Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street. Chapter 12. In Defense of Sterling
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## 第十二章：保卫英镑 – 概要
这一章（第十二章）详细讲述了 1960 年代围绕英国英镑的国际货币危机，重点讲述了纽约联邦储备银行（特别是阿尔弗雷德·海斯和查尔斯·库姆斯）为防御货币投机攻击所做的努力。
该章首先描述了纽约联邦储备银行雄伟而严峻的建筑，强调了其作为美国中央银行体系的主要运营机构以及大多数非共产主义国家中央银行的角色。叙述重点介绍了该银行储藏在城市地下深处的大量黄金储备，以及其作为国际金融“透视镜”的功能，能够探测到货币的脆弱性。
该章的核心部分详细描述了英镑日益严重的危机。从 1964 年开始，由于国内过度扩张，英国面临严重的国际收支逆差。这导致了对英镑的信心丧失，即将举行的英国大选以及对工党经济政策的看法加剧了这一局面。货币投机者和紧张的进口商和出口商开始抛售英镑，给英格兰银行维持其固定汇率带来了巨大压力。
纽约联邦储备银行的关键人物阿尔弗雷德·海斯和查尔斯·库姆斯密切关注着局势，不知疲倦地与英国同行（包括克罗默伯爵）和其他中央银行家协调工作。本章详细描述了国际金融交易的复杂机制，解释了货币波动通常如何在约定的范围内进行管理。它强调了货币贬值的潜在破坏性，贬值会导致对其他货币的信心丧失、国际贸易下降，甚至导致经济萧条，让人想起 1931 年的危机。
叙述强调了位于瑞士巴塞尔的国际清算银行 (BIS) 作为中央银行家之间进行非正式讨论的重要论坛的作用，从而促进了国际货币合作。库姆斯参加了在巴塞尔举行的一次会议，会上人们对英镑的日益担忧显而易见。
该章生动地回顾了 1964 年 11 月危机达到顶峰时的事件。工党政府的最初反应被认为是不够的，英格兰银行的储备正在迅速耗尽。在一次戏剧性的举动中，英国政府决定将银行利率提高到 7%（并且打破常规地在周一这样做），以吸引投资并稳定货币。联邦储备银行认识到这场危机有可能蔓延到美元，也提高了自身的贷款利率。
虽然最初的反应是积极的，但信心很快就消失了，英镑再次面临巨大的压力。因此，海斯和库姆斯与他们在华盛顿的同事一起，需要紧急努力为英格兰银行建立大量的外部信贷；建立信贷的最初举措涉及美国大幅增加其自身的财政贡献。这项行动的成功，以及利率提升带来的最初推动力，都取决于是否能够及时获得强大的信贷来源。
该章随后描述了美国人与时间赛跑，从世界各地的中央银行（包括德国、意大利和日本）获得承诺的疯狂一天。最终，协调一致地宣布了 30 亿美元的信贷计划，遏制了投机浪潮。联邦储备银行的干预是对投机者的警告，表明了对英国货币的统一支持。联邦储备银行、财政部和英格兰银行在纽约时间下午 2 点和伦敦时间晚上 7 点发布的新闻稿至关重要，并彻底扭转了市场态度。
该章描述了这一公告的细节和影响，随后详细介绍了海斯总裁和库姆斯副总裁的个人特质。它解释了他们的技能，特别是库姆斯对世界各国中央银行家的熟悉，是如何非常有益的。
该章还强调了国际金融界内部的紧张关系以及多米诺骨牌效应的持续风险。为维持英镑价值的斗争在随后的几个月和几年里继续进行，经历了高峰、低谷和挫折。但没有任何解决方案可以被认为是完全有效的，因为最终保卫英镑的斗争以失败告终。
叙述在 1967 年英镑贬值和随后对美元的攻击中达到高潮。该章以对国际货币体系未来的一种不确定和忧虑感作结。
## Chapter 12: In Defense of Sterling - A Summary
Chapter 12 of this transcript provides a detailed account of the international monetary crisis surrounding the British pound sterling in the 1960s, focusing on the efforts of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, particularly through the actions of Alfred Hayes and Charles Coombs, to defend the currency against speculative attacks.
The chapter begins by describing the imposing and austere architecture of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, emphasizing its role as the chief operating arm of the US central banking system and the central bank for most non-communist countries. The narrative highlights the bank's immense gold reserves, stored deep beneath the city, and its function as a "fluoroscopic vision" into international finance, capable of detecting currency vulnerabilities.
The core of the chapter details the escalating crisis of the pound sterling. Starting in 1964, Britain faced a significant balance of payments deficit due to over-exuberant domestic expansion. This led to a loss of confidence in the pound, exacerbated by the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming British election and the perception of the Labour Party's economic policies. Currency speculators and nervous importers and exporters began selling pounds, putting immense pressure on the Bank of England to maintain its fixed exchange rate.
Alfred Hayes and Charles Coombs, key figures at the Federal Reserve Bank, closely monitored the situation, working tirelessly to coordinate with their British counterparts, including the Earl of Cromer, and other central bankers. The chapter meticulously describes the intricate mechanics of international financial dealings, explaining how currency fluctuations are normally managed within agreed-upon limits. It highlights the devastating potential of devaluation, which can lead to a loss of confidence in other currencies, a decline in international trade, and even economic depression, recalling the crisis of 1931.
The narrative emphasizes the role of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland, as a crucial forum for informal discussions among central bankers, facilitating international monetary cooperation. Coombs attends a meeting in Basel where growing concern regarding the pound is apparent.
The chapter vividly recounts the events of November 1964, when the crisis reached its peak. The Labour government's initial response was deemed insufficient, and the Bank of England was rapidly depleting its reserves. In a dramatic move, the British government decided to raise the bank rate to 7% (and against ritual do so on a Monday) to attract investment and stabilize the currency. The Federal Reserve Bank, recognizing the potential for the crisis to spread to the dollar, raised its own lending rate as well.
Although the initial reaction was positive, confidence quickly eroded, and the pound was once again under intense pressure. Hayes and Coombs, with their Washington colleagues, were thus required to urgently work to build an enormous massing of outside credit to the bank of England; the initial move to build it involved the US increasing their own financial contributions significantly, The success of this campaign, as well as the initial boost from an elevated interest-rate, hung on whether or not a strong credit source could be achieved in time.
The chapter then describes a frantic day as the Americans raced against the clock to secure pledges from central banks around the world, including Germany, Italy, and Japan. A coordinated announcement of a $3 billion credit package ultimately stemmed the tide of speculation. The Federal Reserve's intervention served as a warning to speculators, demonstrating a unified front of support for the British currency. The news release by Federal Reserve, Treasury and Bank of England at 2 p.m. in New York and 7 p.m. in London was critical and turned market attitudes on its head.
The chapter describes the details and impact of this announcement, followed by details regarding the characters of President Hayes and Vice President Coombs. It is explained how their skills, particularly Croombs familiarity with the central bankers of the world, were highly beneficial.
The chapter also highlights the tensions within the international financial community and the constant risk of a domino effect. The fight to maintain the pound's value continues over subsequent months and years, with peaks, valleys and setbacks. But none of the solutions found can be viewed as fully effective, because in the end the fight for sterling ended in defeat.
The narrative culminates with the 1967 devaluation of the pound and the subsequent attack on the dollar. The chapter concludes with a sense of uncertainty and apprehension about the future of the international monetary system.
中英文字稿 
第十二章 保卫英镑 1 纽约联邦储备银行坐落在曼哈顿下城区的一块区域中，这块区域被自由街、拿骚街、威廉街和乙巷围合起来，位于那些被推平的摩天大楼之间仅存不多的小山丘的斜坡上。银行的入口朝向自由街，整体外观庄严而沉稳。其底层的拱形窗户仿照佛罗伦萨贵族府邸的设计，窗户上装有像男孩手腕那么粗的铁栅栏进行保护。在这些窗户之上，是一排小而长方形的窗口，它们嵌在一面由砂岩和石灰石砌成的十四层高的墙体中。墙体的石块颜色原本从棕色、灰色到蓝色不等，但如今由于烟尘的覆盖，它们都变成了共同的灰色。整座建筑的严肃外观仅在第十二层有一个佛罗伦萨风格的阳台稍作点缀。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Chapter 12 In Defense of Sterling 1 The Federal Reserve Bank of New York stands on the block bounded by Liberty, Nassau, and William Streets, and Maiden Lane, on the slope of one of the few noticeable hillocks remaining in the bulldozed skyscraper flattened earth of downtown Manhattan. Its entrance faces liberty, and its mean, is dignified and grim. Its arched ground floor windows, designed in imitation of those of the Petient Riccardi palaces and florants, are protected by iron grills made of bars as thick as a boy's wrist, and above them a rose of small rectangular windows, set in a bluff-like, fourteen-story wall of sandstone and limestone, the blocks of which once varied in color from brown through gray to blue, but which soot has reduced to a common gray. The façade's austerity is relieved only at the level of the twelfth floor by a Florentine losia.
两座巨大的铁灯笼，几乎是佛罗伦萨斯图尔茨宫灯笼的复制品，矗立在主入口两侧，但它们似乎不是用来取悦或照亮入口的，而是让人感到畏惧。大楼的内部也同样缺乏欢快或友好的氛围。底楼有宽敞的穹顶拱券，用复杂的几何花卉和动物图案的铁制隔墙隔开，并由身着深蓝色制服、看起来像警察的银行保安们严密看守。这座建筑宏大而严厉，联邦储备银行作为一栋建筑，引发了观者的各种情感。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Two giant iron lanterns, near replicas of lanterns that adorn the Sturtzi palace in Florence, flank the main entrance, but they seem to be their less to please or illuminate the entrance than to intimidate him. Nor is the building's interior much more cheery or hospitable. The ground floor features cavernous groin vaulting in high ironwork partitions in intricate geometric floral and animal designs, and it is guarded by hordes of bank security men whose dark blue uniforms make them look much like policemen. Huge and doer as it is. The Federal Reserve Bank, as a building, arouses varied feelings in its beholders.
对于欣赏新哈德逊街对面的优雅大通曼哈顿银行的人来说，这座建筑因其巨大的窗户、色彩鲜艳的瓷砖墙和时尚的抽象表现主义画作而引人注目。尽管它实际上是在1924年完工的，但在这些崇拜者眼中，它却是十九世纪银行建筑厚重风格的化身。
在1927年，一位为《建筑》杂志撰稿的作者对其赞叹不已，认为它像直布罗陀岩石一样不可侵犯，并在某种程度上激发了人们的崇敬之情。他用“史诗般的”这一词汇来形容这座建筑的独特气质，尽管他找不出更好的词来描述这种特质。
而在那些为在银行工作的女儿担心的母亲们眼中，它则像是一座特别阴森可怕的监狱。对于银行劫匪而言，也是同样的不可侵犯，甚至从未有过任何试图袭击它的迹象。
对于纽约市公共艺术协会而言，它现在被正式评为一座重要地标建筑。然而，直到1967年，它才从第二类地标——即具有重要地方或区域价值，应予以保存的结构——提升为第一类地标，这些是具有国家重要性并应不惜一切代价加以保护的建筑。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
To admirers of the debonair new Chase Manhattan bank across Liberty Street, which is notable for huge windows, bright colored tile walls, and stylish abstract expressionist paintings, it is an epitome of nineteenth-century heavy-footedness in bank architecture, even though it was actually completed in 1924. To an awestruck writer for the magazine Architecture in 1927, it seemed as inviolable as the rock of Gibraltar and no less inspiring of one's reverent obeisance, and possessed of a quality which, for lack of a better word, I can best describe as epic. To the mothers of young girls who work in it as secretaries or pages, it looks like a particularly sinister sort of prison. Bank robbers are apparently equally respectful of its inviolability, there has never been the slightest hint of an attempt on it. To the Municipal Arts Society of New York, which now rates it as a full-fledged landmark, it was until 1967 only a second-class landmark, being assigned to Category II, structures of great local or regional importance which should be preserved, rather than Category I, structures of national importance which should be preserved at all costs.
另一方面，它有一个无可争议的优势超过了Peti、Riccardi和Throzzi宫殿：它比它们都大。事实上，它是佛罗伦萨历史上最大的宫殿。纽约联邦储备银行不仅在目的和功能上，而且在外观上都与华尔街的其他银行有所不同。作为十二个区域联邦储备银行中最大和最重要的一个，它与位于华盛顿的联邦储备委员会和6200家成员商业银行共同组成了联邦储备系统，是美国中央银行机构的主要运营部门。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On the other hand, it has one indisputable edge on the Peti, Riccardi, and Throzzi palaces. It is bigger than any of them. In fact, it is a bigger Florentine palace than has ever stood in Florence. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is set apart from the other banks of Wall Street in purpose and function as well as in appearance. As by far the largest and most important of the twelve regional Federal Reserve banks, which together with the Federal Reserve Board in Washington and the 6200 commercial banks that are members make up the Federal Reserve System, it is the chief operating arm of the United States Central Banking Institution.
大多数其他国家只有一个中央银行，如英格兰银行、法国银行等，而不是一个银行网络，但所有国家的中央银行都有相同的双重目标。第一是通过调节货币供应量来保持国家货币的健康，其中一部分是调整借贷的难易程度，并在必要时捍卫其相对于其他国家货币的价值。为了实现这个目标，纽约银行与其母董事会和其下属的11家银行合作，定期调整多个货币控制机制，其中最显而易见的（但不一定是最重要的）是其向其他银行借贷的利率。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Most other countries have only one central bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of France, and so on, rather than a network of such banks, but the central banks of all countries have the same dual purpose. To keep the national currency in a healthy state by regulating its supply, partly through the degree of ease or difficulty with which it may be borrowed and when necessary to defend its value in relation to that of other national currencies. To accomplish the first objective, the New York Bank cooperates with its parent board and its eleven brother banks in periodically adjusting a number of monetary throttles, of which the most visible, although not necessarily most important, is the rate of interest at which it lends money to other banks.
至于第二个目标， 由于传统和地理位置的原因，纽约联邦储备银行作为美国联邦储备系统和美国财政部在与其他国家交往中的唯一代理。 因此，它肩负着保护美元的主要责任。在1968年的重大货币危机期间，这种责任尤为重大，并且实际上在此前的三年半里，捍卫美元有时也意味着保护其他货币。 纽约联邦储备银行被赋予维护国家利益的职责，事实上也没有其他目的。虽然明确地作为政府的一个机构，但它也同时在自由企业领域中运作。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
As to the second objective, by virtue of tradition and of its situation in the nations and the world's greatest financial center, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the sole agent of the Federal Reserve System and of the United States Treasury in dealings with other countries. Thus, on its shoulders, falls the chief responsibility for operations in defense of the dollar. Those responsibilities were weighing heavily during the great monetary crisis of 1968, and indeed, since the defense of the dollar sometimes involves the defense of other currencies as well over the preceding three and a half years. Charged as it is, with acting in the national interest, in fact having no other purpose, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, together with its brother banks, obviously is an arm of government, yet it has a foot in the free enterprise camp.
在某些人看来，这种模式颇具美国特色，明确地划分了政府与商业的界限。虽然它作为政府机构运作，但其股票由全国各地的成员银行私有，这些银行每年可以获得法律限定的6%的股息。尽管其高层官员宣誓效忠联邦，但他们并不是由美国总统，甚至不是由联邦储备委员会任命，而是由银行自己的董事会选举产生，其薪水也不是来自联邦财政，而是来自银行自身的收入。然而，这种收入尽管总能顺利获得，却完全是银行运作的附属品。如果收入超过了开支和股息，超额部分会自动上缴美国财政部。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In what some might call characteristic American fashion, it stands squarely ascribe the chalk line between government and business. Although it functions as a government agency, its stock is privately owned by the member banks throughout the country, to which it pays annual dividends, limited by law to six percent per year. Although its top officers take a federal oath, they are not appointed by the President of the United States, or even by the Federal Reserve Board, but are elected by the bank's own Board of Directors, and their salaries are paid not out of the Federal till, but out of the bank's own income. Yet that income, though happily always forthcoming, is entirely incidental to the bank's purpose, and if it rises above expenses and dividends the excess is automatically paid into the United States treasury.
在华尔街，一个认为利润是次要的银行几乎不常见，这种态度让联邦储备银行的人在社会上占据了独特的优势地位。因为他们的银行毕竟还是一家银行，而且是一家盈利的私人银行，他们不能被简单地视为政府官僚。相反，他们将目光坚定地投向资本的泥潭之上，这使他们有资格被称为华尔街银行业的智者，甚至可以说是贵族。在他们的管理之下，是黄金，仍然是所有货币名义上依赖的基础，尽管最近各种货币风暴的冲击让这个基石开始不安地动摇。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A bank that considers profits incidental is scarcely the norm in Wall Street, and this attitude puts Federal Reserve Bankmen in uniquely advantageous social position. Because their bank is a bank, after all, and a privately owned, profitable one at that, they can't be dismissed as mere government bureaucrats. Conversely, having their gaze fixed steadily above the mire of Capititi entitles them to be called the intellectuals, if not actually the aristocrats of Wall Street banking. Under them lies gold, still the bedrock on which all money nominally rests, though in recent times a bedrock that has been shuddering ominously under the force of various monetary earthquakes.
截至1968年3月，这些东西超过13000吨，价值超过130亿美元，占自由世界所有货币黄金的四分之一以上。这些黄金被存放在距离自由街（Liberty Street）地面76英尺、海平面以下50英尺的岩石上，位于一个地下金库中。如果不是一套抽水系统将原本流经梅登巷（Maiden Lane）的溪流引开，这个金库可能会被淹没。著名的19世纪英国经济学家沃尔特·巴杰特（Walter Badgett）曾告诉朋友，每当心情低落时，他喜欢去银行，把手浸在一堆英镑金币中，这样会让他振作起来。虽然到联邦储备银行的金库中看一看黄金是一种非常刺激的体验，但这些黄金不是以金币的形式存在，而是一块块暗淡发光、形状大小类似于建筑用砖的金条，即便是最有资格的访客也不被允许把手放进去。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
As of March 1968, more than 13,000 tons of the stuff, worth more than $13 billion, and amounting to more than a quarter of all the monetary gold in the free world, reposed on actual bedrock, 76 feet below Liberty Street level and 50 below sea level, in a vault that would be inundated if a system of sump pumps did not divert a stream that originally wandered through maiden lane. The famous 19th century British economist Walter Badgett once told a friend that when his spirits were low, it used to cheer him to go down to his bank and dabble my hand in a heap of sovereigns. Although it is to say the least, a stimulating experience to go down and look at the gold in the Federal Reserve Bank vault, which is in the form not of sovereigns but of dully, gleaming bars about the size and shape of building bricks, not even the best accredited visitor is allowed to dabble his hands in it.
首先，这些金条每根重约28磅，因此并不适合用来随意处理。此外，这些黄金并不属于美国联邦储备银行或美国本身。美国的黄金存放在肯塔基州的诺克斯堡、纽约金银鉴定所或者各地的铸币厂。存放在联邦储备银行的黄金属于大约70个其他国家，其中以欧洲国家为最大的存储国。它们认为将大部分黄金储备存放在这里非常方便。最初，大部分国家在二战期间将黄金存放于此以确保安全。战后，除了法国之外的欧洲国家不仅继续将黄金留在纽约，还随着经济复苏大幅增加了存储的数量。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
For one thing, the bars weigh about 28 pounds each and are therefore ill adapted to dabbling, and for another none of the gold belongs to either the Federal Reserve Bank or the United States. All United States gold is kept at Fort Knox at the New York Assay office, or at the various mints. The gold deposited at the Federal Reserve Bank belongs to some 70 other countries, the largest depositors being European, which find it convenient to store a good part of their gold reserves there. Originally, most of them put gold there for safe keeping during the Second World War. After the war, the European nations, with the exception of France, not only left it in New York but greatly increased its quantity as their economies recovered.
黄金是否代表像自由街的所有外国存款之类的东西？各种类型的投资将1968年3月的总额提升到超过280亿美元。作为大多数非共产主义国家中央银行的银行家，并作为代表世界主要货币的中央银行，纽约联邦储备银行无疑是世界货币的首要堡垒。凭借这一地位，它拥有洞察国际金融内情的能力，能够一眼发现潜在的货币问题或经济衰退的迹象。例如，如果英国在外汇交易中出现赤字，这将立即在纽约联邦储备银行的账目中反映出来，表现为英格兰银行余额的下降。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
What does the gold represent anything like all the foreign deposits at Liberty Street? Investments of various sorts brought the March 68 total to more than 28 billion. As a banker for most of the central banks of the non-communist world, and as the central bank representing the world's leading currency, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the undisputed chief citadel of world currency. By virtue of this position, it is afforded a kind of fluoroscopic vision of the insides of international finance, enabling it to detect at a glance an insipiently diseased currency here, a faltering economy there. If, for example, Great Britain is running a deficit in her foreign dealings, this instantly shows up in the Federal Reserve Bank's books in the form of a decline in the Bank of England's balance.
