A World of Public Debts by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030487942
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Cross-Observations, Reform Processes, and Infrastructural Power

The posters and words used during bond campaigns are well-known subjects for cultural historians of the Great War. Their similarity across countries, in spite of national variations, conveys the impression of a spontaneous process of homogenization. Practices and administrative settings did actually vary, but what really accounts for these converging trends in mobilization techniques is the continuous efforts made by belligerent states to observe and emulate each other. Modernizing the infrastructural powers of the state to collect money from civil society and markets constituted one of the major stakes of the period. Cross-observations and policy transfers played a major role, which does not mean that all practices and techniques could circulate. In spite of their long-standing prestige and domination, Britain and France had to reform their practices and systems in order to win the war. Their early reaction, based on their instinctive feeling of superiority, was no longer appropriate for the situation. To compete with German financial mobilization, it was necessary to observe what the other countries were doing and implement a set of reforms.

British authorities launched a reform process in 1915 in order to compensate for the lack of emotion and organization previously mentioned. Their main goal was to increase the number of “small investors,” both from a financial and political perspective. Wooing the middle classes and workers became a major aim of the Treasury, which was willing to restrain consumption and limit inflationary pressures. A committee set up in 1915, presided by Sir Edwin Montagu, recommended the creation of a national organization, the War Savings Committee, which would be in charge of coordinating thousands of local committees and associations devoted to collecting the population’s savings. The short-term goal was to compete with the legendary thrifty habits of the French peasants and with the apparently efficient mobilization of the Germans. References to foreign experiences played a critical role in the reform process. British propaganda called on citizens to emulate the French, the Germans, or the Japanese, who were known to invest their savings in the public debt. The result was a curious mix between the professionalization and centralization implemented by the National War Savings Committee (headed by Sir Robert Kindersley, a businessman and a director of the Bank of England)—which developed its own organization chart, a proper budget, and a national action plan—and the numerous (between 250,000 and 300,000) voluntary associations, in which many women and children were involved (they were in charge of more than 40,000 war savings associations, organized on a local basis). All these committees took part in the war effort by promoting food controls, savings certificates, and subscriptions to war loans.

The British example illustrates how centralized measures and local voluntarism could be successfully combined. In only a few months, the British invented a policy of “continuous borrowing,” with a view to making savings practices and their connection with public debt commonplace and routine. The goal was not only to increase the number of war loan subscribers but also to develop permanent savings practices, whose funds would be directly invested in public bonds.

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