402 HARVARD LAW REVIEW, drawings, and without giving information of the importance nor of the number of drawings yet to take place, do not fall under the prohibition of the law of 1851 which forbids lotteries.^ Similar rules are observed, without indulgence of any kind, in the countries where, as in England, no exception to the prohibition of lotteries is made in favor of the lottery bond. It is by reason of this cir- cumstance that in 1871 France waived the scheme considered for a moment of realizing a loan of two thousand millions in lottery bonds. England would not have been able to take part in a trans- action of this kind, and this reflection was enough to dismiss the project. Foreign lottery bonds, of which the issue has not been authorized in a country where an act of legislation is required, could not be admitted by a simple administrative measure to the official quota- tions of the exchanges of this country, since they could not become the object of a valid sale. This is only true for France and Bel- gium since 1881. Before that time the treaty of commerce con- cluded between France and Belgium on the ist of May, 1861, in Article 36, stipulated for the admission to the official quotations of each of the contracting countries of certain lottery bonds issued in the other. It is interesting to note that, by reason of this proviso of the Franco-Belgian treaty, not only Belgian lottery bonds were authorized to appear in the official quotations of Paris, but also similar bonds found in exchange quotations in all the countries with which France had concluded a treaty of commerce which contained the clause ** la nation la plus favorisee." The arrange- ment of Article 36 of the treaty of 1861 not having been repro- duced in the Franco-Belgian convention of the 31st of October, 1 88 1, French and Belgian lottery bonds have been reciprocally forced to disappear from the official quotations of the other coun- try, and the regime of protection established in 1861 has come to an end. VI. We have limited ourselves in the course of this study to the investigation of the principles of law raised by lottery bonds, but the present work would be far from complete if we were not to remark upon the grave economic problem raised by the existence of such obligations. 1 Cour de Cassation de Belgique, iSth July, 1887.