1964年秋天，正值一种衰退发生之际，这标志着由美国和美联储牵头的一些国家及其中央银行，开始了一场漫长、勇敢、有时刺激但最终失败的斗争，试图通过维护英镑的稳定来保护现有的世界金融秩序。宏伟的建筑有一个问题，那就是它们往往会使建筑内的人和活动显得渺小，而大多数时候，美联储银行可以被合理地视为一个地方，在那里通常无聊的人们处理着与其他银行相似的日常纸质文件。然而，自1964年以来，尽管那里发生的一些事件很难激发出敬畏之情，却有着某种史诗般的特质。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In the fall of 1964, precisely such a decline was occurring, and a mark the beginning of a long, gallant, intermittently hair-raising, in ultimately losing struggle by a number of countries and their central banks, led by the United States and the Federal Reserve, to safeguard the existing order of world finance by preserving the integrity of the pound sterling. One trouble with imposing buildings is that they have a tendency to belittle the people and activities they enclose, and most of the time it is reasonably accurate to think of the Federal Reserve Bank as a place where often bored people push around work a day's slips of paper, quite similar to those pushed around in other banks. But since 1964, some of the events there, if they have scarcely been capable of inspiring reverent obeisance, have had a certain epic quality.
1964年初，英国的迹象显示，其国际收支平衡--即她每年流出国境的钱大致与流入的钱相等--开始出现明显赤字。这种情况并非由于国内经济萧条引起，而是由于国内经济过度扩张。商业活动非常活跃，刚刚富裕起来的英国人从国外订购了大量昂贵商品，但英国商品的出口并未在同等程度上增长。简单来说，英国的消费超出了自身的承受能力。对于像美国这样相对自给自足的国家来说，大规模的收支赤字是令人担忧的。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Early in 1964, it began to be clear that Britain, which for several years, had maintained an approximate equilibrium in her international balance of payments, that is, the amount of money she had annually sent outside her borders, had been about equal to the amount she had taken in, was running a substantial deficit. Far from being the result of domestic depression in Britain, this situation was the result of over-exuberant domestic expansion. Business was booming, and newly affluent Britons were ordering bales and bales of costly goods from abroad, without increasing the exports of British goods on anything like the same scale. In short, Britain was living beyond her means. A substantial balance of payments deficit is a worry to a relatively self-sufficient country like the United States.
确实，美国当时正面临着这样的担忧，并且这种担忧将持续多年。但对于像英国这样一个贸易国家来说，其经济约四分之一依赖于外贸，这是一种严重的威胁。这一情况引起了美国联邦储备银行的日益关注，而关注的焦点是位于银行第十楼的办公室——由负责外汇业务的副行长查尔斯·A·库姆斯领导的办公室。整个夏天，监测结果显示英镑不断走弱，情况每况愈下。从外汇部门的研究科，库姆斯每天都收到报告，显示大量资金正从英国流出。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Indeed, the United States was having that very worry at that very time, and it would for years to come. But to a trading nation like Britain, about a quarter of whose entire economy is dependent on foreign trade, it constitutes a grave danger. The situation was cause for growing concern at the Federal Reserve Bank, and the focal point of the concern was the office on the tenth floor of Charles A. Coombs, the Bank's Vice President in charge of foreign operations. All summer long, the fluoroscope showed a sick and worsening pound sterling. From the research section of the foreign department, Coombs daily got reports that a torrent of money was leaving Britain.
从地下传来消息，英国储物柜里的金条数量明显在减少。这并不是因为金库里发生了什么不当行为，而是因为许多金条被转移到了其他储物柜，用于清偿英国的国际债务。每天几乎每天下午，从位于七楼的外汇交易桌上传来消息说，当天英镑对美元的公开市场汇率再次下跌。在七月和八月间，汇率从2.79美元跌至2.78美元91，再到2.78美元75，情况非常严峻，以至于通常亲自处理外汇事务的库姆斯，不再只向上级做例行汇报，而是频繁与他的上司——一位身材高大、冷静沉着、说话温和的联邦储备银行行长阿尔弗雷德·海耶斯商议此事。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
From underground, word rose that the pile of gold bars in the locker assigned to Britain was shrinking appreciably. Not through any foul play in the vault, but because so many of the bars were being transferred to other lockers in settlement of Britain's international debts. From the foreign exchange trading desk on the seventh floor, the news almost every afternoon was that the open market quotations on the pound in terms of dollars had sunk again that day. During July and August, as the quotation dropped from $2.79 to $2.78.91, and then to $2.78.75, 100 of a cent, the situation was regarded on Liberty Street as so serious that Coombs, who would normally handle foreign exchange matters himself, only making routine reports to those higher up, was constantly conferring about it with his boss, the Federal Reserve Bank's President, a tall, cool, soft-spoken man named Alfred Hayes.
这其实是一个相当复杂的问题，尽管它看起来可能很简单。国际金融交易的实际运作与私人国内交易基本相同。一个国家的经济困扰，就像一个家庭的经济烦恼，是因为钱流出太多而流入不足。向英国出售商品的外国卖家无法在自己的国家使用收到的英镑，因此他们需要将英镑兑换成自己的货币。他们通过在外汇市场上出售英镑来实现这一点，这类似于在证券交易所出售证券。英镑的市场价格会随着供求关系而波动，其他所有货币的价格也是如此。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
It is a finely complex though it may appear. What actually happens in international financial dealings is essentially what happens in private domestic transactions. The money worries of a nation, like those of a family, are the consequence of having too much money go out and not enough come in. The foreign sellers of goods to Britain cannot spend the pounds they are paid in their own countries, and therefore they convert them into their own currencies. This they do by selling the pounds in the foreign exchange markets, just as if they were selling securities on a stock exchange. The market price of the pound fluctuates in response to supply and demand, and so do the prices of all other currencies.
除了美元这个货币体系中的"太阳"之外，自1934年以来，美国一直承诺以每盎司35美元的固定价格向任何愿意的国家提供美元兑换任何数量的黄金。在出售压力下，英镑的价格会下跌，但其波动幅度受到严格限制。市场力量的影响不允许将价格拉低或抬高到比英镑面值超过几美分的程度。如果这种剧烈波动不受控制，全球与英国进行贸易的银行家和商人将不得不无奈地参与一场类似轮盘赌的游戏，他们可能会倾向于停止与英国的贸易。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
All that is except the dollar, the sun in the planetary system of currencies, in as much as the United States has since 1934 stood pledged to exchange gold in any quantity for dollars at the pleasure of any nation at the fixed price of thirty-five dollars per ounce. Under the pressure of selling, the price of the pound goes down, but its fluctuations are severely restricted. The influence of market forces cannot be allowed to lower or raise the price more than a couple of cents below or above the pound's par value. If such wild swings should occur unchecked, bankers and businessmen everywhere who traded with Britain would find themselves involuntarily engaged in a kind of roulette game, and would be inclined to stop trading with Britain.
根据1944年在新罕布什尔州布雷顿森林会议上达成并在之后的多个地点进一步阐述的国际货币规则，1964年的英镑名义价值为2.80美元，只允许在2.78美元到2.82美元之间波动。而负责实施这一供需规律限制的机构是英格兰银行。在市场运行正常的日子里，英镑的汇率可能被报为2.79美元加上91美分，这比前一天的收盘价上涨了1/1500美分。1/1500美分听起来不多，但对于通常是国际货币交易基本单位的百万美元来说，这相当于1500美元。在这种情况下，英格兰银行无需采取任何行动。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Accordingly, under international monetary rules agreed upon at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in 1944, and elaborated at various other places at later times, the pound in 1964, nominally valued at $2.80, was allowed to fluctuate, only between $2.78 and $2.82, and the enforcer of the subridgment of the law of supply and demand was the Bank of England. On a day when things were going smoothly, the pound might be quoted on the exchange markets at, say, $2.79 and $91.00 of a cent, a rise of 1,500 cents of a cent from the previous day's closing. 1,500th of a cent doesn't sound like much, but on around million dollars, which is generally the basic unit in international monetary dealings, it amounts to $1,500. When that happened, the Bank of England needed to do nothing.
然而，英镑在市场上表现强势，升至2.82美元，这在1964年完全没有出现过这样的趋势。英国央行承诺，如果英镑达到这个价格，将非常乐意用黄金或美元来兑换英镑，以此防止价格进一步上涨，同时增加自身的黄金和美元储备，这些储备是英镑的支撑。然而，另一种更现实的情况是，如果英镑走弱，跌至2.78美元时，英国央行有责任干预市场，动用黄金或美元购买所有以这个价格出售的英镑，即便这可能会大幅削减其自身的储备。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
With however, the pound was strong in the markets and rose to $2.82, something it showed absolutely no tendency to do in 1964, the Bank of England was pledged to, and would have been very happy to, except gold or dollars in exchange for pounds at that price, thereby preventing a further increase in the price, and at the same time increasing its own reserve of gold and dollars, which serve as the pound's backing. If, on the other hand, in this was a more realistic hypothesis, the pound was weak, and sank to $2.78, the Bank of England's sworn duty was to intervene in the market and buy with gold or dollars all pounds offered for sale at that price, however deeply this might have cut into its own reserves.
因此，像挥霍无度家庭的父亲一样，挥霍无度国家的中央银行最终也被迫用资本来支付账单。然而，在货币严重疲软时期，中央银行损失的储备比预期的还要多，因为市场心理的变化影响更大。为了保护资本和利润，谨慎的进出口商尽量减少他们持有英镑的数量和时间。善于捕捉市场弱点的货币投机者则对下跌的英镑进行大量抛售，期待在进一步下跌中获利，而英格兰银行不得不吸收这些投机卖盘和正常的卖盘。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Thus, the central bank of a spendthrift country, like the father of a spendthrift family, is eventually forced to pay the bills out of capital. But in times of serious currency weakness, the central bank loses even more of its reserves than this would suggest because of the vagaries of market psychology. Prudent importers and exporters seeking to protect their capital and profits reduced to a minimum the sum they hold in pounds and the length of time they hold it. Currency speculators, whose noses have been trained to sniff out weakness, pounce on a falling pound, and make enormous short sales, in the expectation of turning a profit on a further drop, and the Bank of England must absorb the speculative sales along with the straightforward ones.
持续的货币疲软最终可能导致的后果，其影响可能远比家庭破产更加严重。这就是货币贬值，关键世界货币如英镑的贬值，是所有中央银行家们的反复噩梦，无论是在伦敦、纽约、法兰克福、苏黎世还是东京。如果有一天，英国的外汇储备消耗如此巨大，以至于英格兰银行无法或不愿履行其将英镑维持在2.78美元的义务，那么必然结果就是贬值。也就是说，原先2.78到2.82美元之间的限制将会被突然废除。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The ultimate consequence of unchecked currency weakness is something that may be incomparably more disastrous in its effects than family bankruptcy. This is devaluation, and devaluation of a key world currency like the pound is the recurrent nightmare of all central bankers, whether in London, New York, Frankfurt, Zurich, or Tokyo. If at any time the drain on Britain's reserves became so great that the Bank of England was unable, or unwilling, to fulfill its obligation to maintain the pound at $2.78, the necessary result would be devaluation. That is, the $2.78 to $2.82 limitation would be abruptly abrogated.
通过简单的政府法令，英镑的汇率价值将被降低到一个较低的水平，并围绕这个新的平价建立一套新的限制。危险的核心在于后续可能出现的混乱局面，这种混乱不仅限于英国。货币贬值作为振兴疲弱货币的最猛烈和最危险的手段，理应受到警惕。因为贬值使该国商品对他国来说更便宜，从而促进出口，减少或消除国际收支赤字。但与此同时，贬值会导致进口商品和本国商品在国内变得更昂贵，从而降低该国的生活水平。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
By simple government decree, the power value of the pound would be reduced to some lower figure, and a new set of limits established around the new parity. The heart of the danger was the possibility that what followed might be chaos not confined to Britain. Devaluation, as the most heroic and most dangerous of remedies for a sick currency, is rightly feared. By making the devaluing country's goods cheaper to others, it boosts exports, and thus reduces or eliminates a deficit in international accounts, but at the same time it makes both imports and domestic goods more expensive at home, and thus reduces the country's standard of living.
这是一种激进的措施，通过牺牲病人的部分力量和健康来治愈疾病，而且在许多情况下，还会影响到他们的自尊心和声望。更糟糕的是，如果被贬值的货币像英镑一样在国际交易中被广泛使用，那么这种病症，或者更准确地说，这种疗法，很可能会具有传染性。对于那些在储备中持有大量这种货币的国家来说，货币贬值的影响就像他们的金库被盗一样。这些国家以及其他国家，由于贬值后的贸易劣势，可能被迫进行本国货币的竞争性贬值。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
It is radical surgery, curing a disease at the expense of some of the patient's strength and well-being, and in many cases, some of his pride and prestige as well. Worst of all, if the devalued currency is one that, like the pound, is widely used in international dealings, the disease, or more precisely the cure, is likely to prove contagious. To nations holding large amounts of that particular currency in their reserve vaults, the effects of the devaluation is the same as if the vaults had been burglarized. Such nations and others, finding themselves at an unacceptable trading disadvantage as a result of the devaluation, may have to resort to competitive devaluation of their own currencies.
恶性循环逐渐显现。有关进一步贬值的传言不绝于耳。人们对外币的信心丧失，导致跨国交易的意愿下降。国际贸易逐渐萎缩，而这正是全球数亿人赖以生存的基础。类似的灾难曾经发生在1931年，当时英镑脱离旧的金本位，这一事件被普遍认为是导致全球30年代大萧条的主要原因之一。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A downward spiral develops. Rumors of further devaluations are constantly in the wind. The loss of confidence in other people's money leads to a disinclination to do business across national borders. An international trade, upon which depend the food and shelter of hundreds of millions of people around the world, tends to decline. Just such a disaster followed the classic devaluation of all time, the departure of the pound from the old gold standard in 1931, an event that is still generally considered a major cause of the worldwide depression of the 30s.
这个过程对于国际货币基金组织（IMF）成员国来说，都大致相似。这一组织起源于布雷顿森林会议。对于任何一个国家来说，有利的国际收支平衡意味着该国的中央银行会直接或间接积累美元，而这些美元可以自由兑换成黄金。如果一个国家的货币需求量足够大，可以上调其货币价值，这与货币贬值相反，比如德国和荷兰在1961年所做的那样。相反，如果国际收支不利，就会启动一系列可能最终导致货币被迫贬值的事件。货币贬值对世界贸易的影响程度取决于该货币在国际上的重要性。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The process works similarly in respect to the currencies of all the hundred odd countries that are members of the International Monetary Fund, an organization that originated at Bretton Woods. For any country, a favorable balance of payments means an accumulation of dollars, either directly or indirectly, which are freely convertible into gold, in the country's central bank. If the demand for its currency is great enough, the country may re-value it upward, the reverse of a devaluation, as both Germany and the Netherlands did in 1961. Conversely, an unfavorable balance of payments starts the sequence of events that may end in forced devaluation. The degree of disruption of world trade that devaluation of a currency causes depends on that currency's international importance.
1966年6月，印度卢比大幅贬值，这对印度来说是个严重的问题，但在国际市场上几乎没有引起波澜。总结一下这个复杂游戏的规则，虽然每个人无意中都是这个游戏的参与者，但即便是统领全球的美元也无法免受不利的国际收支或投机的影响。由于美元与黄金挂钩，它成为了所有其他货币的标准，因此其价格不会在市场上波动。然而，它也可能会遭受一种不太明显但同样令人担忧的弱化。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A large devaluation of the Indian rupee, in June 1966, although it was a serious matter to India, created scarcely a ripple in the international markets. And, to round out this brief outline of the rules of an intricate game, of which everybody, everywhere, is an inadvertent player, even the lordly dollar is far from immune to the effects of an unfavorable balance of payments or speculation. Because of the dollar's pledged relation to gold, it serves as the standard for all other currencies, so its price does not fluctuate in the markets. However, it can suffer weakness of a less visible but equally ominous sort.
当美国向外支付的资金明显多于其收入时，不论是用于进口、对外援助、投资、贷款、旅游开支还是军事费用，这些资金的接收方通常会用新获得的美元去购买他们自己的货币，从而提升了其货币兑美元的价格。这一价格的上升使得这些国家的中央银行能够吸收更多的美元，然后再用这些美元向美国购买黄金。因此，当美元疲软时，美国就会损失黄金。法国就是这样一个例子，其货币坚挺，对美元没有特别的偏好。就在1966年秋季之前的几年里，法国每个月都定期要求从美国提取3000万美元或更多的黄金。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
When the United States sends out substantially more money, whether payment for imports, foreign aid, investments, loans, tourist expenses, or military costs, than it takes in, the recipients freely buy their own currencies with the newly acquired dollars, thereby raising the dollar prices of their own currencies. The rise in price enables their central banks to take in still more dollars, which they can sell back to the United States for gold. Thus, when the dollar is weak, the United States loses gold. France alone, a country with a strong currency and no particular official love of the dollar, required $30 million or more in United States gold regularly, every month for several years prior to the autumn of 1966.
在1958年，美国开始在国际收支账户上出现严重赤字，直到1968年3月中旬，我们的黄金储备减少了一半，从228亿美元降到了114亿美元。如果储备降到一个不可接受的低水平，美国将被迫违背承诺，降低美元的黄金价值，甚至可能完全停止出售黄金。无论采取哪种行动，实际上都是一种贬值。由于美元的主导地位，这种贬值会比英镑贬值对全球货币秩序造成更大的破坏。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And between 1958, when the United States began running a serious deficit in its international accounts, and the middle of March 1968, our gold reserve was halved, from $22,800 million to $11,400 million. If the reserve ever dropped to an unacceptably low level, the United States would be forced to break its word and lower the gold value of the dollar, or even to stop selling gold entirely. Either action would, in effect, be a devaluation, the one devaluation, because of the dollar's preeminent position that would be more disruptive to world monetary order than a devaluation of the pound.
佩伊斯和库姆斯都没有亲身经历过1931年的银行事件，因为他们当时都还太年轻。然而，他们在国际银行研究方面非常勤奋和敏锐，就仿佛亲历过这些事件一样。1964年炎热的夏天，他们几乎每天都要通过越洋电话与英国的同行保持联系。其中包括当时的英格兰银行行长克罗默伯爵和行长的外汇顾问罗伊·A·O·布里奇。他们通过这些对话和其他渠道了解到，英国国际账目不平衡远不是问题的全部。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Pays and Coombs, neither of whom is old enough to have experienced the events of 1931 at first hand as a banker, but both of whom are such diligent and sensitive students of international banking that they might as well have done so, found that, as the hot days of 1964 dragged on, they had occasion to be in almost daily contact by transatlantic telephone with their bank of English counterparts, the Earl of Cromer, Governor of the Bank at that time, in Roy A. O. Bridge, the Governor's Advisor on Foreign Exchange. It became clear to them, from these conversations, and from other sources, that the imbalance in Britain's international accounts was far from the whole trouble.
对英镑稳健性的信心危机正在酝酿，其主要原因似乎是英国保守党政府在10月15日面临的选举。国际金融市场最害怕和讨厌的就是不确定性。任何选举都代表着不确定性，因此在英国大选前夕，英镑总会变得不稳定。然而，对那些从事货币交易的人来说，这次选举显得格外可怕，因为他们对可能上台的工党政府的性质有一定估计。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A crisis of confidence in the soundness of the pound was developing, in the main cause of it seemed to be the election that Britain's conservative government was facing on October 15th. The one thing that international financial markets hate and fear above all others is uncertainty. Any election represents uncertainty, so the pound always has the jitters just before Britain's go to the polls, but to the people who deal in currencies, this election looked particularly menacing, because of their estimate of the character of the Labour government that might come into power.
伦敦的保守派金融家，以及欧洲大陆的金融家，都对工党领袖哈罗德·威尔逊成为首相候选人抱有几乎不理智的怀疑。而且，威尔逊的一些经济顾问在之前的理论著作中明确赞扬了英镑贬值的好处。最后，人们很自然地联想到，上一次英国工党执政期显著的事件之一就是1949年的英镑贬值，当时汇率从4.03美元降到了2.80美元。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The conservative financiers of London, not to mention those of continental Europe, looked with almost irrational suspicion on Harold Wilson, the Labour choice for Prime Minister. Further, some of Mr. Wilson's economic advisors had explicitly extolled the virtues of devaluation of the pound in their earlier theoretical writings. And finally, there was an all-too-pat analogy to be drawn from the fact that the last previous term of the British Labour Party in power had been conspicuously marked in 1949 by devaluation of sterling from the rate of $4.03 to $2.80.
在这种情况下，几乎全球所有货币市场的交易者——无论是普通的国际商人还是彻头彻尾的货币投机者——都急于抛售英镑，至少要等到选举之后再说。像所有投机性攻击一样，这次攻击也是循环自增的。英镑价格每小幅下跌一次，就会导致信心进一步下降，价格也随之跌跌不休。在国际市场上，英镑的价格下跌出现在一种奇特的分散交易中，这种交易并非在某个中央大楼内进行，而是通过电话和电报在全球主要城市的银行交易桌之间展开的。同时，英国储备也不断减少，因为英格兰银行正在努力支撑英镑。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In these circumstances, almost all the dealers in the world money markets, whether they were ordinary international businessmen or out-and-out currency speculators, were anxious to get rid of pounds, at least until after the election. Like all speculative attacks, this one fed on itself. Each small drop in the pound's price resulted in further loss of confidence, and down. Down went the pound in the international markets, in oddly diffused sort of exchange, which does not operate in any central building but rather is conducted by telephone and cable between the trading desks of banks in the world's major cities. Simultaneously, down down went British reserves, as the Bank of England struggled to support the pound.
