金融时报:财政部的战争英雄

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2021年12月24日

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财政部的战争英雄

100年前一战爆发。英国公务员们做了大量的工作支持战争，尤其是财政部的工作人员，为极为关键的战争融资立下了大功。英国财相奥斯本撰文说，我们应该纪念这些幕后的英雄，了解他们的故事。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

moratorium [,mɒrə'tɔːrɪəm] 暂停（支付）

let off the hook 脱离困境

Bradburys ['brædbəri] 英国一战时发行的小面额钞票，用以替代金币等硬币，由当时的常任副财长Sir John Bradbury签发。

Remember the quiet glory of the old soldiers of Whitehall （763 words）

By George Osborne, British chancellor

It is not often that civil servants from the UK Treasury are described as unsung heroes. But as we remember the outbreak of the first world war, and the momentous sacrifice of those who fought and died, spare a thought too for those in Whitehall who, though far from the field of battle, fought hard for their country.

A century ago, Britain was embarking on a war many predicted would be over by Christmas. Financial markets had no such faith. Faced with the threat of war, confidence deserted them, triggering an international financial breakdown. For the Treasury, the crisis erupted the week before Britain declared war.

Earlier this year I invited leading financial historian Professor Richard Roberts of King's College London to speak to Treasury civil servants about what happened next.

In the heat of the 1914 summer, the financial markets went into meltdown. Crowds gathered outside the Bank of England. The London Stock Exchange shut on July 31 and stayed closed for five months.

About 50 countries experienced bank runs or market crashes. For six weeks, almost all the world's stock exchanges were closed. “The credit system upon which the business of this country is founded has completely broken down,” an aide wrote to David Lloyd George, first of the three wartime chancellors. “It may be impossible to finance the great expenditure which the country may be forced to incur.”

To buy time, the Treasury announced a four-day bank holiday as it fought to pull Britain back from the brink. Rates were cut. A moratorium on debt repayments was announced. New banknotes were issued in small denominations, known as Bradburys because they were signed by the Treasury's permanent secretary. Then came unprecedented interventions to revive the markets and lending. It worked. When the banks reopened on Friday August 7, a run had been averted but the country was at war.

The Treasury's traditional role is to stop departments from spending too much. Now, as the country geared up for war, it had to help them push money out of the door. Government expenditure in 1913 was £300m. By 1918 it was £2.3bn.

Wartime tax revenues quadrupled. Levies on everything from tea and cocoa to coffee and beer were raised. Hat importers were slapped with an excise duty, only to be let off the hook when civil servants could not say what counted as a hat. Income taxes were increased and a version of corporation tax was brought in.

But tax could only raise so much and debt funded the lion's share. Short-term loans were provided by the Bank of England and the banks. Savers put away money in war loan bonds; a century later, 120,000 savers are still receiving interest on them.

Most importantly, Britain maintained the confidence of investors in the US. In 1914, a memo from a young Treasury official, John Maynard Keynes, persuaded the chancellor to maintain the gold standard. That, with the strong message sent by tax rises, kept US lenders' money flowing. Germany had no such luxury, finding it nearly impossible to borrow abroad. The

Treasury, never one to miss out on European negotiations (then or now), sent a representative to the Paris peace conference, and again it was Keynes. However, this time realism did not prevail. In the face of widespread determination to punish Germany, he could not persuade the conference to moderate the harsh terms of the peace. Horrified, he resigned from the Treasury and wrote to then prime minister Lloyd George: “I am slipping away from the scene of nightmare. I can do no more good here.”

Inside the Treasury building on Horse Guards Road a war memorial bears the names of 102 men, once workers in this building, who fought and died in that terrible war. In this centenary year especially we honour them. It is right that we should.

But let us not forget the work and ingenuity of those who toiled in London while their countrymen fought abroad. Andrew Bonar Law, the last of the wartime chancellors, reflected with pride on the Treasury's effort in August 1918. “Finance in war is not spectacular,” he wrote. “It does not appeal so vividly to the imagination… . [but it is] if not the most striking, by no means the least important of our achievements in the common cause.” He was right. For then, as now, national security is built on economic security.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.Who rightly predicted that the WWI was not a short conflict?

A.UK Treasury.

B.British press.

C.British military.

D.Financial markets.

答案(1)

2.What provided the “lion's share” of British government's war expenditure?

A.Money squeezed from other departments.

B.Taxes on comodites.

C.Duties on imported goods.

D.Loans and bonds.