ABSTRACT

The SA Reserve Bank (SARB) was created as a result of an earlier gold standard monetary crisis that unfolded after World War I. From 1919, South Africa nominally maintained the gold standard, but not the conversion of banknotes into gold.

This article seeks to discuss the SARB's views on the gold standard controversy, and to highlight the different attitudes of the first two governors, Clegg and Postmus, attitudes that have not previously been examined in the literature. It will also discuss the way in which the Bank of England misled Clegg, and how the views expressed privately differed from those in the SARB's Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) documentation.

This paper considers the irony that Clegg was selected from the ranks of the Bank of England and was loyal to Threadneedle Street, but defended a monetary policy which aided one of the biggest constituencies of the Afrikaner Nationalist Party – Afrikaner farmers. By contrast, Postmus was previously at the Nederlandsche Bankvoor Zuid-Afrika, and supported the National Party position that South Africa should return to, and remain on, a gold standard independent of Britain. Despite this, Postmus's policy turned out to be disastrous for the mostly Afrikaner farmers affected by the 1931–1932 crisis.

摘要

SA 储备银行 (SARB) 是第一次世界大战后爆发的早期金本位货币危机的结果。从 1919 年起，南非名义上维持金本位，但不将纸币兑换成黄金。

本文旨在讨论 SARB 对金本位制争议的看法，并强调前两位州长 Clegg 和 Postmus 的不同态度，这些态度以前没有在文献中研究过。它还将讨论英格兰银行误导克莱格的方式，以及私下表达的观点与 SARB 普通股东大会 (OGM) 文件中的观点有何不同。

本文认为具有讽刺意味的是，克莱格是从英格兰银行的行列中选出的，他忠于 Threadneedle Street，但却为帮助南非白人民族主义党最大选区之一——白人农民的货币政策辩护。相比之下，Postmus 之前曾在荷兰银行工作，并支持国家党的立场，即南非应该回归并保持独立于英国之外的金本位制。尽管如此，Postmus 的政策对受 1931-1932 年危机影响的主要是南非白人农民来说是灾难性的。