9月初，海耶斯前往东京参加国际货币基金组织的年度会议。在会议大厅里，基金的成员们聚集在一起。他听到一位又一位欧洲央行行长对英国经济状况和英镑前景表示担忧。他们相互询问，为什么英国政府不采取措施控制国内支出并改善国际收支？为什么不提高英格兰银行的贷款利率，即目前的5%银行利率呢？因为这样做不仅能够抑制国内通货膨胀，还能吸引其他金融中心的投资资金流向伦敦，从而使英镑立于更稳固的基础上。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Early in September, Hayes went to Tokyo for the annual meeting of the members of the International Monetary Fund. In the corridors of the building were participants in the fund met. He heard one European central banker after another express misgivings about the state of the British economy and the outlook for the British currency. Why didn't the British government take steps at home to check its outlay and to improve the balance of payments they asked each other? Why didn't it raise the Bank of England's lending rate? The so-called bank rate, from its current 5%, since this move would have the effect of raising British interest rates all up and down the line, and would thus serve the double purpose of damping down domestic inflation and attracting investment dollars to London from other financial centers, with the result that sterling would gain a sound or footing.
毫无疑问，大陆银行家们也向在东京的英格兰银行职员提出了类似的问题。无论如何，英格兰银行的职员和英国财政部的同事们并没有忽视这一问题。但是，所提议的措施无疑会受到英国选民的反对，因为这些措施无疑是紧缩政策的预兆。而保守党政府和许多之前的政府一样，因对即将来临的选举的恐惧而显得无所作为。因此，他们什么也没做。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Doubtless the Continental Bankers also put such questions to the Bank of England men in Tokyo. In any event, the Bank of England men and their counterparts in the British Exchequer had not failed to put the questions to themselves, but the proposed measures would certainly be unpopular with the British electorate, as unmistakable harbingers of austerity, and the conservative government, like many governments before it, appeared to be paralyzed by fear of the imminent election. So it did nothing.
以纯粹的货币方式来说，英国在9月份确实采取了防御措施。英国央行（英格兰银行）多年来一直与美国联邦储备系统有一个长期协议，允许任意一方随时无需繁琐手续向对方短期借贷5亿美元。现在，英格兰银行使用了这笔备用贷款，并安排从多个欧洲中央银行和加拿大银行再借入5亿美元的短期信贷。这总共10亿美元，加上英国最后的约26亿美元的黄金和美元储备，构成了一笔可观的“弹药”储备。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In a strictly monetary way, however, Britain did take defensive measures during September. The Bank of England had, for several years, had a standing agreement with the Federal Reserve that either institution could borrow $500 million from the other over a short term at any time with virtually no formalities. Now the Bank of England accepted this standby loan and made arrangements to supplement it with another $500 million in short-term credit from various European central banks and the Bank of Canada. This total of a billion dollars, together with Britain's last ditch reserves in gold and dollars, amounting to about $2,600 million, constituted a sizable store of ammunition.
如果投机者对英镑的攻击持续或加剧，英格兰银行将通过在自由市场上用美元投资英镑来进行反击，很可能迫使攻击者败退。果不其然，劳工党在十月选举中获胜后，攻击确实加剧了。新成立的英国政府一开始就意识到面临着严重的危机，必须立即采取果断措施。据说，新当选的首相和他的财经顾问们，经济事务国务秘书乔治·布朗以及财政大臣詹姆斯·卡拉汉，曾认真考虑立即将英镑贬值。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
If the speculative assault on the pound should continue or intensify, answering fire would come from the Bank of England in the form of dollar investments in sterling made on the battlefield of the free market, and presumably the attackers would be put to route. As might have been expected, the assault did intensify after labor came out the victor in the October election. The new British government realized at the outset that it was faced with a grave crisis, and that immediate and drastic action was in order. It has since been said that summary devaluation of the pound was seriously considered by the newly elected Prime Minister and his advisors on finance, George Brown, Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, and James Callahan, Chancellor of the Exchequer.
这个想法最终被拒绝了，而他们在十月和十一月初实际采取的措施是对英国进口商品征收15%的紧急附加税，实际上是全面提高了关税，还提高了燃油税，并加强了新的资本利得税和公司税。这些当然是通缩和加强货币的措施，但全球市场并未因此感到放心。新的税收政策的具体性质让许多金融家感到不安甚至愤怒，无论是在英国还是其他国家，特别是考虑到在新预算下，英国政府的开支和福利待遇实际上是要增加而不是像通缩政策一般要求的那样削减。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The idea was rejected, though, and the measures they actually took in October and early November were 15 percent emergency surcharge on British imports, in effect a blanket raising of tariffs, an increased fuel tax, and stiff new capital gains and corporation taxes. These were deflationary, currency strengthening measures to be sure, but the world markets were not reassured. The specific nature of the new taxes seems to have disconcerted and even enraged many financiers, in and out of Britain, particularly in view of the fact that under the new budget British government spending and welfare benefits was actually to be increased rather than cut back as deflationary policy would normally require.
可以这样翻译成中文：
总之，在选举后的几周里，卖家，或市场术语中的"空头"，继续控制英镑市场，而英格兰银行则忙于用其借来的十亿美元武器库中的珍贵弹药来打击这些空头。到十月底，近一半的资金已经耗尽，而空头们依然不可阻挡地逐渐侵蚀着英镑，一次推进一百分之一美分。位于自由街的海斯、库姆斯及其外汇部门的同事们，怀着越来越大的焦虑，看着这一情况，他们和英国人一样感到恼火，因为一个中央银行在捍卫其货币不受攻击时，只能非常模糊地知道攻击来自哪里。投机本质上是外贸的一部分，因此几乎无法隔离、识别甚至定义。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
One way and another then, the sellers or bears in market jargon, continued to be in charge of the market for the pound in the weeks after the election, and the Bank of England was kept busy potting away at them with precious shells from its borrowed billion dollar arsenal. By the end of October nearly half the billion was gone, and the bears were still inexorably advancing on the pound, a hundredth of a cent at a time. Hayes, Coombs, and their foreign department colleagues on Liberty Street, watching with mounting anxiety, were as galled as the British by the fact that a central bank defending its currency against attack can have only the vagest idea of where the attack is coming from. Speculation is inherent in foreign trade, and by its nature is almost impossible to isolate, identify, or even define.
投机有不同程度，这个词本身就像自私或贪婪一样，带有一种判断的意味。然而，每一次货币交换都可能被视作对所购入货币的投机行为，而对所卖出货币的不利行为。在这个范围的其中一端，是完全合法的商业交易，但这些交易具有特定的投机效应。比如，一个英国进口商在订购美国商品时，可以合法地提前用英镑支付。如果他这么做，那他是在对英镑进行投机。同样地，一个美国进口商与英国达成的合同规定以英镑结算，那么他可以合法地要求推迟购买完成支付所需的英镑。他也是在对英镑进行投机。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
There are degrees of speculation, the word itself like selfishness or greed denotes a judgment, and yet every exchange of currencies might be cold a speculation in favor of the currency being acquired and against the one being disposed of. At one end of the scale are perfectly legitimate business transactions that have specific speculative effects. A British importer, ordering American merchandise, may legitimately pay up in pounds in advance of delivery. If he does, he is speculating against the pound. An American importer, who was contracted to pay for British goods at a price set in pounds, may legitimately insist that his purchase of the pounds he needs to settle his debt be deferred for a certain period. He too is speculating against the pound.
这些被称为“预付款”和“滞付款”的常见商业操作，对英国的重要性是惊人的。这可以通过以下事实看出：如果在正常情况下，全世界的英国商品买家都推迟支付货款的时间仅仅两个月半，英格兰银行的黄金和美元储备将会消失。在另一方面，有些金融交易者借入英镑，然后将其兑换成美元。这类交易者与其说是在保护商业利益，不如说是在进行一种彻头彻尾的投机行为，称为“卖空”。他们希望随后能以更便宜的价格回购所欠的英镑，企图通过预期的英镑贬值获利。由于当前国际货币市场的低佣金率，这种操作成为全球最具吸引力的高风险赌博方式之一。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The staggering importance to Britain of these common commercial operations, which are called leads and lags, respectively, is shown by the fact that if, in normal times, the world's buyers of British goods were all to withhold their payments for a short a period as two and a half months, the Bank of England's gold and dollar reserves would vanish. At the other end of the scale is the dealer in money who borrows pounds and then converts the loan into dollars. Such a dealer, instead of merely protecting his business interests, is engaging in an out-and-out speculative move called a short sale. Hoping to buy back the pounds he owes more cheaply later on, he is simply trying to make a profit on the decrease in value he anticipates and, what with the low commissions prevailing in the international money market, the maneuver provides one of the world's most attractive forms of high-stakes gambling.
这种形式的赌博，尽管实际上它对英镑危机的影响可能远不如紧张的进出口商所采取的自我保护措施大，却被广泛归咎于1964年10月至11月英镑所有的问题。尤其是在英国议会中，人们愤怒地提到苏黎世的投机活动。之所以特别指出苏黎世，是因为瑞士的银行法律最初保护储户匿名，使其成为国际银行业的“盲区”，因此，许多来自世界各地的货币投机活动都通过苏黎世进行。此外，货币投机还有低佣金和匿名性之外的另一个吸引力。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Gambling of this sort, although in fact it probably contributed far less to the sterling crisis than the self-protective measures taken by nervous importers and exporters, was being widely blamed for all the pound's troubles of October and November 1964. Particularly in the British Parliament, there were angry references to speculative activity by the gnomes of Zurich. Zurich being singled out because Switzerland, whose banking laws originally protect the anonymity of depositors, is the blind pig of international banking, and, consequently, much currency speculation, originating in many parts of the world, is funneled through Zurich. Besides low commissions and anonymity, currency speculation has another attraction.
由于时差和良好的电话服务，世界金融市场几乎从不关闭，这与股票交易所、赛马场和赌场不同。伦敦开市时间比欧洲大陆晚一个小时，直到1968年2月，英国才采用欧洲大陆时间。纽约比那再晚5个小时，现在是6个小时。旧金山再晚3个小时。而东京差不多在旧金山收市的时候开始运作。如果没有睡眠的需要或者缺乏资金，任何一个真正痴迷于市场运作的人都可以不停地操作。一位苏黎世的著名银行家后来声称，击垮英镑的不是苏黎世的地精，但却也不至于说苏黎世没有地精。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Thanks to time deferential and good telephone service, the world money market, unlike stock exchanges, racetracks, and gambling casinos, practically never closes. London opens an hour after the continent, or did until February 1968, when Britain adopted continental time. New York 5, now 6 hours after that. San Francisco, 3 hours after that. And then Tokyo gets underway about the time San Francisco closes. Only a need for sleep, or lack of money, need hope the operations of a really hopelessly addicted plunger anywhere. It was not the gnomes of Zurich who were beating down the pound, a leading Zurich banker subsequently maintained, stopping short of claiming that there were no gnomes there.
尽管如此，有组织的卖空行为（交易者称之为“空头袭击”）确实在进行中，而伦敦的英镑捍卫者和他们在纽约的支持者都非常想揭晓这些看不见的敌人。当时的氛围就是如此，于是在11月7日那个周末开始的时候，全球的主要央行行长们齐聚瑞士巴塞尔，进行他们的定期月度会议。自从上世纪30年代以来（除了二战期间），这样的聚会一直定期举办，主要是因为国际清算银行董事会的月度会议。这个银行于1930年在巴塞尔成立，最初是为了作为处理第一次世界大战后赔款支付的一个清算所。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Nonetheless, organized short selling, what traders call a bear raid was certainly in progress, and the defenders of the pound in London and their sympathizers in New York would have given plenty to catch a glimpse of the invisible enemy. It was in this atmosphere, then, that on the weekend beginning November 7th, the leading central bankers of the world held their regular monthly gathering in Basel, Switzerland. The occasion for such gatherings, which have been held regularly since the 1930s, except during the Second World War, is the monthly meeting of the board of directors of the Bank for International Settlements, which was established in Basel in 1930, primarily as a clearinghouse for the handling of reparations payments arising out of the First World War.
但如今，它已成为一个国际货币合作的组织，同时也是一个中央银行家的俱乐部。然而，与国际货币基金组织相比，它在资源方面受到更大的限制，成员资格也更为严格。就像其他独家俱乐部一样，它常常成为重大决策的场所。其董事会成员有英国、法国、西德、意大利、比利时、荷兰、瑞典和瑞士，简而言之，就是西欧的经济强国。美国是这个俱乐部的常驻嘉宾，每月都会参加，而加拿大和日本则是较少光顾的客人。美联储几乎总是派出coums，有时也派haze及其他纽约官员出席。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
But has come to serve as an agency of international monetary cooperation, and incidentally, a kind of central bankers' club? As such, it is considerably more limited in resources and restricted as to membership than the International Monetary Fund, but like other exclusive clubs, it is often the scene of great decisions. Represented on its board of directors are Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, in short the economic powers of Western Europe, while the United States is a regular monthly guest whose presence is counted on, and Canada and Japan are less frequent visitors. The Federal Reserve is almost always represented by coums, and sometimes by haze, and other New York officers as well.
从本质上讲，各国央行的利益是冲突的。它们彼此对立，几乎就像扑克游戏中的玩家。然而，考虑到以金钱为根源的国际问题的历史几乎与个人之间因类似因素引起的纠纷一样悠久，国际货币合作的出现其实是非常令人惊讶的，因为这样的合作在第一次世界大战之前几乎是不存在的。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In the nature of things, the interests of the different central banks conflict. Their faces are set against each other, almost as if they were players in a poker game. Even so, in view of the fact that international troubles with money at their root have almost as long a history as similarly caused troubles between individuals, the most surprising thing about international monetary cooperation is that it is so new. Through all the ages prior to the First World War, it cannot be said to have existed at all.
在20世纪20年代，这种联系主要通过个别中央银行家之间的密切私人关系来维系，往往是政府不太关心的情况下维持的。在官方层面上，通过国际联盟的金融委员会，这种联系起步缓慢，该委员会旨在鼓励联合作以防止金融灾难。1931年英镑崩溃及其后果是委员会失败的明确证明。但更好的日子即将到来。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In the 1920s, it existed chiefly through close personal ties between individual central bankers, often maintained in spite of the indifference of their governments. On an official level, it got off to a halting start, through the Financial Committee of the League of Nations, which was supposed to encourage joint action to prevent monetary catastrophes. The sterling collapse of 1931 and its grim sequel were ample proof of the Committee's failure. But better days were ahead.
1944年在布雷顿森林召开的国际金融会议，不仅促成了国际货币基金组织的成立，还建立了战后货币规则体系，旨在帮助确立和维持固定汇率。同时，也促成了世界银行的成立，旨在促进资金从富裕国家流向贫困或战后受创国家。该会议在经济合作方面具有重要意义，可与联合国在政治事务中的作用相比。即便是会议的一个成果，也在1956年苏伊士运河事件期间，通过国际货币基金组织向英国提供了超过十亿美元的信贷，避免了当时一场重大的国际金融危机。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The 1944 International Financial Conference, at Bretton Woods, out of which emerged not only the International Monetary Fund, but also the whole structure of postwar monetary rules designed to help establish and maintain fixed exchange rates, as well as the World Bank, designed to ease the flow of money from rich countries to poor or war-devastated ones, stands as a milestone in economic cooperation comparable to the formation of the United Nations and political affairs. Despite just one of the conference's fruits, a credit of more than a billion dollars extended to Britain by the International Monetary Fund during the Suez Affair in 1956, prevented a major international financial crisis then.
在接下来的几年里，经济变化像其他变化一样，往往来得越来越快。1958年后，货币危机几乎是一夜之间出现，而受制于缓慢运作机制的国际货币基金组织有时显得难以单独应对这些危机。于是，新合作精神再次应运而生，这次是由最富有的国家——美国率先带头。从1961年起，美国联邦储备银行在得到联邦储备委员会和华盛顿财政部的批准后，与其他主要央行一起建立了一个随时可用的循环信贷体系，后来这个体系被称为“掉期网络”（SWAP Network）。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In subsequent years, economic changes, like other changes, tended to come more and more quickly. After 1958, monetary crises began springing up virtually overnight, and the International Monetary Fund, which is hindered by slow-moving machinery, sometimes proved inadequate to meet such crises alone. Again, the new spirit of cooperation rose to the occasion, this time with the richest of nations the United States taking the lead. Starting in 1961, the Federal Reserve Bank, with the approval of the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury in Washington, joined the other leading central banks in setting up a system of ever-ready revolving credits, which soon came to be called the SWAP Network.
该网络的目的是补充国际货币基金组织的长期信贷设施，允许各国央行即时获得短期所需资金，以便迅速果断地维护本国货币的稳定。其成效很快得到了验证。从1961年启动至1964年秋，该交换网络在至少三种货币遭受突如其来的激烈投机攻击时发挥了重要作用。1961年底的英镑、1961年6月的加拿大元以及1964年3月的意大利里拉都是这样。到1964年秋，交换协议（在法国被称为La Córde SWAP，在德国被称为Dichwap Fairfoot Tongin）已成为国际货币合作的基石。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The purpose of the network was to complement the International Monetary Fund's longer-term credit facilities by giving central banks instant access to funds they might need for a short period in order to move fast and vigorously in defense of their currencies. Its effectiveness was not long in being put to the test. Between its initiation in 1961 and the autumn of 1964, the SWAP Network had played a major part in the triumphant defense against sudden and violent speculative attacks on at least three currencies. The pound, late in 1961. The Canadian Dollar in June 1961 and the Italian Lira in March 1964. By the autumn of 1964, the SWAP agreements, La Córde SWAP, to the French, Dichwap Fairfoot Tongin, to the Germans, had come to be the very cornerstone of international monetary cooperation.
的确，在那个十一月的周末，当该银行的高层官员正前往巴塞尔时，英格兰银行中的5亿美元正准备动用，这笔资金是互换网络的一部分，这一网络从最初的相对简单已经大大扩展。至于国际清算银行，它作为银行机构，其实只是这个庞大机器中的一个相对较小的齿轮。然而，作为一个俱乐部，它多年来扮演了相当重要的角色。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Indeed, the 500 million American dollars at the Bank of England was finding it necessary to draw on, at the very moment the bank's top officers were heading for Basel that November weekend represented part of the SWAP Network, greatly expanded from its comparatively modest beginnings. As for the Bank for International Settlements, in its capacity as a banking institution, it was a relatively minor cog in all this machinery. But, in its capacity as a club, it had over the years come to play a far from unimportant role.
其每月的董事会会议一直以来都是中央银行行长们在轻松氛围中交谈的机会，他们可以在会议上交流不能通过邮件或国际电话方便交流的八卦、观点和直觉。巴塞尔，这座中世纪的莱茵城市，以12世纪哥特式大教堂的尖顶为标志，长期以来一直是化学工业的繁荣中心，最初被选择作为国际清算银行的所在地是因为它是欧洲铁路的一个枢纽点。如今，大多数国际银行家习惯乘飞机出行，这一优势反而成了劣势，因为巴塞尔没有长途航空服务。代表们必须在苏黎世下飞机，然后乘坐火车或汽车前往。另一方面，巴塞尔拥有几家一流的餐厅，可能在中央银行的代表看来，这一优势足以抵消旅行带来的不便。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Its monthly board meeting served and still served as a chance for the central bankers to talk in an informal atmosphere, to exchange gossip, views, and hunches such as could not comfortably be indulged in either by mail or over the international telephone circuits. Basel, a medieval renish city that is dominated by the spires of its 12th century Gothic cathedral, and has long been a thriving center of the chemical industry, was originally chosen as the site of the Bank for International Settlements because it was a nodal point for European railways. Now that most international bankers habitually travel by plane, that asset has become a liability, for there is no long distance air service to Basel. Delegates must deplane at Zurich and continue by train or car. On the other hand, Basel has several first-rate restaurants, and it may be that in the view of the central bank delegates, this advantage outweighs the travel and convenience.
对于中央银行，或者至少说是欧洲的中央银行，总是与美好生活有密切联系。比利时国家银行的一位行长曾不带笑容地对访客说，他认为自己的一项职责是让银行的酒窖比他发现时的状态更好。法国银行的午餐客人通常会被抱歉地告知：按照银行的传统，我们只提供简单的食物。但接下来是一顿盛宴，整个过程中对葡萄酒年份的热烈讨论让谈论银行业务显得尴尬，甚至是不可能的，“简单”的传统似乎体现在只在白兰地前提供一种葡萄酒。意大利银行的餐桌同样优雅，被一些人称为罗马最好的，而四周墙上则挂满了无法估价的文艺复兴时期的名画，这些画是近年来因不良贷款违约获得的担保品。至于纽约联邦储备银行，几乎从不提供任何形式的酒精饮品。用餐时经常讨论银行业务，而厨房的女主人每当官员们对食物发表任何言论，即便是批评的，也显得几乎心存感激。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
For central banking, or at least European central banking, has a firmly established association with good living. A governor of the National Bank of Belgium wants remark to a visitor without a smile that he considered one of his duties to be that of leaving the institution's wine cellar better than he had found it. A luncheon guest at the Bank of France is generally told, apologetically, in the tradition of the bank we serve only simple fare. But what follows is a repast, during which the constant discussion of vintages makes any discussion of banking awkward, if not impossible, and at which the tradition of simplicity is honoured, apparently, by the serving of only one wine before the cognac. The table of the Bank of Italy is equally elegant. Some say the best in Rome, and its surroundings are enhanced by the priceless Renaissance paintings, acquired as defaulted security on bad loans over the years that hang on the walls. As for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, alcohol in any form is hardly ever served there. Banking is habitually discussed at meals, and the mistress of the kitchen appears almost pathetically grateful whenever one of the officers makes any sort of comment, even a critical one on the fair.
