decree of 26 March 1855; and AP, 37:1749-1754, 2072.