但是，自由街位于欧洲。在这些民主时代，欧洲的中央银行被认为是贵族银行传统的最后堡垒，在这种传统中，智慧、优雅和文化可以与商业机敏甚至冷酷无情轻松共存。自由街的保安在欧洲的对应者，往往是一身丧服的服务员。直到不到一代之前，中央银行家之间的正式称呼仍是规则。有些人认为，首先打破这一传统的是英国人，据传在第二次世界大战期间，英国政府和军方曾下达秘密命令，让他们以名字直呼美国对口官员。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
But then Liberty Street is in Europe. In these democratic times, central banking in Europe is thought of as the last stronghold of the aristocratic banking tradition, in which wit, grace, and culture coexist easily with commercial astuteness and even ruthlessness. The European counterparts of the security guards on Liberty Street are apt to be attendants in mourning coats. Until less than a generation ago, formality of address between central bankers was the rule. Some think that the first to break it were the British during the Second World War, when it is alleged a secret order went out that British government and military authorities were to address their American counterparts by their first names.
无论如何，现在欧洲和美国的中央银行家们频繁地直呼其名。其中一个原因无疑是战后美元的崛起和其影响力的增强。另一个原因是，在新兴合作时代，这些中央银行家见面的频率比过去多得多。他们不仅在巴塞尔会面，还在华盛顿、巴黎和布鲁塞尔的各种国际组织的特殊银行委员会的定期会议上碰面。出席这些会议的几位顶级银行家，在这些城市的酒店大堂频繁出现，以至于有人认为他们给人的印象就像《阿伊达》凯旋场景中一再登场的持矛士兵一样，数量庞大。而语言及其使用方式往往随着经济实力的变化而改变。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In any event, first names are frequently exchanged between European and American central bankers now, and one reason for this unquestionably is the post-war rise and influence of the dollar. Another reason is that in the emerging era of cooperation, the central bankers see more of each other than they used to. Not just in Basel, but in Washington, Paris, and Brussels, at regular meetings of perhaps half a dozen special banking committees of various international organizations. The same handful of top bankers parades so regularly through the hotel lobbies of those cities that one of them thinks they must give the impression of being hundred strong, like the spear carriers who cross the stage again and again in the triumphal scene of Aida, and language, like the manner of its use has tended to follow economic power.
欧洲央行的银行家们一直使用法语。有些人说，他们在交流时用的法语并不太好。不过，在英镑是世界主要货币的漫长时期中，英语逐渐成为广泛中央银行业务的第一语言，并在美元统治下持续如此。除了法兰西银行，其它每家中央银行的高层官员都流利且乐意地说英语，因为大多数英国人和美国人似乎无法或不愿意掌握英语以外的任何语言，法兰西银行的官员也不得不随时准备翻译。打破传统的是克罗默勋爵，他能权威地使用法语交流。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
European central bankers have always used French. Bad French, some say, in talking with each other. But during the long period in which the pound was the world's leading currency, English came to be the first language of central banking at large, and under the rule of the dollar it continues to be. It is spoken fluently and willingly by all the top officers of every central bank except the Bank of France, and even the Bank of France officers are forced to keep translators at hand in consideration of the seeming intractable inability or unwillingness of most Britons and Americans to become competent in any language but their own. Lord Cromer, flouting tradition, speaks French with complete authority.
在巴塞尔，美食和便利比豪华更为重要。许多与会者更喜欢主火车站里一家表面上简朴的餐馆，而国际清算银行本身也低调地坐落在一个茶馆和一家理发店之间。在1964年11月的那个周末，副主席科姆斯是唯一在场的美联储代表，事实上，他成了当时正在升级的金融危机早期和中期阶段中美国的主要银行代表。科姆斯心不在焉地和其他人一起吃喝，尽管他并不是个讲究美食的人，这符合他所在机构的传统，但他真正关心的是会议的氛围及与会者的个人感受。他是这项任务的最佳人选，因为所有外国同事都无条件信任和尊重他。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
At Basel, good food and convenience come before splendor. Many of the delegates favor an outwardly humble restaurant in the main railroad station, and the Bank for International Settlements itself is modestly situated between a t-shop and a hairdressing establishment. On that November weekend in 1964, Vice President Combs was the only representative of the Federal Reserve System on hand, and indeed he was to be the key banking representative of the United States through the early and middle phases of the crisis that was then mounting. In an abstracted way Combs ate and drank heartily with the others. True to his institution's traditions he is less than a gourmet, but his real interest wasn't getting the sense of the meeting and the private feelings of its participants. He was the perfect man for this task in as much as he has the unquestioning trust and respect of all his foreign colleagues.
其他一些主要的央行行长习惯性地直呼他的名字，这并不是因为习惯的改变而表现出的尊重，而更多的是出于深厚的敬佩与钦佩。他们在私下交谈时也常用他的名字。查理·康布斯，这个名字因长时间的使用在中央银行圈内已成为一个响亮的名词。他们会告诉你，查理·康布斯是典型的新英格兰人，来自马萨诸塞州的牛顿市。尽管他说话简洁，态度冷静，这让他显得有些冷漠和疏远，但实际上他非常热情和富有直觉。尽管查理·康布斯是哈佛1940届的毕业生，但他是那种不事张扬的人，留着灰白头发，戴着半框眼镜，举止严谨，使人容易误以为他是美国小镇上普通的银行行长，而不是管理着全世界最复杂技能之一的高手。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The other leading central bankers habitually call him by his first name, lest it seems in deference to changed custom than out of deep affection and admiration. They also use it in speaking of him among themselves. The name Charlie Combs, run together the side of long habituation, is a word to conjure with in central banking circles. Charlie Combs, they will tell you, is the kind of New Englander. He is from Newton, Massachusetts, who although his clipped speech in dry manner make him seem a bit cool and attached, is really warm and intuitive. Charlie Combs, although a Harvard graduate, class of 1940, is the kind of unpretentious, gray-haired man with half-reamed spectacles and precise manner whom he might easily take for a standard American small-town bank president, rather than a master of one of the world's most complex skills.
通常认为，如果说有谁是掉期网络背后的天才，那这个人就是新英格兰掉期专家，查理·康布斯。在巴塞尔，像往常一样，有一系列的正式会议，每个会议都有其议程。但同时，也像往常一样，还有许多非正式的聚会，这些聚会在酒店房间和办公室里举行，还有一次没有议程的正式周日晚宴，大家可以自由讨论当时最热门的话题。毫无疑问，这个话题就是英镑的状况。康布斯整整一个周末几乎没听到其他话题的讨论。他说：“从我听到的信息来看，对英镑的信心正在恶化。” 大多数银行家都在关心两个问题。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
It is generally conceded that if any one man was the genius behind the swap network, the man was the New England Swapper, Charlie Combs. At Basel there was, as usual, a series of formal sessions, each with its agenda. But there was also, as usual, much informal polever in rump sessions held in hotel rooms and offices, and at a formal Sunday night dinner, at which there was no agenda, but instead a free discussion of what Combs has since referred to as the hottest topic of the moment. There could be no question about what that was. It was the condition of the pound, and indeed Combs had heard little discussion of anything else all weekend. It was clear to me from what I heard that confidence and sterling was deteriorating, he has said. Two questions were on most of the banker's minds.
有两个问题需要考虑。第一个是英国央行是否计划通过提高贷款利率来减轻英镑的压力。虽然英国央行的官员在场，但要得到答案并不是简单地问他们的意图即可。即使他们愿意回答，也无法立即做出决定，因为英国央行无权在没有英国政府批准的情况下改变其利率，而这样的批准在实践中通常更接近于政府的指示。而民选政府自然不喜欢让货币收紧的措施。
另一个问题是，如果投机性攻击继续，英国是否有足够的美元黄金储备来应对。除了扩展后的SWOT网络中剩余的十亿美元，以及其在国际货币基金组织中的提款权，英国只有其官方储备。而这些储备在前一周已经下降到不到二十五亿美元的水平，这是多年来的最低点。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
One was whether the Bank of England proposed to take some of the pressure off the pound by raising its lending rate. Bank of England men were present, but getting an answer was not a simple matter of asking them their intentions. Even if they had been willing to say, they would not have been able to. Because the Bank of England is not empowered to change its rate without the approval, which in practice often comes closer to meaning the instruction of the British government, and elected governments have a natural dislike for measures that make money tight. The other question was whether Britain had enough gold in dollars to throw into the breach if the speculative assault should continue. Apart from what was left of the billion dollars from the expanded SWOT network, and what remained of its drawing rights on the International Monetary Fund, Britain had only its official reserves, which had dropped in the previous week to something under two and a half billion dollars, their lowest point in several years.
比这更糟糕的是储备以惊人的速度在减少。据专家估算，在前一周的某个糟糕的一天，储备减少了八千七百万美元，如果连续一个月都是这样的情况，储备将耗尽。即便如此，Coombs表示，那个周末没有人预料到对英镑的压力会在月底变得如此巨大。他虽然心事重重但坚定地返回了纽约。然而，在贝塞尔会议后，有关英镑之战的主要战场并非在纽约，而是在伦敦。当时最紧迫的问题是英国是否会在那一周提高银行利率，而答案揭晓的日期是11月12日，星期四。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Worse than that was the frightful rate at which the reserves were dwindling away. On a single bad day during the previous week, according to the guesses of experts, they had dropped by eighty seven million dollars, a month of days like that and they would be gone. Even so, Coombs has said, nobody had bezzled that weekend, dreamed that the pressure on sterling could become as intense as it actually did become later in the month. He returned to New York worried but resolute. It was not to New York, however, that the main scene of the battle for sterling shifted after the bezel meeting. It was to London. The big immediate question was whether or not Britain would raise its bank rate that week, and the day the answer would be known was Thursday, November 12.
在银行利率的问题上，正如在许多其他事情上，英国人通常遵循一种仪式。如果利率要变动，只有在周四中午，英国央行一层的大堂里才会出现公告，宣布新的利率。同时，一个被称为政府经纪人、穿着粉色外套和高顶礼帽的人会急匆匆地走到伦敦证券交易所，并庄重地从讲台上宣布新的利率。周四的中午过去了，利率没有变化。显然，工党政府在选举后的决定上遇到了和保守党选举前一样多的困难。投机者无论身在何处，对这种犹豫不决反应一致。星期五，也就是十三号那天，英镑遭到了猛烈冲击，收盘价跌至2.7829美元。几乎仅比官方最低价高出四分之一美分。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In the matter of the bank rate, as in so many other things, the British customarily follow a ritual. If there is to be a change, at noon on Thursday, then and then only, a sign appears in the ground floor lobby of the Bank of England announcing the new rate, and simultaneously a functionary called the government broker, decked out in a pink coat and top hat, hurries down Throgmorton Street to the London Stock Exchange, and ceremonially announces the new rate from a rostrum. Noon on Thursday, the twelfth passed with no change. Evidently, the Labour government was having as much trouble deciding on a bank rate rise after the election, as the Conservatives had had before. The speculators, wherever they were, reacted to such pucilanimity as one man. On Friday the thirteenth, the pound, which had been moderately buoyant all week precisely because speculators had been anticipating a bank rate rise underwent a fearful battering, which sent it down to a closing price of $2.78 and 29 hundredths of a cent. Barely more than a quarter of a cent above the official minimum.
在英格兰银行频繁干预以维持这个水平的过程中，它的储备又损失了2800万美元。第二天，《伦敦时报》的金融评论员以“我们的城市编辑”为署名，发表了一篇评论。他写道，英镑看起来不像人们希望的那样稳固。接下来的一周，这种情况重演，但更加夸张。星期一，首相威尔逊效仿温斯顿·丘吉尔，试图通过演讲来作为武器，在伦敦市政大厅的一场盛大的宴会上致辞。观众中有包括坎特伯雷大主教、上议院议长、枢密院长、掌玺大臣、伦敦市长及他们的妻子等众多显要人物。威尔逊庄严宣告，不仅要表达我们的信心，还要表现出我们维持英镑坚挺并让它表现优异的决心。他还声称，政府将毫不犹豫地采取一切必要措施来实现这一目标。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In the Bank of England, intervening frequently to hold it even at that level, lost $28 million more from its reserves. Next day, the financial commentator of the London Times, under the byline, our city editor, let himself go. The pound, he wrote, is not looking as firm as might be hoped. The following week saw the pattern repeated, but in exaggerated form. On Monday, Prime Minister Wilson, taking a leaf out of Winston Churchill's book, tried rhetoric as a weapon, speaking at a pomp and circumstance banquet at the Guild Hall in the City of London, before an audience that included, among many other dignitaries, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President of the Council, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Mayor of London, and their wives. Wilson ringingly proclaimed, not only our faith but our determination to keep sterling strong and to see it riding high. An asserted that the government would not hesitate to take whatever steps might become necessary to accomplish this purpose.
在巧妙地避免使用“贬值”这个令人恐惧的词汇的同时，就如同整个夏天所有其他的英国官员一样，威尔逊试图明确表明政府现在认为贬值是不可能考虑的选择。为强调这一点，他向投机者发出了警告：不论国内还是国外的任何人，如果怀疑我们决心的坚定性，那么他们就要为他们对英国缺乏信心而付出代价。或许投机者被这番言辞震慑住了，或者他们再次因为周四可能加息的预期而减缓了对英镑的冲击。无论如何，在周二和周三，英镑虽然在市场上的表现不算突出，但比起前一个星期五，略微有所回升，并且是没有英格兰银行的支持下实现的。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
While elaborately avoiding the dread word, devaluation, just as all other British officials had avoided it all summer, Wilson sought to make it unmistakable that the government now considered such a move out of the question. To emphasize this point, he included a warning to speculators, if anyone at home or abroad doubts the firmness of our resolve, let them be prepared to pay the price for their lack of faith in Britain. Perhaps the speculators were daunted by this verbal volley, or perhaps they were again moved to let up in their assault on the pound by the prospect of a bank rate rise on Thursday. In any case, on Tuesday and Wednesday the pound, though it hardly rode high in the marketplace, managed to ride a little less low than it had on the previous Friday, and to do so without the help of the Bank of England.
根据后来的报道，到星期四，英格兰银行和英国政府之间就银行利率问题爆发了一场激烈的私人争论。克罗默勋爵代表英格兰银行主张利率至少需要上涨一个百分点，甚至可能两个百分点，这绝对是必要的，而威尔逊、布朗和卡尔汉仍然表示反对。结果是星期四没有提高银行利率，而不采取行动的影响使得危机迅速加剧。20日星期五对于伦敦金融城来说是黑暗的一天。股票交易所的投资者随着英镑汇率波动，经历了一场糟糕的交易日。到目前为止，英格兰银行已经决定将最后的防线设置在英镑兑美元汇率2.78美元和25.100美分，低于最低限值四分之一美分。英镑在星期五以这一水平开盘，受到投机者大量抛售的压制，一直停滞在这一水平。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
By Thursday, according to subsequent reports, a sharp private dispute had erupted between the Bank of England and the British government on the bank rate question. Lord Cromer arguing for the bank that a rise of at least one percent and perhaps two percent was absolutely essential, and Wilson, Brown and Calhand, still demuring. The upshot was no bank rate rise on Thursday, and the effect of the inaction was a swift intensification of the crisis. Friday the 20th was a black day in the city of London. The stock exchange, its investors moving in time with Sterling, had a terrible session. The Bank of England had by now resolved to establish its last line trench on the pound at $2.78 and $25.100 of a cent, a quarter of a cent above the bottom limit. The pound opened on Friday at precisely that level, and remained their old holiday, firmly pinned down by the speculator's hail of offers to sell.
同时，银行以$2.78和$25.100的价格接受了所有的报价，并因此消耗了更多的英国储备。现在，报价来的速度非常快，以至于几乎没有尝试掩盖它们的来源。显然，这些报价来自各地，主要是欧洲的金融中心，还有纽约，甚至伦敦本地。有关即将贬值的谣言在欧洲的证券交易所中蔓延开来，而伦敦本身也出现了士气崩溃的迹象。在那里，贬值的话题现在甚至被公开讨论。瑞典经济学家和社会学家甘纳尔·密尔达尔在伦敦的一次午宴演讲中提出，略微贬值可能是解决英国问题的唯一可行方案。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Meanwhile, the bank met all offers at $2.78 and $25.100 of a cent, and in doing so, used up more of Britain's reserves. Now the offers were coming so fast that little attempt was made to disguise their places of origin. It was evident that they were coming from everywhere, chiefly from the financial centers of Europe, but also from New York, and even from London itself. Rumors of imminent devaluation were sweeping the borses of the continent, and in London itself an ominous sign of cracking morale appeared. Devaluation was now being mentioned openly even there. The Swedish economist and sociologist Gunnar Mirdahl, in a luncheon speech in London on Thursday, had suggested that a slight devaluation might now be the only possible solution to Britain's problems.
一旦有人抛出厌女症言论打破僵局，英国也开始使用那个令人担忧的词。在次日早晨的《泰晤士报》中，我们的城市编辑以一种指挥官准备驻军可能投降的语气说，不加分辨的关于英镑贬值的谣言会造成伤害，但如果把这个词的使用视为禁忌，那会更糟。当夜幕终于为英镑及其捍卫者带来一个周末的喘息时，英格兰银行得到了一个评估自身状况的机会。它发现的情况并不令人放心。它在九月份通过扩展的掉期协议安排借来的十亿美元中，几乎都已经用在这场战斗中。剩下的向国际货币基金组织借款的权利几乎毫无价值，因为这笔交易需耗时数周，而事态紧迫，争分夺秒。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Once a misogynist comment had broken the ice, Britain's also began using the dread word, and in the next morning's times, our city editor himself was to say, in the tone of a commander, preparing the garrison for possible surrender, indiscriminate gossip about devaluation of the pound can do harm, but it would be even worse to regard use of that word as taboo. When nightfall at last brought the pound, and its defenders a weekend breather, the Bank of England had a chance to assess its situation. What it found was anything but reassuring. All but a fraction of the billion dollars it had arranged to borrow in September under the expanded swap agreements had gone into the battle. The right that remained to it, of drawing on the International Monetary Fund, was virtually worthless since the transaction would take weeks to complete, and matters turned on days and hours.
银行仍然持有的，以及它所拥有的一切，就是英国的储备金，而这些储备金在那一天减少了5600万美元，现在大约是20亿美元。多位评论员后来表示，这个金额可以在某种程度上比作24年前不列颠战役最为艰难时期，那个坚毅的国家仅剩的那几支战机中队。这个比喻虽然夸张，但考虑到英镑对英国人的意义，这个比喻也并非毫无关系。在这个物质化的时代，英镑几乎具有曾经给予王冠的象征性重要性。英镑的状态几乎就是英国的状态。英镑是最古老的现代货币之一。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
What the Bank still had, and all that it had, was the British reserves, which had gone down by $56 million that day, and now stood at around $2 billion. More than one commentator has since suggested that this sum could in a way be likened to the few squadrons of fighter planes, to which the same dogged nation had been reduced 24 years earlier at the worst point in the Battle of Britain. The analogy is extravagant, and yet in the light of what the pound means and has meant to the British, it is not irrelevant. In a materialistic age, the pound is almost the symbolic importance that was once accorded to the crown. The state of sterling almost is the state of Britain. The pound is the oldest of modern currencies.
“英镑”这个词的起源被认为可以追溯到诺曼征服之前的时代。当时，撒克逊国王发行了一种叫做Stirling或Starling的银便士，因为这些便士上有时刻有星星图案。其中240枚相当于一磅纯银。而先令，一种代表12个Stirling或五十分之一磅的货币单位，则是在征服之后才出现的。因此，从一开始，英国的大额支付就以英镑作为计算单位。然而，在英镑的最初几百年里，它并不是一种牢不可摧的可靠货币，主要是因为早期国王常常为了解决财政困难而降低货币的含银量。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The term pound sterling is believed to have originated well before the Norman conquest, when the Saxon kings issued silver pennies called Stirling's or Starlings, because they sometimes had stars inscribed on them, of which 240 equaled one pound of pure silver. The shilling, representing 12 stirlings, or one-twentieth of a pound, did not appear on the scene until after the conquest. Thus, sizable payments in Britain have been reckoned in pounds from its beginnings. The pound, however, was by no means an unassailable sound currency during its first few centuries, chiefly because of the early kings' unfortunate habit of relieving their chronic financial embarrassment by debasing the coinage.
通过熔化一定数量的英镑币，加入一些贱金属而不再添加银，然后重新铸币，一个不负责任的国王就可以神奇地把一百英镑变成一百一十英镑。伊丽莎白一世女王在1561年通过一个精心策划的突然行动，召回了流通中她的前任发行的所有贬值硬币，从而阻止了这种做法。结果，加上英国贸易的增长，使英镑的声望快速而显著地提升。也因此，在伊丽莎白采取行动后的一个世纪内，“英镑”一词便赋予了它现在仍保持的形容词意义：优秀且经得起考验。到17世纪末，当英国银行成立以管理政府的财政时，纸币开始被普遍信任和使用，并被黄金和白银所支持。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
By melting down a quantity of stirlings, adding to the brew some base metal and no more silver, and then minting new coins, an irresponsible king could magically convert a hundred pounds into, say, 110, just like that. Queen Elizabeth I put a stop to the practice when, in a carefully planned surprise move in 1561, she recalled from circulation all the debased coins issued by her predecessors. The result, combined with the growth of British trade, was a rapid and spectacular rise in the prestige of the pound. Unless, in a century after Elizabeth's coup, the word sterling had assumed the adjectival meaning that it still has, thoroughly excellent, capable of standing every test. By the end of the 17th century, when the Bank of England was founded to handle the government's finances, paper money was beginning to be trusted for general use, and it had come to be backed by gold as well as silver.
随着时间的推移，相对于白银，黄金的货币地位逐渐上升。在现代世界中，白银不再具有作为货币储备金属的地位，只有在少数几个国家中，它仍然作为辅币的主要金属使用。然而，直到1816年，英国才采纳金本位制。这意味着，英国承诺在任何时候以金币或金条兑换纸币。面值一英镑的金主权币于1817年首次亮相，它象征着稳定、富裕，甚至是喜悦，对维多利亚时代的许多人而言，这比巴吉特所传达的意义还要深远。繁荣引发了模仿效应。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
As time went on, the monetary prestige of gold rose steadily in relation to that of silver. In the modern world, silver has no standing as a monetary reserve metal, and only in some half-dozen countries does it now serve as the principal metal in subsidiary coinage. But it was not until 1816 that Britain adopted a gold standard. That is, pledged itself to redeem paper currency with gold coins or bars at any time. The gold sovereign worth one pound, which came to symbolize stability, affluence, and even joy, to more Victorians than Badgett made its first appearance in 1817. Prosperity begat emulation.
看到英国的繁荣，并认为金本位制度至少部分促成了这一成功，其他国家纷纷效仿，逐一采用了这一制度。德国在1871年采用，瑞典、挪威和丹麦在1873年采用。法国、比利时、瑞士、意大利和希腊在1874年采用。荷兰紧随其后是在1875年，美国则是在1879年。结果却令人失望。几乎没有哪个新采用国家立即因此变得富裕，而英国在回顾过去时似乎是在尽管有金本位制度限制的情况下保持繁荣，继续稳坐世界贸易的头把交椅。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Seeing how Britain flourished and believing the gold standard to be at least partly responsible, other nations adopted it one after another. Germany in 1871. Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in 1873. France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece in 1874. The Netherlands in 1875, and the United States in 1879. The results were disappointing. Hardly any of the newcomers found themselves immediately getting rich, in Britain, which in retrospect appears to have flourished as much in spite of the gold standard as because of it, continued to be the undisputed monarch of world trade.
在第一次世界大战前的半个世纪里，伦敦在国际金融中扮演着中间人的角色，而英镑则是其准官方货币。正如戴维·劳合·乔治后来怀旧地写道，在1914年前，伦敦汇票的沙沙声——也就是一张承兑汇票和印有伦敦银行签名的英镑——在整个文明世界的任何港口都如同黄金的响声一样有价值。战争的爆发打破了这种微妙的平衡，并开始出现挑战英镑主导地位的力量。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In the half-century preceding the First World War, London was the middleman in international finance, and the pound was its quasi-official medium. As David Lloyd George was later to write nostalgically, prior to 1914, the crackle of a bill on London, that is, of a bill of credit and pound sterling bearing the signature of a London bank, was as good as the ring of gold in any port throughout the civilized world. The war ended this idle by disrupting the delicate balance of forces that had made it possible, and by bringing to the fore a challenger to the pound supremacy.
美国美元。1914年，英国在战斗军队的资金紧张的情况下，采取措施抑制对黄金的需求，从而实际上抛弃了金本位制度。当时，英镑对美元的价值从4.86美元跌至一度的3.20美元。为了恢复昔日的辉煌，英国在1925年恢复了完全的金本位制度，把英镑与黄金挂钩，以重新实现1英镑兑换4.86美元的旧汇率。然而，这种过高估值的代价是国内长期的经济萧条。更不用说，当时担任财政大臣的温斯顿·丘吉尔因此在政治上黯然失色了大约十五年。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The United States Dollar. In 1914, Britain, hard-pressed to finance its fighting forces, adopted measures to discourage demands for gold, thereby abandoning the gold standard in everything but name. Meanwhile, the value of a pound in dollars sank, from $4.86 to $19.20 of $3.20. In an effort to recoup its lost glory, Britain resumed a full gold standard in 1925, tying the pound to gold at a rate that restored its old $4.86 in relation to the dollar. The cost of this gallant overvaluation, however, was chronic depression at home. Not to mention the political eclipse for some fifteen years of the Chancellor of the Exchequer who ordered it, Winston Churchill.
20世纪30年代货币的全面崩溃实际上并非始于伦敦，而是始于欧洲大陆。1931年夏天，奥地利最大的银行——奥地利信贷银行突遭挤兑，最终导致其倒闭。随后，一系列银行倒闭的多米诺效应开始显现。虽然这一事件相对较小，但导致德国出现了银行危机。由于大量英国资金被冻结在欧洲大陆的破产机构中，恐慌跨越了英吉利海峡，影响到了英镑的故乡——英国。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The general collapse of currencies during the 1930s actually began not in London but on the continent, when in the summer of 1931, a sudden run on the leading Bank of Austria, the credit Anstalt, resulted in its failure. The domino principle of bank failures, if such a thing can be said to exist, then came into play. German losses arising from this relatively minor disaster resulted in a banking crisis in Germany. And then, because huge quantities of British funds were now frozen in bankrupt institutions on the continent, the panic crossed the English Channel and invaded the home of the imperial pound itself.
对黄金的需求和对英镑的兑换很快变得过于沉重，即使有法国和美国的贷款帮助，英格兰银行也难以应对。英国面临着两个选择：一是将银行利率提高到几乎高利贷水平的8%到10%，以留住资金在伦敦并遏制黄金外流；二是放弃金本位制。第一个选择会让国内经济进一步萧条，而当时失业人数已经超过两百五十万，因此被认为不可接受。因此，在1931年9月21日，英格兰银行宣布暂停其出售黄金的责任。此举在金融界引起了极大的震惊。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Demands for gold and exchange for pounds quickly became too heavy for the Bank of England to meet, even with the help of loans from France and the United States. Britain was faced with the bleak alternatives of setting an almost usurious bank rate between eight and ten percent in order to hold funds in London and check the gold outflow or abandoning the gold standard. The first choice, which would have further depressed the domestic economy in which there are now more than two and a half million unemployed, was considered unconscionable. And accordingly, on September 21, 1931, the Bank of England announced suspension of its responsibility to sell gold. The move hit the financial world like a thunderbolt.
1931年，英镑的声望极高，以至于已然成名的英国经济学家约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯可以说，英镑没有离开金本位，是金本位离开了英镑，这话不完全是讽刺。无论怎样，旧系统的锚定已经不存在，带来的结果就是混乱。在几周内，当时在英国政治或经济支配下的广大地区的所有国家都放弃了金本位。而其他大多数主要货币也要么离开了金本位，要么相对于金本位进行了大幅度贬值。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
So great was the prestige of the pound in 1931 that John Maynard Keynes, the already famous British economist, could say, not wholly in irony, that Sterling hadn't left gold, gold had left Sterling. In either case, the mooring of the old system was gone, and chaos was the result. Within a few weeks, all the countries on the vast portion of the globe, then under British political or economic domination, had left the gold standard. Most of the other leading currencies had either left gold or been drastically devalued in relation to it.
在自由市场上，英镑兑换美元的价值从四美元八十六美分下降到了大约三美元五十美分。接下来，作为潜在新的依靠的美元本身，变得不再稳定。1933年，由于史上最严重的经济大萧条，美国被迫放弃金本位。一年后，美国以一种被称为“金汇兑本位”的修改形式重新实行金本位制。在这种制度下，停止了金币的发行，美联储承诺只向其他中央银行出售金条，而不对其他任何人出售，并且以比旧价格大幅降低的四十一个百分点出售。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And in the free market, the value of the pound in terms of dollars had dropped from four dollars and eighty-six cents, two round three dollars and fifty cents. Then the dollar itself, the potential new mooring, came loose. In 1933, the United States, compelled by the worst depression in its history, abandoned the gold standard. A year later, it resumed it in a modified form called the Gold Exchange Standard, under which gold coinage was ended and the Federal Reserve was pledged to sell gold in bar form to other central banks, but to no one else, and to sell it at a drastic devaluation of forty-one percent from the old price.
美国的货币贬值使英镑恢复到之前的美元平价，但英国发现，这种恢复并不让人感到安慰，因为美元本身也变得不再稳定。然而，在接下来的五年里，尽管"以邻为壑"成为国际金融的常态，英镑相对于其他货币并没有大幅贬值。而当第二次世界大战爆发时，英国政府大胆地将英镑固定在4.03美元，并通过实施管控措施来维持这一汇率，不受自由市场的影响。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The United States devaluation restored the pound to its old dollar parity, but Britain found its small comfort to be tied securely to a mooring that was now shaky itself. Even so, over the next five years, while beggar my neighbor came to be the rule in international finance, the pound did not lose much more ground in relation to other currencies. And when the Second World War broke out, the British government boldly pegged it at four dollars and three cents, and imposed controls to keep it there in defiance of the free market.
它在那里待了十年，但只是名义上如此。在中立的瑞士自由市场中，它在整个战争期间都在波动，反映了英国的军事命运，在最黑暗的时刻跌至低至两美元。在战后时期，英镑几乎一直面临麻烦。在布雷顿森林会议上商定的国际金融新规则承认，金本位制过于僵化，而20世纪30年代的虚拟纸本位制又过于不稳定。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
There for a decade it remained, but only officially. In the free market of neutral Switzerland, it fluctuated all through the war in reflection of Britain's military fortunes, sinking at the darkest moments to as low as two dollars. In the post-war era, the pound has been almost continuously in trouble. The new rules of the game of international finance that were agreed upon at Bretton Woods recognized that the gold standard had been far too rigid, and the virtual paper standard of the 1930s far too unstable.
因此，一个妥协方案出现了：美元，这个新兴的货币之王，仍然在金汇兑标准下与黄金挂钩，而英镑和其他主要货币则不再与黄金挂钩，而是与美元挂钩，并在规定的限度内维持固定汇率。实际上，战后时代几乎是以英镑的贬值为开端的，贬值幅度与1931年的情况差不多，但其后果要轻得多。英镑和大多数欧洲货币一样，在布雷顿森林体系下过高估值，与它所代表的衰败经济明显不符，仅靠政府施加的控制维持这种状态。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A compromise is accordingly emerged, under which the dollar, the new king of currencies, remained tied to gold under the gold exchange standard, and the pound, along with the other leading currencies, became tied not to gold but to the dollar, at rates fixed within stated limits. Indeed, the post-war era was virtually ushered in by a devaluation of the pound that was about as drastic in amount as that of 1931, though far less so in its consequences. The pound, like most European currencies, had emerged from Bretton Woods flagrantly overvalued in relation to the shattered economy it represented, and had been kept that way, only by government imposed controls.
在1949年秋天，在经历了一年半的货币贬值谣言、迅速发展的黑市和英镑及黄金损失导致英国储备降至危险水平后，英镑从4.03美元贬值至2.80美元。除了美国美元和瑞士法郎之外，几乎所有重要的非共产主义国家的货币都迅速效仿英镑的做法。然而，这次并没有出现贸易萎缩或其他混乱的情况，因为1949年的调整与以往不同，并不像1931年及之后那些年中，各国在经济大萧条打击下，为了寻求竞争优势而采取的无序行为。这次贬值只是因为战后各国认识到自身已经恢复到足以在相对自由的国际竞争中生存，而无需依靠人为支撑。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In the autumn of 1949, therefore, after a year and a half of devaluation rumors, burgeoning black markets and sterling and gold losses that had reduced the British reserves to a dangerously low level, the pound was devalued from $4.03 to $2.80. With the isolated exceptions of the United States dollar and the Swiss Franc, every important non-communist currency almost instantly followed the pound's example. But this time, no drying up of trade or other chaos ensued because the 1949 evaluations, unlike the United States, and evaluations, unlike those of 1931 and the years following, were not the uncontrolled attempts of countries riddled by depression to gain a competitive advantage at any cost, but merely represented recognition by the war-devastated countries that they had recovered to the point where they could survive relatively free international competition without artificial props.
事实上，世界贸易不仅没有停滞，反而迅速增长。然而，即使在新的、更理性的评估下，英镑仍然在惊险中度过。1952年、1955年、1957年和1961年，英国先后经历了不同程度的英镑危机。英镑，以其不近人情和不顾体面的方式，就像过去它通过波动精确描绘了英国作为世界最强大国家的兴衰一样，如今以其反复出现的疲弱，似乎在暗示，即便英国在1949年所采取的缩减措施，对他们已减少的国力来说仍然不够。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In fact, world trade, instead of drying up, picked up sharply. But even at the new, more rational evaluation, the pound continued its career of hair-breath escapes. Sterling crises of varying magnitudes were weathered in 1952, 1955, 1957 and 1961. In its unsentimental and tactless way, the pound, just as by its gyrations in the past, it had accurately chartered Britain's rise and fall as the greatest of world powers, now with its nagging recurrent weakness, seemed to be hinting that even such retrenchment as the British had undertaken in 1949 was not enough to suit their reduced circumstances.
在1964年11月，这些带有屈辱意味的暗示并没有被英国人民忽视。许多人以情感的方式看待英镑的问题，这一点在一场激烈的讨论中得到了生动体现。这场讨论发生在著名的《泰晤士报》读者来信专栏中，正值危机的顶点。一位名叫I. M. D. Little的读者写信表示不满，他对关于英镑的各种担忧，特别是关于贬值的窃窃私语表示遗憾，他声称这是一个经济问题而非道德问题。马上，有包括C. S. Hadfield在内的读者迅速回复。Hadfield质问，Little的信件不正是无情冷漠时代的明显标志吗？贬值不是道德问题？声誉——因为贬值的实质就是如此，既不多也不少——如今已经变得可以接受。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And in November 1964, these hints, with their humiliating implications, were not lost on the British people. The emotional terms in which many of them were thinking about the pound were well illustrated by an exchange that took place in that celebrated forum, the letters column of the times, when the crisis was at its height. A reader named I. M. D. Little wrote, deploring all the breastfeeding about the pound, and particularly the uneasy whispering about devaluation, a matter that he declared to be an economic rather than a moral issue. Quick as a flash came a reply from a C. S. Hadfield, among others. Was there ever a clearer sign of soulless times Hadfield demanded than Little's letter? devaluation not a moral issue? Reputation, for that is what devaluation is, neither more nor less, has become respectable.
哈德菲尔德以一种毫无疑问的语气，仿佛他与英镑一样悠久且英式，展现出一个愤怒的爱国者的形象。在巴塞尔会议后的十天内，纽约联邦储备银行的人们首要关注的不再是英镑，而是美元。美国的国际收支赤字已经攀升到令人担忧的水平，接近每年60亿美元。很明显，如果英国提高利率，而美国不采取相应措施，那么一些针对英镑的投机攻击可能会转向美元。海耶斯、库姆斯，以及华盛顿的货币当局——联邦储备委员会主席威廉·麦克切斯尼·马丁、财政部长道格拉斯·狄龙和财政部副部长罗伯特·罗萨，都达成一致：如果英国提高利率，出于自我保护，联邦储备将不得不把利率提高到超过当前3.5%的水平。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Hadfield grown, in the unmistakable tone, as old and Britain as the pound itself, of the outraged patriot. In the ten days following the Basel meeting, the first concern of the men at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was not the pound but the dollar. The American balance of payments deficit had now crept up to the alarming rate of almost $6 billion a year, and it was becoming clear that a rise in the British bank rate, if it should be unmatched by American action, might merely shift some of the speculative attack from the pound to the dollar. Hayes and Coombs, and the Washington Monetary Authorities, William McChesney Martin, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, and under Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rosa, came to agree that if the British should raise their rate, the Federal Reserve would be compelled, in self-defense, to competitively raise its rate above the current level of three and a half percent.
海耶斯就这个棘手的问题与他的伦敦同行克罗默勋爵进行了多次电话交谈。克罗默勋爵是一位根深蒂固的贵族，是乔治五世国王的教子，也是第一代克罗默伯爵埃弗林·贝林爵士的孙子。埃弗林·贝林在1884年至1885年期间担任英国驻埃及代理人，并与戈登将军成为对手。此外，克罗默勋爵还是一位公认杰出的银行家，并在43岁时成为有史以来最年轻的英格兰银行负责人。通过在巴塞尔及其他地方的频繁会面，他与海耶斯成了亲密的朋友。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Hayes had numerous telephone conversations on this delicate point with his London counterpart, Lord Cromer. A deep-dye aristocrat, a godson of King George V and a grandson of Sir Evelyn Bering, later the first Earl of Cromer, who, as the British agent in Egypt, was Chinese Gordon's nemesis in 1884 to 1885, Lord Cromer was also a banker of universally acknowledged brilliance, and, at 43, the youngest man as far as anyone could remember ever to direct the fortunes of the bank of England. He and Hayes, in the course of their frequent meetings at Basel and elsewhere, had become warm friends.
在20号星期五当天的下午，不管怎样，美联储有机会通过在前线支持英镑来表明其良好意图。伦敦市场收盘后给予的喘息机会被证明是虚幻的。因为当伦敦时间为下午五点时，纽约才是中午。一些贪得无厌的投机者能够在纽约市场继续抛售英镑几个小时，导致美联储的交易室暂时取代了英格兰银行的交易室，成为了防守前线的指挥部。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
During the afternoon of Friday the 20th at any rate, the Federal Reserve Bank had a chance to show its good intentions by doing some frontline fighting for the pound. The breather provided by the London closing proved to be illusory. Five o'clock in London was only noon in New York. An insatiable speculators were able to go on selling pounds for several more hours in the New York market, with result that the trading room of the Federal Reserve Bank temporarily replaced that of the Bank of England as the command post for the defense.
使用英国美元，或者更确切地说，是在互换协议下借给英国的美元作为“弹药”，美联储的交易员坚决将英镑维持在或高于2.78美元的水平，但这对英国的外汇储备来说成本不断增加。当然，幸运的是，在纽约市场收盘后，这场战斗没有继续跟随太阳转移到旧金山，然后环绕世界到东京。显然，至少暂时来说，攻击者已经满足了。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Using, as their ammunition British dollars, or more precisely, United States dollars lent to Britain under the swap agreements, the Federal Reserve's traders staunchly held the pound at or above $2.78 and $25.100 of a cent had ever increasing cost, of course, to the British reserves. Mercifully, after the New York closing the battle did not follow the sun to San Francisco and on around the world to Tokyo. Evidently, the attackers had had their fill, at least for the time being.
接下来的这个周末很特别，现代生活中常见的那种即使人们表面上在世界各地放松，但其实在讨论重要问题并做出重大决定的周末。威尔逊、布朗和卡拉汉在首相的乡间别墅——格兰彻斯，参加一个原本计划讨论国家防御政策的会议。克罗默勋爵在肯特郡韦斯特勒姆的乡间住所，而马丁、狄龙和罗莎则在华盛顿及其周边的办公室或家中。康斯在新泽西州格林村的家中，而海耶斯则在新泽西的其他地方拜访他的朋友。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
What followed was one of those strange modern weekends in which weighty matters are discussed and weighty decisions taken among men who are ostensibly sitting around relaxing in various parts of the world. Wilson, Brown, and Callahan were at checkers, the prime minister's country estate, taking part in a conference that had originally been scheduled to cover the subject of national defense policy. Lord Cromer was at his country place in Westerham Kent, Martin, Dillon, and Rosa were at their offices or their homes in and around Washington. Combs was at his home in Green Village, New Jersey, and Hayes was visiting friends of his elsewhere in New Jersey.
威尔逊和他的两位财政部长在首相官邸会谈期间，让军方高层自行讨论国防政策，他们则移步到楼上的一个小会议室，专注于解决英镑危机。为了将克罗默勋爵纳入他们的讨论，他们保持与在肯特的他通话，使用加密系统以避免他们的谈话被无法看见的敌人——投机者——截听。周六某个时候，英国方面做出了决定。他们不仅计划将当前银行利率上调2%，达到7%，而且打破惯例，计划在周一早上立即实施这一调整，而不是等待通常的周四。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
At checkers, Wilson and his two financial ministers, leaving the military brass to confer about defense policy with each other, adjourned to an upstairs gallery to tackle the Sterling crisis. In order to bring Lord Cromer into their deliberations, they kept a telephone circuit open to him in Kent, using a scrambler system when they talked on it so as to avoid interception of their words by their unseen enemies, the speculators. Some time on Saturday, the British reached their decision. Not only would they raise the bank rate and raise at 2% above its current level to 7%, but in defiance of custom, they would do so the first thing Monday morning, rather than wait for another Thursday to roll around.
首先，他们认为，如果推迟到星期四再采取行动，这意味着又将有三个半工作日，期间英国储备的严重流失几乎肯定会继续，甚至可能加速。其次，故意打破惯例所带来的冲击，将有助于表明政府的决心。一旦做出决定，英国在华盛顿的中间人便将信息传达给美国的货币官员，并告知身处新泽西的海斯和库姆斯。这两个人知道，必须尽快实施协议中关于纽约银行利率同步上调的计划，于是开始通过电话联系，安排了联邦储备银行董事会在星期一下午的会议，因为没有他们的主动行动，利率就无法更改。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
For one thing, they reasoned, to postpone action until Thursday would mean three and a half more business days during which the deadly drain of British reserves would almost certainly continue and might well accelerate. For another, the sheer shock of the deliberate violation of custom would serve to dramatize the government's determination. The decision, once taken, was communicated by British intermediaries in Washington to the American monetary officials there and relate to Hayes and Coombs in New Jersey. Those two, knowing that the agreed-upon plan for a concomitant rise in the New York bank rate would now have to be put into effect as quickly as possible, got to work on the telephone lining up a Monday afternoon meeting of the Federal Reserve Bank's Board of Directors, without whose initiative the rate could not be changed.
海斯是个非常看重礼貌的人，但他后来相当遗憾地表示，他担心自己在那个周末可能让女主人感到非常无奈。他不仅大部分时间都在打电话，而且由于种种原因无法对自己不当的行为进行哪怕一丁点的解释。在英国所做的事情，或者更确切地说，即将要做的事情，对国际金融界来说无疑是一场风波。自第一次世界大战开始以来，英国的银行利率从未超过百分之七，并且只是在少数情况下达到过这个高度。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Hayes, a man who sets great store by politeness, has since said, with considerable chagrin, that he fears he was the despair of his hostess that weekend. Not only was he on the telephone most of the time, but he was prevented by the circumstances from giving the slightest explanation of his unseemly behavior. What had been done, or rather what was about to be done in Britain, was plenty to flutter the dovecots of international finance. Since the beginning of the First World War, the bank rate there had never gone higher than seven percent and had only occasionally gone that high.
至于在星期四以外的日子改变银行利率，上一次发生这种情况，不祥的是在1931年。预计伦敦市场开盘时会有活跃的行动，这大约是在纽约时间凌晨五点左右。为此，库姆斯周日下午去了Liberty街，以便在银行过夜，并在跨大西洋交易开始时就在现场。和他一起过夜的是一个常常觉得有必要在银行过夜的人，以至于他办公室里总是放着一个装好东西的行李箱。那就是当时的高级外汇官员，托马斯·J·罗奇。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
As for a bank rate change on a day other than Thursday, the last time that had occurred, ominously enough, was in 1931. Anticipating lively action at the London opening, which would take place at about five a.m. New York time, Coombs went to Liberty Street on Sunday afternoon in order to spend the bank in the bank, and be on hand when the transatlantic doings began. As an overnight companion, he had a man who found it advisable to sleep at the bank so often that he habitually kept a packed suitcase in his office. Thomas J. Roche, at that time the senior foreign exchange officer.
罗氏欢迎他的老板来到他们的宿舍，这是位于11层的一排小旅馆般的房间。每个房间都配有枫木家具、旧纽约的印刷画、一部电话、一个收音闹钟、一件浴袍和一个剃须套装。两人在休息前就周末的进展讨论了一会儿。清晨近五点，收音机把他们唤醒。经过夜班员工准备的早餐后，他们来到7楼的外汇交易室，开始工作。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Roche welcomed his boss to the sleeping quarters, a row of small motel-like rooms on the 11th floor, each equipped with maple furniture, old New York prints, a telephone, a clock radio, a bathrobe, and a shaving kit, and the two men discussed the weekend's developments for a while before turning in. Shortly before five in the morning, the radios woke them, and after a breakfast provided by the night staff, they repaired to the foreign exchange trading room on the 7th floor to man their fluoroscope.
在五点十分，他们拨通了英国央行的电话，得知了消息。随着伦敦市场的开市，银行利率的上调被迅速宣布，伴随着极大的兴奋之情。后来，Coombs了解到，当政府经纪人进入证券交易所时，这通常是一片寂静的时刻，但这次却遭遇了如此大的喧闹声，以至于他难以传达他的消息。至于英镑的初期市场反应，正如一位评论员后来所说，就像赛马被注射兴奋剂一样。在银行利率宣布后的十分钟内，英镑迅速飙升至2.78美元，比周五收盘价高出69美分的百分之一。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
At five ten, they were on the phone to the Bank of England, getting the news. The bank rate rise had been announced promptly at the opening of the London markets, to the accompaniment of great excitement. Later, Coombs was to learn that the government broker's entrance into the stock exchange, which is usually the occasion for a certain hush, had this time been greeted with such an uproar that he had had difficulty making his news known. As for the first market reaction of the pound, it was, one commentator said later, like that of a racehorse to dope. In the ten minutes following the bank rate announcement, it shot up to $2.78 in 69-100 of a cent, far above its Friday closing.
几分钟后，早起的纽约人开始打电话给位于法兰克福的西德中央银行——德国联邦银行，以及位于苏黎世的瑞士国家银行，以了解欧洲大陆的反应。这些反应也同样积极。随后，他们再次联系英格兰银行，那里的情况也越来越好。针对英镑的投机者开始撤退，急忙回补他们的空头头寸。等到自由街的窗户透出第一丝黎明的灰光时，库姆斯已经听说英镑在伦敦的报价达到了2.79美元。这是自危机在七月开始以来的最佳价格。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A few minutes later, the early rising New Yorkers were on the phone to the Deutsche Bundesbank, the central bank of West Germany in Frankfurt, and the Swiss National Bank in Zurich, sounding out continental reaction. It was equally good. Then they were back in touch with the Bank of England, where things were looking better and better. The speculators against the pound were on the run, rushing now to cover their short sales, and by the time the first gray light began to show in the windows on Liberty Street, Coombs had heard that the pound was being quoted in London at $2.79. It's best price since July when the crisis started.
整整一天都是这样过的。一位瑞士银行家评论说，七个点（百分之七）的利率都能从月亮上吸来钱，他改编了伟大诗人Bhajat的话，后者用他那接地气的维多利亚式风格曾说过，七个点的利率能把黄金从地里挖出来。在伦敦，安全感如此强烈，以至于政治争论如常地回归。在议会中，不在任的保守党首席经济权威雷金纳德·莫德林借机表示，如果不是工党政府的行动，根本就不会有危机。财政大臣卡拉汉非常礼貌地回应道，我必须提醒尊敬的先生，您最近告诉我们，我们继承的是您的问题。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
It went on that way all day. Seven percent will drag money from the moon, a Swiss banker commented, paraphrasing the great bhajat, who had said, in his earthbound Victorian way, seven percent will pull gold out of the ground. In London, the sense of security was so strong that it allowed a return to political bickering as usual. In Parliament, Reginald Modelling, the chief economic authority of the out-of-office conservatives, took the occasion to remark that there wouldn't have been a crisis in the first place, but for the actions of the Labour government. And Chancellor of the Exchequer, Callahan replied, with deadly politeness, I must remind the honourable gentleman that he told us recently we had inherited his problems.
每个人显然都松了一口气。至于英格兰银行，由于突然对英镑的需求大增，它看到这是一个补充其枯竭的美元储备的机会。在那个下午的一段时间里，它实际上自信到转变立场，用英镑购买美元，价格略低于2.79美元。在纽约，伦敦市场收盘后，这种情绪仍然持续。正是出于对英镑的放心，纽约联邦储备银行的董事们可以，并且在那天下午确实，执行了他们将贷款利率从3.5%提高到4%的计划。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Everybody was clearly breathing easier. As for the Bank of England, so great was the sudden clamour for pounds that it saw chance to replenish its depleted supply of dollars, and for a time that afternoon it actually felt confident enough to switch sides in the market, buying dollars with pounds at just below two dollars and seventy-nine cents. In New York, the mood persisted after the London closing. It was with a clear conscience about the pound that the directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York could, and that afternoon did, carry out their plan to raise their lending rate from three and a half percent to four percent.
库姆斯后来表示，周一下午这里的感觉是，他们又成功了，他们再次挺过来了，大家都松了一口气。英镑危机似乎结束了。但实际上并没有。我记得情况在24日星期二迅速发生了变化，海斯表示，那天开市时，英镑汇率一度坚挺在2.7875美元。从德国来的大量英镑买入订单开始涌现，未来的一天看起来令人满意。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Coombs has since said, the feeling here on Monday afternoon was, they've done it, they've pulled through again, there was a general sigh of relief. The sterling crisis seemed to be over. It wasn't though. I remember that the situation changed very fast on Tuesday the 24th, Hayes has said, that day's opening found the pound-looking firm at two dollars and seventy-eight cents and seventy-five one hundredths of a cent. Substantial buying orders for pounds were coming in now from Germany, and the day ahead looked satisfactory.
直到纽约时间早上六点、欧洲大陆中午时分，事情一直在持续。正是在这个时间点，欧洲多个重要的证券市场，包括巴黎和法兰克福这些最重要的证券市场，召开会议来确定每种货币当天的汇率。这些价格制定会议对股票和债券涉及外币的交易结算起到了影响，因为它们清晰地展现了欧洲大陆在每种货币方面的主要市场情绪，从而不可避免地影响到货币市场。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
So things continued until six a.m. in New York, noon on the continent. It is around them that the various borses of Europe, including the most important ones, in Paris and Frankfurt, hold the meetings at which they set the day's rate for each currency. For the purpose of settling transactions in stocks and bonds that involve foreign currency, in these price-fixing sessions are bound to influence the money markets, since they give a clear indication of the most influential continental sentiment in regard to each currency.
当天设定的英镑借贷利率显示出市场对英镑的信心再次显著下降。同时，很快又出现了新的情况，各地，尤其是欧洲的金融交易商，对前一天加息的方式重新产生了疑虑。起初，他们被这次意外所惊讶，并做出了积极反应，但现在他们似乎迟来的意识到，周一发布公告表明英国可能正在失去控制力。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The borserates set for the pound that day were such as to show a renewed and pronounced lack of confidence. At the same time, it appeared subsequently, money dealers everywhere, and particularly in Europe, were having second thoughts about the manner of the bank rate rise the previous day. At first, taken by surprise, they had reacted enthusiastically, but now it seemed they had belatedly decided that the making of the announcement on Monday indicated that Britain was losing its grip.
这段文字描述了一个情景，即一位欧洲银行家询问同事，如果英国人在周日打杯赛决赛，这会意味着什么？唯一可能的回答是，这将在英国引起恐慌。然后，这种思考导致市场行为发生了惊人的急剧逆转。在纽约的交易室，库姆斯（Coombs）在早晨八点到九点之间目睹原本平静的英镑市场崩溃成一场溃败，他的心情非常沉重。从各地涌来的巨量卖单是前所未见的。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
What would it connote if the British were to play a cup final on Sunday, a European banker is said to have asked a colleague? The only possible answer was that it would connote panic in Albion. The effect of these second thoughts was an astonishingly drastic turnabout in market action. In New York, between eight and nine, Coombs, in the trading room, watched with a sinking heart as a tranquil pound market collapsed into a rout. Selling orders in unheard of quantities were coming from everywhere.
英格兰银行出于绝望的勇气，将最后一条防线从2.78美元和25.100美分提升到2.78美元和60.100美分，并通过持续干预将英镑稳定在这个水平。但很明显，这样做的成本很快就会变得太高。纽约时间上午9点过后几分钟，有人计算出英国的储备正在以每分钟一百万美元的前所未有且无法承受的速度减少。哈利在上午9点过后不久到达银行，他刚在办公桌前坐下，就从七楼收到了这个令人不安的消息。科姆斯告诉他，“我们要遭遇一场飓风了”，并接着说，对英镑的压力正在迅速增加，以至于很可能在本周结束前，英国会被迫进行贬值，或实施一项全面的、因多种原因而不可接受的外汇管制系统。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The Bank of England, with the courage of desperation, advanced its last line trench from $2.78 and $25.100 of a cent to $2.78 and $60.100 of a cent, and by constant intervention held the pound there. But it was clear that the cost would soon become too high. A few minutes after 9 a.m. New York time, coums calculated that Britain was losing reserves at the unprecedented and unsupportable rate of a million dollars a minute. Hey, is arriving at the bank shortly after 9 at Hardley sat down at his desk before this unsettling news reached him from the seventh floor. We're in for a hurricane, coums told him, and went on to say that the pressure on Sterling was now mounting so fast that there was a real likelihood that Britain might be forced either to devalue or to impose a sweeping, and for many reasons unacceptable, system of exchange controls before the week was out.
海耶斯立刻打电话给主要欧洲中央银行的行长们，其中一些人因为各国市场尚未完全感受到危机的压力，所以在听到事态的严重性后感到震惊。他请求他们不要通过提高自己的银行利率来加剧对英镑和美元的压力。他的工作并不轻松，因为他不得不承认自己所在的银行也刚刚提高了利率。接着，他让库姆斯到他的办公室来。这两个人一致认为，现在英镑已经是背水一战了。显然，英国提高银行利率的做法未能达到预期目的，而且以每分钟损失百万英镑的速度，英国的储备将在不到五个工作日内耗尽。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Hayes immediately telephoned the governors of the leading European central banks, some of whom, because not all the national markets had yet felt the full weight of the crisis, were startled to hear exactly how grave the situation was, and pleaded with them not to exacerbate the pressure on both the pound and the dollar by raising their own bank rates. His job was scarcely made easier by the fact that he had to admit that his own bank had just raised its rate. Then he asked coums to come up to his office. The pound, the two men agreed, now had its back to the wall. The British bank rate rise had obviously failed of its purpose, and at the million a minute rate of loss Britain's well of reserves would be dry in less than five business days.
现在唯一的希望是在短短几个小时内，或者最多一两天内，从英国以外汇集一大笔资金，以支持英格兰银行抵御这场袭击。这种救援资金以前只在少数几次得以筹集过，比如1962年救助加拿大、1964年早些时候救助意大利，以及1961年救助英国。但是这次显然需要比以往任何一次都更大的一笔资金。面对这一情况，国际中央银行界不仅看到了在货币合作短暂历史中树立里程碑的机会，更是面临了这样做的必要性。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The one hope now lay in a massing within a matter of hours, or within a day or so at the most, a huge bundle of credit from outside Britain to enable the Bank of England to survive the attack and beat it back. Such rescue bundles had been assembled just a handful of times before, for Canada in 1962, for Italy, earlier in 1964, and for Britain in 1961. But this time it was clear a much bigger bundle than any of those would be needed. The central banking world was faced not so much with an opportunity for building a milestone in the short history of international monetary cooperation as with the necessity for doing so.
有两点是明确的：首先，考虑到美元的问题，美国不可能独自拯救英镑；其次，尽管有美元的问题，美国仍然必须利用其强大的经济实力，与英格兰银行一同发起任何救援行动。作为第一步，库姆建议立即将美联储对英格兰银行的备用信贷额度从5亿美元增加到7.5亿美元。然而，由于《联邦储备法案》的规定，任何此类行动必须由一个联邦储备系统委员会做出决定，而委员会成员分布在全国各地，因此快速行动受到阻碍。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Two other things were clear. That, in view of the dollar's troubles, the United States could not hope to rescue the pound unassisted, and that the dollar's troubles notwithstanding the United States with all its economic might would have to join the Bank of England in initiating any rescue operation. As a first step, Coom suggested that the Federal Reserve standby credit to the Bank of England ought to be increased forthwith from $500 million to $750 million. Unfortunately, fast action on this proposal was hampered by the fact that, under the Federal Reserve Act, any such move could be made only by decision of a Federal Reserve System Committee, whose members were scattered all over the country.
海斯通过长途电话与全球各地进行交流，此时电话线充满了英镑危机的消息。在华盛顿货币小组中，马丁、迪伦和罗莎都没有反对库姆关于该怎么做的看法。经过这些讨论，马丁办公室发出了通知，召集关键委员会（即公开市场委员会）的成员于当天下午三点通过电话开会。财政部的罗莎建议美国可以进一步增加对关键基金的贡献，通过在华盛顿的财政部拥有和资助的机构——进出口银行获取2.5亿美元的贷款。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Hayes conferred by long-distance telephone all around the world, wires were now humming with news of the pound's extremity, with the Washington Monetary contingent, Martin, Dylan, and Rosa, none of whom disagreed with Coom's view of what had to be done, and as a result of these discussions, a call went out from Martin's office to members of the Key Committee, called the Open Market Committee, for meeting by telephone at three o'clock that afternoon. Rosa, at the Treasury, suggested that the United States contribution to the Key could be further increased, by ranging for a $250 million loan from the Export-Import Bank, a Treasury-owned and Treasury-financeed institution in Washington.
海斯和库姆斯自然支持这一决定，罗莎启动了官僚机构以解锁那个特定的金库。他警告说，这个过程肯定会持续到晚上。随着纽约早晨的流逝，英国的储备金不断减少，每分钟都有数百万美元流失。海斯和库姆斯以及他们在华盛顿的同事们忙于计划下一步行动。如果换汇增加和进出口银行的贷款能够落实，美国的信贷总额将达到十亿美元。现在，与英格兰银行中疲惫不堪的驻守部队进行磋商后，美联储的工作人员开始相信，为了使这次行动有效，必须要求其他主要的中央银行——这些银行在中央银行之间的术语中被简称为“欧洲大陆”，尽管它们中包括加拿大和日本的银行——提供大约十五亿美元或可能更多的额外信贷。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Hayes and Coom's were naturally in favor of this, and Rosa said in motion the bureaucratic machinery to unlock that particular vault, a process that he warned would certainly take into evening. As the early afternoon passed in New York, with millions of dollars continuing to drain, minute by minute from Britain's reserves, Hayes and Coom's, along with their Washington colleagues, were busy planning the next step. If the swap increase and the Export-Import Bank loan should come through, the United States credits would amount to a billion dollars all told. Now, in consultation with the beleaguered garrison at the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve Bank men began to believe that, in order to make the operation effective, the other leading central banks, spoken of in central banking shorthand as the continent, even though they include the banks of Canada and Japan, would have to be asked to put up additional credits on the order of one and a half billion dollars, or possibly even more.
这样一笔特别的资金数额就更加显得与众不同了。这笔金额将使这个大陆整体上成为比美国更大的捐助者。海耶斯和科姆意识到，这可能会让大陆的银行家和他们的政府感到不太好受。下午三点，公开市场委员会举行了电话会议，十二名成员在从纽约到旧金山的六座城市的办公桌前坐着。成员们听到了科姆干巴巴、毫无感情的声音描述情况并提出他的建议。他们很快就被说服了。在短短十五分钟内，他们一致投票同意将互换信贷增加到7.5亿美元，条件是可以从其他中央银行获得相应的信贷支持。到了傍晚，来自华盛顿的初步消息传来，表明进出口银行贷款的前景不错，并且在午夜前可以得到更明确的消息。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Such a special amount of money was even more. Such a sum would make the continent, collectively, a bigger contributor to the cause than the United States. A fact that Hayes and Coom's realized might not sit too well with the continental bankers and their governments. At three o'clock, the open market committee held its telephone meeting, twelve men sitting at their desks in six cities from New York to San Francisco. The members heard Coom's dry, unemotional voice describing the situation and making his recommendation. They were quickly convinced. In no more than fifteen minutes, they had voted unanimously to increase the swap credit to $750 million, on condition that proportional credit assistance could be obtained from other central banks. By late afternoon, tentative word had come from Washington that prospects for the export import bank loan looked good, and that more definite word could be expected before midnight.
美国的十亿美元信贷似乎已经基本到手。接下来就是解决欧洲大陆的问题。当时欧洲正是夜晚，无法联系到那里的任何人。因此，零时刻就是第二天大陆开盘时间，此后几小时将是英镑命运的关键时段。海斯在安排好银行派车凌晨四点到康涅狄格州新迦南的家中接他后，乘坐了五点多从中央车站发出的通勤火车。他后来表示有些后悔在如此戏剧性的时刻采取了如此常规的方式行动。他回顾道：“我离开银行时心里有些不舍。我想我希望自己当时没有离开，但不是因为实际情况，我在家一样能发挥作用，事实上，晚上我大部分时间都在和留在银行的查理·库姆斯通电话。”
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
So the one billion dollars in United States credit appeared to be virtually in the bag. It remained to tackle the continent. It was night now in Europe, and nobody there could be tackled. The zero hour then was continental opening time the next day, and the crucial period for the fate of the pound would be the few hours after that. Hayes, after leaving instructions for a bank car to pick him up at his home in New Canaan, Connecticut, at four o'clock in the morning, took his usual commuting train from Grand Central shortly after five. He has since expressed a certain regret that he proceeded in such a routine way at such a dramatic moment. I left the bank rather reluctantly, he says, in retrospect. I guess I wish I hadn't. I don't mean as a practical matter. I was just as useful at home, and as a matter of fact, I ended up spending most of the evening on the phone with Charlie Coombs, who stayed at the bank.
尽管这样的事情每天并不会发生在银行家的生活中，我是个有习惯的人。我想这也是我的一个原则，即坚持保持私人生活和职业生活的平衡。虽然海斯没有直接说，但他可能还在想其他的事情。我们可以很安全地说，中央银行行长或总裁通常都会有一个原则，就是不会在工作场所过夜。如果外界知道一丝不苟的海斯在这样的情况下留在了公司，他可能会认为这会被看作是恐慌的标志，就像英国银行在周一上调利率一样。与此同时，库姆斯又一次在自由街加班。他前一天晚上回了家，因为当时情况好像暂时好转了。但现在，他在正常工作时间结束后仍然和罗什一起留在那里，罗什自上个周末以来就没有回过家。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
But just because something like that doesn't happen every day in a banker's life. I'm a creature of habit, I guess. Besides, it's something of a tenant of mine to insist on keeping a proper balance between private and professional life. Although Hayes does not say so, he may have been thinking of something else, too. It can safely be said to be something of a tenant of central bank presidents or governors not to sleep at their places of business. If word were ever to get out, that the methodical Hayes was doing so at a time like this, he may have reasoned, it might well be considered just as much a sign of panic as a British bank rate rise on a Monday. Meanwhile, Coombs was making another night of it on Liberty Street. He had gone home the previous night because the worst had momentarily appeared to be over. But now he stayed on after regular work hours with Roche, who hadn't been home since the previous weekend.
接近午夜时，库姆斯收到了出口进口银行提供的2.5亿美元信贷的确认，这笔资金如承诺的一样在晚上从华盛顿到达。因此，现在一切都已为明早的行动做好了准备。库姆斯再次把自己安顿在索然无味的11楼单间办公室里，经过最后一轮的整理，以备说服大陆银行家时使用，他把收音机设定在3点30分的闹钟，然后上床睡觉。一位有文学倾向和浪漫气质的联邦储备银行官员后来将当晚的情形与莎士比亚的《亨利五世》中的阿金库尔战役前夜的英国营地进行了比较。在那版本中，亨利国王对即将到来的战斗如何使最卑微的士兵变得高尚，以及在家安睡的绅士们日后将如何因未能参与而感到遗憾进行了深情的沉思。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Toward midnight, Coombs received confirmation of the export import bank's $250 million credit, which had arrived from Washington during the evening as promised. So now everything was braced for the morning's effort. Coombs again installed himself in one of the uninspiring 11th floor cubicles and after a final marshalling of the facts that would be needed for the job of persuading the Continental bankers, set his clock radio for $330 and went to bed. A Federal Reserveman, with the literary bent and romantic temperament, was later moved to draw parallel between the Federal Reserve Bank that night and the British camp on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, in Shakespeare's version, in which King Henry mused so eloquently and how participation in the coming action would serve to a noble even the vilest of the troops, and how gentlemen safe and bed at home would later think themselves accursed that they had not been at the battle scene.
库姆斯是个务实的人，对自己的处境没有那么高的看法。即便如此，当他半睡半醒地等待清晨到达欧洲时，他清楚地意识到自己参与的事件在银行业前所未有。于是，1964年11月24日星期二的那个晚上，海耶斯按惯例在6点30分左右回到了康涅狄格州的新卡南的家中。他准时乘坐了从中央车站出发的5点09分列车。海耶斯是一个54岁的高挑、苗条、说话温和的人，犀利的眼神被圆眼镜框住，稍带一丝教师的气质，素以沉着冷静著称。在这样一个紧张时刻，他仍按部就班地重复着熟悉的习惯动作，意识到这可能让同事们觉得他在如此重大的时刻尤为镇定自若，这令他感到有趣。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Coombs, a practical man, had no such high-flown opinion of his situation. Even so, as he dozed fitfully, waiting for morning to reach Europe, he was well aware that the events he was taking part in were like nothing that had ever happened in banking before. So that evening, Tuesday, November 24, 1964, Hayes arrived at his home in New Canaan, Connecticut at about 630, exactly as usual, having inexorably taken his usual 509 from Grand Central. Hayes was a tall, slim, soft-spoken man of 54, with keen eyes framed by allish-round spectacles, with a slightly school-masterish air and a reputation for unflappability. By so methodically going through familiar motions at such a time, he realized with amusement he must seem to his colleagues to be living up to his reputation rather spectacularly.
在他家，他被妻子如往常一样迎接。他家是一座美丽的老建筑，前身是大约建于1840年的看护人小屋，早在12年前就被海耶斯家买下并重新装修。他的妻子是一位漂亮而活泼的女人，具有英意混血背景，名叫维尔玛，但大家都叫她贝芭。她喜欢旅行，对银行业几乎没有兴趣，是已故大都会歌剧院男中音托马斯·查尔默斯的女儿。那时候天已经完全黑了，因此海耶斯放弃了他傍晚常做的放松活动——步行到屋旁的小山坡顶端，从那里可以眺望到长岛的美丽景色。而且，他并没有真的想放松，因为他觉得自己情绪高涨，考虑到第二天一早银行的车就会来接他去上班，他决定不如保持这种状态过夜。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
At his house, a former caretaker's cottage of circa 1840 that the Hayeses had bought and remodeled 12 years earlier, he was greeted as usual by his wife, a pretty and vivacious woman of Anglo-Italian descent named Vilma, but always called Beba, who loves to travel, has almost no interest in banking, and is the daughter of the late Metropolitan Opera baritone, Thomas Chalmers. Since at that time of year it was completely dark when Hayes got home, he decided to forego a favorite early evening unwinding activity of his, walking to the top of a grassy slope beside the house which commands a fine view across the sound to Long Island. Anyway, he was not really in a mood to unwind, instead he felt keyed up and decided he might as well stay that way overnight, since the car from the bank was scheduled to call at his door so early the next morning to take him to work.
在晚餐时，海耶斯和他的妻子讨论了一些话题，比如他们的儿子汤姆的情况。汤姆是哈佛大学的一名高年级学生，他将在第二天回家过感恩节假期。晚餐后，海耶斯坐在扶手椅上读书。在银行界，人们认为他是一位学术型知识分子，事实上，与大多数银行家相比，他的确具有学术和智识。然而，他在银行业务之外的阅读并不是持续全面的，正如他的妻子所说，而是零星的、随性的、集中的。也许会在某段时间内对拿破仑的一切都感兴趣，然后经历一段枯燥期，接着又对美国内战展开如饥似渴的阅读。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
During dinner Hayes and his wife discussed subjects like the fact that their son Tom, who was a senior at Harvard, would be arriving home the following day for his Thanksgiving recess. Afterward, Hayes settled down in an armchair to read for a while. In banking circles, he is thought of as a scholarly intellectual type, and indeed he is scholarly and intellectual, in comparison with most bankers. Even so, his extra banking reading tends to be not constant in all embracing, as his wife says, but sporadic, capricious, and intensive. Everything about Napoleon for a while perhaps, then a dry period, then a binge on say the Civil War.
就在那时，他正在专注于科孚岛，他和海斯太太计划在那里度过一段时间。但是，他还没能深入研究他最近的一本关于科孚岛的书，就接到了一个电话。电话是银行打来的。有些新的动态，库姆斯认为海斯总统应该了解一下。简要概括一下，政府银行（更常被称为中央银行）将在伦敦和欧洲大陆的金融市场在次日早上开市后尽快采取果断措施以拯救英镑，这些措施不仅会与美国联邦储备银行密切相关，实际上联邦储备银行也会参与启动。这些市场在纽约时间凌晨四点至五点之间开市。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Just then, he was concentrating on the island of Corfu, where he and Mrs. Hayes were planning to spend some time, but before he had got very far into his latest Corfu book, he was called to the telephone. The call was from the bank. There were new developments which Coombs thought President Hayes ought to be kept abreast of. To recapitulate in brief, drastic action to save the pound, which the Federal Reserve Bank not only would be intimately involved in, but would actually join in initiating, was going to be taken by the government banks, or central banks as they are more commonly called, of the non-communist world's leading nations as soon as possible after the next morning's opening of the London and Continental financial markets, which would occur between 4 and 5 a.m. New York Time.
英国面临破产的局面，原因是前几个月国际收支的巨大赤字导致英格兰银行的黄金和美元储备大幅减少。全球市场担心新当选的工党政府可能决定或被迫通过将英镑兑美元的汇率从大约2.80美元大幅贬值来缓解局势，这导致对冲者和投机者在国际货币市场上大量抛售英镑。英格兰银行承担维护英镑自由市场价格不低于2.78美元的国际责任，因此每天损失数百万美元的储备。目前储备已降至约20亿美元，为多年来的最低点。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Britain was face to face with bankruptcy, the reasons being that a huge deficit in its international accounts over the previous months had resulted in concomitant losses in the gold and dollar reserves held by the Bank of England. That worldwide fear less than newly elected Labour government decide, or be forced to ease the situation by devaluing the pound from its dollar parity of about $2.80 to some substantially lower figure, had caused a flood of selling of pounds by hedgers and speculators in the international money markets. That the Bank of England, fulfilling an international obligation to sustain the pound at a free market price of no lower than $2.78, had been losing millions of dollars a day from its reserves, which now stood at about $2 billion, the lowest point in many years.
剩下的希望寄托在短短几个小时内，来自全球富裕国家中央银行的短期美元信贷，从未有过的一次大规模集结，而这必须在为时已晚之前完成。拥有这些信贷后，英国央行应该能够足够积极地买进英镑，从而抵御、遏制并最终回击投机攻击，为英国争取时间整顿其经济事务。到底需要多少资金进行这次救援仍是个未知数，不过当天早些时候，美国和英国的货币当局已得出结论，至少需要20亿美元，甚至可能更多。美国当天已通过纽约联邦储备银行和华盛顿的国库出口银行承诺提供10亿美元。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The remaining hope lay in a massing in a matter of hours before it would be too late in unheard of some in short-term dollar credits to Britain from the central banks of the world's rich nations. With such credits at its disposal, the Bank of England would presumably be able to buy up pounds so aggressively that the speculative attack could be absorbed, contained, and finally beaten back, giving Britain time to set its economic affairs in order. Just what the sum necessary for rescue should be was an open question, but earlier that day the monetary authorities of the United States and Britain had concluded that it would have to be at least $2 billion and perhaps even more. The United States, through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Treasury-owned Export Bank in Washington, had that day committed itself to $1 billion.
剩下的任务是说服其他几个主要的中央银行，这些银行在中央银行界通常被称为“大陆”，尽管它们中包括加拿大和日本的银行，再额外借出超过十亿美元。这种要求对“大陆”来说是史无前例的，无论是通过互换网络还是其他方式。1964年9月，“大陆”曾提供过迄今为止最大的一次紧急集体信贷，向英格兰银行提供了5亿美元用于当时捍卫英镑。而现在，这笔5亿美元的贷款还未偿还，英镑的形势却更加糟糕，“大陆”被要求提供超过两倍甚至五倍于此的金额。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The task that remained was to persuade the other leading central banks, habitually spoken of in the central banking world as the continent, even though they include the banks of Canada and Japan, to lend more than a billion in addition. Nothing of the kind had ever been asked of the continent before, through the swap network or any other way. In September 1964, the continent had come through with its biggest collective emergency credit so far, half a billion dollars to the Bank of England for use in defending the pound already in battle then. Now, with this half-billion loan still outstanding and the pound in far worse straits, the continent was about to be called upon for more than twice that sum, perhaps five times that sum.
显然，合作的精神（如果不是仁慈的品质）将要面临压力。于是，那天晚上他的思绪就这样展开了。因为这些重大的问题在他的脑海中翻腾，海耶斯发现很难将心思集中在科孚岛上。此外，想到银行车将在四点钟到达，他觉得自己应该早点上床睡觉。就在他准备这样做时，海耶斯太太评论说，因为他得在半夜起床，她想她应该为他感到遗憾。但由于他显然非常期待能够在那个时刻起床的原因，她反而感到很羡慕。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Obviously, the spirit of cooperation, if not the quality of mercy, was about to be strained. So, his musings that evening may well have run. With such portentous matters churning around in his head, Hayes founded hard to keep his mind on Corfu. Besides, the prospect of the bank car's arrival at four o'clock made him feel that he should go to bed early. As he prepared to do so, Mrs. Hayes commented that since he would have to get up in the middle of the night, she supposed she ought to feel sorry for him. But since he was obviously looking forward with keen anticipation to whatever it was that would get him up at that hour, she envied him instead.
在自由街上，库姆断断续续地睡着，直到大约纽约时间3:30被房间里的时钟收音机叫醒。也就是伦敦时间8:30和欧洲大陆东部的9:30。由于一系列涉及欧洲的外汇危机，他已经习惯了这种时差，甚至倾向于按照欧洲的时间来思考，常常把纽约的上午8点说成是午餐时间，把上午9点说成是下午。在他看来，即便是在自由街上星星仍然闪烁的时候，他起来时也是早晨。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Down on Liberty Street, Coom slept fitfully until he was awakened by the clock radio in his room at about 3.30 New York time. That is to say, 8.30 London time and 9.30 farther east on the European continent. A series of foreign exchange crises involving Europe had so accustomed him to the time differential that he was inclined to think in terms of the European day, referring casually to 8.00 AM in New York as lunchtime, and 9.00 AM as mid-afternoon. So when he got up it was, in his terms, morning, despite the stars that were shining over Liberty Street.
库姆穿好衣服，来到位于十楼的办公室，在那他享用了由银行夜班厨房员工准备的早餐，然后开始给非共产主义世界的各大央行打电话。所有电话都是由一位负责联邦储备银行下班时间总机的接线员接通的，并且所有电话都有资格使用银行官员可以申请的特殊政府紧急优先权。不过这次没有必要，因为在库姆开始打电话的时候，时钟刚过4点15，跨大西洋的线路几乎完全畅通无阻。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Coom's got dressed, went to his office on the tenth floor, where he had some breakfast provided by the bank's regular night kitchen staff, and began placing telephone calls to the various leading central banks of the non-communist world. All the calls were put through by one telephone operator who handles the Federal Reserve Bank's switchboard during off hours, and all of them were eligible for a special government emergency priority that the bank's officers are entitled to claim. But on this occasion it did not have to be used, because at 4.15, when Coom's began telephoning, the transatlantic circuits were almost entirely clear.
电话的目的主要是为即将发生的事情打下基础。来自英国央行的早晨消息，是通过首先从自由街拨出的电话之一获得的，显示情况与前一天没有变化。对英镑的投机性攻击仍在不减地持续，英国央行通过不断投入更多的储备，来将英镑的价格维持在2.78美元和61美分。Cooms 认为，当大约五小时后纽约外汇市场开盘时，大量英镑会在大西洋的这一边被抛售，因此需要进一步花费更多的英镑和黄金来应对。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The calls were made essentially to lay the groundwork for what was to come. The morning news from the Bank of England, obtained in one of the first calls from Liberty Street, was that conditions were unchanged from the previous day. The speculative attack on the pound was continuing unabated, and the Bank of England was sustaining the pound's price at $2.78 and $61.00 of a cent, by throwing still more of its reserves on the market. Coom's had reason to believe that when the New York foreign exchange market opened some five hours later, vast additional quantities of pounds would be thrown on the market on this side of the Atlantic, and more British dollars and gold would have to be spent.
他将这个令人震惊的消息传达给了在法兰克福的德国联邦银行、在巴黎的法国银行、在罗马的意大利银行以及东京的日本银行等机构的同行。在联系日本银行时，由于14小时的时差，已经是东亚地区的晚上六点多了，因此不得不在家中联系这些官员。接着，进入关键问题时，Coom's告知各银行的代表，他们很快会收到英格兰银行的请求，要求贷款的金额将远远超过他们之前所收到的任何请求。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
He conveyed this alarming intelligence to his counterparts at such institutions as the Deutsche Bundesmacht in Frankfurt, the Bongthiefrance in Paris, the Bancaditalia in Rome, and the Bank of Japan in Tokyo. In the last case, the officers had to be reached at their homes for the 14-hour time difference made it already past 6 p.m. in the Orient. Then, coming to the crux of the matter, Coom's informed the representatives of the various banks that they were soon to be asked on behalf of the Bank of England for loan far bigger than any they had ever been asked for before.
没有给出具体的数据，我试图强调这是一个非常严重的危机，但许多人仍未意识到这一点。科姆士表示。 德意志联邦银行的一位官员，这位官员对危机的了解程度仅次于伦敦、华盛顿和纽约的人，他表示在法兰克福，他们在心理上已经准备好，或者更准确地说，他们已经做好了应对即将到来的巨大冲击的准备。但是，直到科姆士打电话给他们之前，他们一直希望对英镑的投机攻击能够自行消退。而即便在接到那通电话之后，他们还是不知道可能会被要求提取多少资金。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Without going into specific figures, I tried to make the point that it was a crisis of the first magnitude, which many of them still didn't realize, Coom's has said. An officer of the Bundesbank, who knew as much about the extent of the crisis as anyone outside London, Washington and New York, has said that in Frankfurt they were mentally prepared or braced, might be a better word, for the huge touch there was about to be put on them, but that right up to the time of Coom's call they had been hoping the speculative attack on the pound would subside of its own accord, and even after the call they had no idea how much they might be asked for.
无论如何，一旦Coombs的电报被解除，德国央行行长就立即召集了一个管理委员会会议，结果这个会议整整持续了一天。然而，这些都只是准备工作。实际的请求和具体金额必须由一个中央银行的负责人向另一个央行的负责人提出。当Coombs在进行试探性的电话联系时，美联储的负责人正坐在银行的豪华轿车里，车子行驶在新迦南和自由街之间。有趣的是，这辆豪车完全不符合詹姆斯·邦德那种高层国际交易的风格，因为它竟然没有装备电话。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In any event, as soon as Coom's was off the wire, the Bundesbank's governor called a board of managers meeting, and, as things turned out, the meeting was to remain in session all day long. Still, all this was preparatory. Actual requests and specific amounts had to be made by the head of one central bank to the head of another. At the time Coom's was making his softening up calls, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank was in the Bank's limousine, somewhere between New Canaan and Liberty Street, and the Bank's limousine, in flagrant nonconformity with the James Bond style of high-level international dealings, was not equipped with a telephone.
被等待的那个人，海耶斯，已经担任纽约联邦储备银行行长稍超过八年。他的任命让几乎所有人都感到困惑，因为他并不是从某个同等显赫的职位上被选中，也不是从联邦储备系统内部提拔，而是从蜂拥的纽约商业银行副行长当中脱颖而出。这一任命在当时看来不太正统，但事后来看，却似乎是上天的安排。研究海耶斯的早年生活和青年时代的职业生涯，会让人觉得所有的一切似乎都在为他处理这类国际货币危机做好准备。就像作家或画家的生活有时看起来似乎主要是为创作一件艺术作品而做的准备一样。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Hayes, the man being awaited, had been president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for a little over eight years, having been chosen for the job to his own in almost everyone else's bewilderment, not from some position of comparable eminence or from the Federal Reserve's own ranks, but from among the swarming legions of New York Commercial Bank vice presidents. On Orthodox, as the appointment seemed at the time, in retrospect, it seems providential. A study of Hayes' early life, an youthful career, gives the impression that everything was somehow intended to prepare him for dealing with this sort of international monetary crisis. Just as the life of a writer or painter sometimes seems to have consisted primarily of preparation for the execution of a single work of art.
如果天意，或者可以说是天意的财务部门，在巨大英镑危机迫在眉睫时，需要对海斯应对这一任务的能力进行评估，并聘请了天上同等级的高管猎头来写一份关于他的报告，那么报告可能会是这样的：海斯于1910年7月4日出生在纽约州的伊萨卡，主要在纽约市长大。他的父亲是康奈尔大学的宪法学教授，后来成为曼哈顿的投资顾问。母亲曾是一名学校教师，热衷于支持女性选举权，是居家服务所工作人员，也是一位政治自由主义者。父母都有观鸟的爱好。家庭氛围注重智力、思想自由和社会责任。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
If divine providence, or perhaps its financial department, when the huge sterling crisis was imminent, had needed an assessment of Hayes' qualifications for coping with this task, and had hired the celestial equivalent of an executive recruiter to report on him, the dossier might have read something like this. Born in Ithaca, New York on July 4, 1910, grew up mostly in New York City. Father, a professor of constitutional law at Cornell, later a Manhattan investment counselor. Mother, a former school teacher, enthusiastic suffragette, settlement houseworker, and political liberal. Both parents, bird watchers. Family atmosphere, intellectual, free thinking, and public spirited.
在纽约市和马萨诸塞州的私立学校就读，通常是学校成绩最好的学生。然后进入哈佛大学，只读了一年大一，之后转至耶鲁大学，主修数学，三年期间，在大三时成为Phi Beta Kappa荣誉学会的成员，在校划艇队表现平平。1930年以班级最高成绩获得学士学位。作为罗德学者于1931年至1933年在牛津大学的新学院学习，在那里成为坚定的亲英派，并撰写了关于1923年至1930年期间联邦储备政策和金本位制度运行的论文，尽管他从未想过要加入联邦储备。现在他希望能找到那篇论文，以防其中包含了盲目的青春启示，但他和新学院都找不到。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Attended private schools in New York City and Massachusetts, and was usually his school's top ranking student. Then went to Harvard, freshman year only, and Yale, three years, mathematics major, Phi Beta Kappa in junior year, ineffectual or on-class crew. Graduated 1930 as top BA of class. Studied at New College, Oxford as Rhodes Scholar, 1931 to 1933, there became firm anglophile and wrote thesis on federal reserve policy and the working of the gold standard in the years 1923 to 1930, although we had no thought of ever joining the Federal Reserve. Wishes now he had the thesis in case it contains blinding youthful illuminations, but neither he nor New College can find it.
于1933年进入纽约的商业银行业，并缓慢但稳定地晋升。到1938年，年薪2700美元。1942年在纽约信托公司获得了一个虽然含金量较低但算是排序靠前的职称——助理秘书。在海军服役后，1947年成为助理副总裁，两年后尽管完全没有外汇银行业务的经验，但还是被任命为纽约信托公司外汇部门的负责人。他显然学习速度很快，令同事和上司惊讶不已，并赢得了他们的尊重。尤其是他通过预测1949年英镑贬值的准确幅度（从4.03美元降至2.80美元），几周前就因这一精准预测而被他们称为外汇奇才。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Entered New York commercial banking in 1933 and rose slowly but steadily, 1938 annual salary $2,700. A tamed title, albeit feeble title, of assistant secretary at New York Trust Company in 1942. After a Navy stint, in 1947 became an assistant vice president, and two years later, head of New York Trust's foreign department despite total lack of previous experience in foreign banking. Apparently learned fast, astounded his colleagues and superiors, and gained reputation among them as foreign exchange wizard by predicting precise amount of 1949 pound devaluation, $4.03 to $2.80 a few weeks before it occurred.
1956年，该人在完全出乎自己和纽约银行界意料的情况下被任命为纽约联邦储备银行行长，当时大多数银行界人士都不认识这位性格内向的人。他冷静地回应了这个任命，带着家人去欧洲度了两个月的假。现在的普遍看法是，联邦储备银行的董事们在选择外汇专家方面要么有着近乎不可思议的预见力，要么非常幸运，因为当时正值美元走弱和国际货币合作变得极其重要的时期。他受到欧洲央行行长们的喜爱，他们称他为Al，虽然常常听起来更像“阿尔”。他的年薪为75,000美元，是仅次于美国总统的联邦官员中的第二高薪。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Was appointed president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 1956, to his utter astonishment and that of New York banking community, most of which had never heard of this rather shy man. Reacted calmly by taking his family on a two-month vacation in Europe. The consensus now is that the Federal Reserve Bank's directors had almost implausible prescience or luck in picking a foreign exchange expert just when the dollar was weakening and international monetary cooperation becoming crucially important. Is liked by European central bankers who call him Al, which often comes out sounding more like Al, earns $75,000 a year, making him the second highest paid federal official after the president of the United States?
联邦储备银行的薪资旨在与银行领域的标准保持竞争力，而不是按照政府雇员的标准来制定。他非常高挑，努力遵守固定的通勤时间，并以原则为重，保持私人生活的神圣不可侵犯。他认为在办公室加班到晚上是不可接受的。他抱怨儿子对商业评价不高，并归因于反向势利，但即便如此他仍然保持冷静。结论？这正是能够在英镑危机中代表美国中央银行的合适人选。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Federal Reserve Bank salaries being intended to be more or less competitive in banking terms rather than in government employee terms. Is very tall and very thin? Tries to observe regular commuting hours and keep his private life sacrosanct as a matter of principle. Consider's regular evening work at an office outrageous. Complains that his son has a low opinion of business, attributes this to reverse a snobbery, but even then remains calm. Conclusion? This is the very man for the job of representing the United States central bank in a sterling crisis.
海耶斯确实像一台被精心设计和装配的机器，能够出色地完成某项复杂任务。然而，他还有其他方面，与其他人一样，他的性格同样充满矛盾。尽管几乎没有银行界人士在描述海耶斯时不使用“学术型”和“智识型”这两个词，但海耶斯却倾向于认为自己是一个平庸的学者和知识分子，而是一个有效的实干家。而在后者这一点上，1964年11月25日的事件似乎证明了他的看法。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And indeed, Hayes readily fits the picture of a perfectly planned and perfectly tooled piece of machinery to perform a certain complex task. But there are other sides to him, and his character contains as many paradoxes as the next man's. Although hardly anyone in banking ever tries to describe Hayes without using the words scholarly and intellectual, Hayes tends to think of himself as an indifferent scholar and intellectual, but an effective man of action. And on the latter score, the events of November 25, 1964 seem to bear him out.
尽管在某些方面，他完全符合H.G.威尔士对银行家的定义，就像一只小猎犬对待老鼠一样理所当然地对待金钱，对金钱几乎没有任何哲学上的好奇心。但他对几乎所有其他事物都充满了与银行家不太相符的哲学好奇心。虽然有时一些泛泛之交认为他乏味，但他的亲密朋友们却谈到他一种享受生活的罕见能力和内在的平和，这种特质似乎使他不受许多与他同时代的人所经历的紧张和干扰的影响。毫无疑问，当海耶斯坐在银行车里前往自由街时，他的内心平和经受了严峻的考验。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Although in some ways he is the complete banker in conformity with H. G. Wells notion of such a banker, he seems to take money for granted as a terrier takes rats, and to be devoid of philosophical curiosity about it. He has a distinctly unbanker-like philosophical curiosity about almost everything else. And although casual acquaintances sometimes pronounce him dull, his close friends speak of a rare capacity for enjoyment and an inner serenity that seem to make him immune to the tensions and distractions that fragment the lives of so many of his contemporaries. Doubtless, the inner serenity was put to a severe test as Hayes rode in the bank car toward Liberty Street.
当他大约在5点30分到达办公桌时，海斯的第一件事就是按下内线电话上的科姆按钮，了解外汇部主管对当前局势的最新评估。他得知，正如他所预料的那样，英格兰银行令人担忧的美元外流仍在继续，毫无减缓的迹象。更糟的是，科姆说他与当地银行家的联系表明，那些参与紧急早晨警戒的银行家们，尤其是在像大通曼哈顿银行和第一国民城市银行这样的大型商业银行的外汇部门工作的人士，夜间已经累积了大量的订单，准备一旦纽约市场开盘就抛售英镑。英格兰银行已经几乎不堪重负，可以预见来自纽约的新一波冲击将在四小时后袭来。因此，行动的紧迫性变得更加急迫。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
When he arrived at his desk at about $5.30, Hayes' first act was to punch Coom's button on his inner office phone and get the foreign department chief's latest appraisal of the situation. He learned that, as he had expected, the Bank of England's sickening dollar drain was continuing unabated. Worse than that, though, Coom's said his contacts with local bankers, who were also on emergency early morning vigil, men in the foreign departments of the huge commercial banks like the Chase Manhattan and the First National City, indicated that overnight there had accumulated a fantastic pile of orders to unload pounds on the New York market as soon as it opened. The Bank of England, already almost inundated, could expect a new tidal wave from New York to hit in four hours. The need for haste thus became even more urgent.
海耶斯和库姆商定，应尽快在纽约开市后宣布为英国筹集国际贷款的项目。可能在十点钟就宣布，为了让银行能有一个统一的外部联系中心，海耶斯决定放弃自己那间宽敞豪华的办公室——带有镶板墙壁和围绕壁炉的舒适座椅——转而使用走廊下库姆那间既小巧又朴素但更加高效安排的办公室作为指挥部。他一到那里，就拿起三部电话中的一部，要求接线员为他接通英格兰银行的克罗默勋爵。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Hayes and Coom's agreed that the project of putting together an international package of credits to Britain should be announced as soon as possible after the New York opening. Perhaps as early as ten o'clock, so that the Bank would have a single center for all its foreign communications, Hayes decided to forsake his own office, a spacious one with paneled walls and comfortable chairs grouped around a fireplace, and let Coom's quarters, down the hall which were much smaller and more austere but more efficiently arranged, serve as the command post. Once there, he picked up one of three telephones and asked the operator to get him Lord Cromer at the Bank of England.
当联系建立后，这两位在提议的救援行动中担任关键角色的男士，最后一次审查了他们的计划，仔细核对他们决定向每个中央银行请求的金额，并同意首先由谁来联系谁。在某些人看来，海耶斯和克罗默勋爵是个奇特的组合。乔治·罗兰·斯坦利·贝林，第三代克罗默伯爵，除了是一位深厚背景的贵族外，还也是一位资深银行家。他出身于著名的伦敦商人银行——贝林兄弟银行。作为第三代伯爵和一位君主的教子，他曾就读于伊顿公学和剑桥大学三一学院，并在家族银行担任了十二年的常务董事，随后从1959年到1961年间，担任英国经济部长以及英国国库驻华盛顿的首席代表。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
When the connection was made, the two men, the key figures in the proposed rescue operation, reviewed their plans of final time, checking the sums they attentively decided to ask of each central bank in agreeing on who should call whom first. In the eyes of some people, Hayes and Lord Cromer make an oddly assorted pair. Besides being a deep-died aristocrat, George Roland Stanley Bering, third Earl of Cromer, is a deep-died banker. A scion of the famous London merchant bank of Bering Brothers, the third Earl and godson of a monarch, went to Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and spent twelve years as a managing director of his family's bank and then two years, from 1959 to 1961, as Britain's economic minister and chief representative of his country's treasury in Washington.
如果说海耶斯通过耐心学习掌握了国际银行学的精髓，那么克伦默勋爵这个非学者则依靠遗传、本能或潜移默化获得了这种精通。即便海耶斯身材高大异常，也很容易被人群忽略，克伦默勋爵虽然只是中等身材，但风度翩翩，走到哪里都会引人注目。海耶斯在建立随意的亲密关系时可能有点犹豫，而克伦默勋爵以爽朗的举止闻名，并且不可避免地（也许是无意的）让许多被他的头衔所震慑的美国银行家感到既被奉承又有淡淡的失望，因为他很快鼓励他们称他为罗尔。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
If Hayes had acquired his mastery of the Arcana of International Banking by a patient study, Lord Cromer, who is no scholar, acquired his by heredity, instinct, or osmosis. If Hayes, despite his unusual physical stature, could easily be overlooked in the crowd, Lord Cromer, who is of average height but debonair and dashing, would cut a figure anywhere. If Hayes is inclined to be a bit hesitant about casual intimacies, Lord Cromer is known for his hearty manner and has, doubtless unintentionally, both flattered and obscurely disappointed many American bankers, who have been awed by his title by quickly encouraging them to call him Rolle.
罗尔非常自信且果断，我评价道。他是一位美国银行家，总是相信自己的立场是合理的，所以从不害怕大胆行动。不过，他也是个通情达理的人。假如出现危机，他会立刻拿起电话，采取措施。直到1964年11月25日，这位银行家才意识到海斯也是这样的人。那天早上大约六点开始，海斯就和克罗默勋爵一起抓起了电话。世界主要中央银行的领导者们——如德国联邦银行的卡尔·布莱辛行长、意大利银行的卡里博士、法国银行的布鲁奈特行长、瑞士国家银行的施魏格勒博士，以及瑞典央行的奥斯普林克行长——分别拿起电话。他们中的一些人相当惊讶地得知，英镑危机在过去一天中已经达到了令人担忧的程度，美国承诺提供10亿美元的短期贷款，而且他们被请求从自己国家的储备中深挖，以帮助英镑渡过难关。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Rolle is very self-confident and decisive, an American banker, I said. He's never afraid to barge in, because he's convinced of the reasonableness of his own position. But then he's a reasonable man. He's the kind of man who, in a crisis, would be able to grab the telephone and do something about it. This banker confesses that until November 25, 1964, he had not thought Hayes was that kind of man. Beginning at about six o'clock that morning, Hayes did grab the phone right along with Lord Cromer. One after another, the leading central bankers of the world, among them President Carl Blessing, of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Dr. Gueedel Karli, of the Bank of Italy, Governor Jacques Brunet, of the Bank of France, Dr. Walter Schweigler of the Swiss National Bank, and Governor Per Osprinck of the Swedish Orykspank, picked up their phones and discovered, some of them with considerable surprise, the degree of gravity that the Sterling crisis had reached in the past day, the fact that the United States had committed itself to a short-term loan of $1 billion, and that they were being asked to dig deep into their own nation's reserves to help tide Sterling over.
有些人第一次从海斯那里听说这些事情，有些则是从克罗默勋爵那里听到的。无论是哪种情况，他们听到这些消息都不是通过随便的或者官方的渠道，而是通过巴塞尔俱乐部这个神秘组织的共同成员。海斯是那个已经承诺了一大笔资金的国家的代表，这让他几乎自然而然地成为了行动的领导者。在每次通话中，他都会小心翼翼地澄清自己的角色，是为了让美联储支持一个正式来自英格兰银行的请求。他会以一种圆滑的方式对某位欧洲大陆的央行行长说：英镑的状况很危急，我了解到英格兰银行正在向你们请求一条2.5亿美元的信用额度。我相信你能理解，在这种情况下，我们必须团结一致。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Some first heard all this from Hayes, some from Lord Cromer. In either case, they heard it not from a casual or official acquaintance, but from a fellow member of that esoteric fraternity, the Basel Club. Hayes, whose position as representative of the one country that had already pledged a huge sum cast him almost automatically as the leader of the operation, was careful to make it clear in each of his calls that his part in the proceedings was to put the weight of the Federal Reserve behind a request that formally came from the Bank of England. The Pound's situation is critical, and I understand the Bank of England is requesting a credit line of $250 million from you. He would say, in his column way, to one Continental Central Bank Governor or another, I'm sure you understand that this is a situation where we all have to stand together.
他和库姆斯总是用英语交流。当然，尽管他最近参加了法语进修课，并且在耶鲁创造了令人印象深刻的学术纪录，海耶斯在学语言方面依然没有天赋，他仍然不相信自己能用除英语以外的语言进行重要的商务对话。在那些他与欧洲同行关系特别密切的情况下，他会更加随意地谈话，使用央行专业术语，其中惯用的数字单位是百万美元。这种情况下，海耶斯会流畅地说：“你觉得能参与比如150的金额吗？” 不论海耶斯采取多正式的方式，他说对方的第一反应通常是谨慎的，而且会混杂着震惊：“情况真有这么糟糕吗？我们还在希望英镑能自动恢复呢。”
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
He and Coombs always spoke English, of course. Despite the fact that he had recently been taking French refresher lessons and that at Yale he made one of the most impressive academic records in memory, Hayes doggedly remained a dub at languages and still did not trust himself to carry on an important business conversation in anything but English. In those cases in which he was on particularly close terms with his Continental counterpart, he spoke more informally, using a central banker's jargon in which the conventional numerical unit is a million dollars. Hayes would say smoothly in such cases, do you think you can come in for say 150? Regardless of the degree of formality of the approach Hayes made, the first response he says was generally caginess, not unmixed with shock. Is it really as bad as all that all? We were still hoping that the Pound would recover on its own.
他回忆起这件事，他好像听过好几次。当时，海耶斯向他们保证情况确实非常糟糕，并表示英镑绝对不会自我恢复后，大家通常的反应是：“我们得看看能做些什么，再给你回电话。” 一些欧洲大陆的中央银行家说，他们对海耶斯的首次电话印象最深的不是他的话，而是他打电话的时间。意识到那时纽约天还没亮，而且知道海耶斯习惯于我们通常所说的银行家的工作时间，这些欧洲人听到他的声音的时候就意识到情况一定很严重。一旦海耶斯在每个大陆银行打开局面后，库姆斯就会接手，与他的对手展开详细讨论。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
It's the kind of thing he recalls having heard several times. When Hayes assured them that it was indeed as bad as all that, and that the Pound would certainly not recover on its own, the usual response was something like, we'll have to see what we can do and then call you back. Some of the Continental Central bankers have said that what impressed them most about Hayes' first call was not so much what he said as when he said it, realizing that it was still well before dawn in New York and knowing Hayes addiction to what are commonly thought of as banker's hours, these Europeans perceived that things must be grave the moment they heard his voice. As soon as Hayes had broken the ice at each Continental Bank, Coombs would take over and get down to details with his counterparts.
第一次电话会谈过后，海耶斯、克罗默勋爵以及他们在自由街和针街的同事们感到相对乐观。没有一家银行直接拒绝他们，甚至连法国银行也没有，让他们非常欣喜，尽管法国政策已经开始在货币等问题上明显偏离与英国和美国的合作。此外，一些银行行长甚至出乎他们意料地建议，他们国家对贷款的认购额可能会比最初建议的更加庞大。在这样的鼓舞下，海耶斯和克罗默勋爵决定提高目标。他们最初的目标是两百五十亿美元的贷款额度。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The first round of calls left Hayes, Lord Cromer, and their associates on Liberty and Needle Streets, relatively hopeful. Not one bank had given them a flat no, not even to their delight the Bank of France, although French policy had already begun moving sharply away from cooperation with Britain and the United States in monetary matters, among others. Furthermore, several governors had surprised them by suggesting that their country subscriptions to the loan might actually be bigger than those suggested. With this encouragement, Hayes and Lord Cromer decided to raise their sights. They had originally been aiming for credits of two and a half billion dollars.
如今，他们重新考虑后发现有可能筹集到三十亿。海斯说，我们决定在某些地方加大赌注。我们并不清楚究竟需要多少数额才能扭转局势。我们明白主要依靠的是宣布消息所带来的心理效应，假设我们能够发出这个声明。三十亿对我们而言是一个不错的整数。但困难仍然存在，而最大的困难在各银行的回电开始涌入后显得愈加明显，那就是尽快完成这件事。海斯和库姆斯发现，最难传达给大家的是每过一分钟，英国储备就会损失一百万美元或更多，如果沿用正常的渠道，贷款绝对会来得太晚，无法避免英镑的贬值。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Now, on reconsideration, they saw that there was a chance for three billion. We decided to up the ante a little here and there, Hayes says. There is no way of knowing precisely what some would be the least that would do the job of turning the tide. We knew we would be relying to a large extent on the psychological effect of our announcement, assuming we would be able to make the announcement. Three seemed to us a good round figure. But difficulties lay ahead, and the biggest difficulty it became clear as the return calls from the various banks began to come in was to get the thing done quickly. The hardest point to convey, Hayes and Coombs found, was that each passing minute meant a further loss of a million dollars or more to the British reserves, and that if normal channels were followed, the loans would unquestionably come too late to avert devaluation of the pound.
一些中央银行在做出决定前根据法律需要咨询其政府，而有些则不需要。但即便是那些不需要咨询政府的银行，也还是出于礼貌而坚持这样做。这一过程花费了不少时间，尤其是一些财政部长当时还不知道自己需要在毫无充分证据的情况下，即仅凭克罗默勋爵和海斯的保证，紧急批准一笔巨额贷款，而导致他们暂时无法联系上。比如有一位财政部长当时正在本国议会中进行辩论。即便能立即联系上财政部长，有时他们也不愿草率行事。在金钱事务上，政府行动比央行更为谨慎。一些财政部长表示，如果英格兰银行能正式提交资产负债表和书面的紧急信贷申请，他们愿意考虑此事。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Some of the central banks were required by law to consult their governments before making a commitment, and some were not, but even those that were not insisted on doing so was a courtesy. This took time, especially since more than one finance minister, unaware that he was being sought to approve an enormous loan on an instance notice with little evidence of the necessity for it beyond the assurance of Lord Cromer and Hayes was temporarily unavailable. One happened to be engaged in debate in his country's parliament, and even in cases where the finance minister was at hand, he was sometimes reluctant to act in such a shotgun way. Governments move more deliberately in money matters than central bankers do. Some of the finance minister said in effect that upon proper submission of a balance sheet of the Bank of England, along with a formal written application for the emergency credit, they would gladly consider the matter.
此外，一些央行本身也表现出令人恼火的官僚倾向。据说某家银行的外汇主管在收到请求后回复道：“哦，这真方便。我们明天正好有个董事会会议，到时候我们会讨论这个问题，之后再联系你。” 位于纽约的 Coombs 恰好是当时接电话的人，他的回复内容并未记录，但据说他态度上表现出异乎寻常的激烈。就连一向以冷静著称的 Hayes 据在场者称，也有一两次被激怒。他的语气依旧一如既往地平和，但音量却远高于平常水平。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Furthermore, some of the central banks themselves showed a maddening inclination to stand on ceremony. The foreign exchange chief of one bank is said to have replied to the request by saying, well, this is convenient. We happen to have a board meeting scheduled for tomorrow. We'll take the matter up then, and afterward we'll get in touch with you. The reply of Coombs, who happened to be the man on the wire in New York, is not recorded in substance, but its manner is reported to have been uncharacteristically vehement. Even Hayes celebrated imperturbability was shaken the time or two, or so those who were present have said. His tone remained as calm and even as ever, but its volume rose far above the usual level.
大陆中央银行面对挑战时所遇到的问题，在最富有和最强大的德意志联邦银行的情况中得到了很好的体现。其管理委员会在受到Coombs的早期电话通知后，已经紧急召开会议。随后，他们又接到了来自纽约的另一个电话，这次是由当时的德意志银行行长Hayes打来的，他向德意志联邦银行具体说明了他们需要提供的资金数额。虽然那天早晨各个中央银行被要求提供的金额从未公开，但根据已知信息，可以合理推测，德意志联邦银行被要求提供五亿美元。这是所有银行中最高的额度，也无疑是除了美联储之外，任何中央银行在短短几小时内被要求提供给另一个银行的最大金额。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The problems that the continental central banks faced in meeting the challenge are well exemplified by the situation at the richest and most powerful of them, the Deutsche Bundesbank. Its board of managers was already sitting in emergency session as a result of Coombs' early call when another New York call. This one from Hayes, the President Blessing, gave the Bundesbank its first indication of exactly how much it was being asked to put up. The amounts of various central banks were asked for that morning have never been made public, but on the basis of what has become known, it is reasonable to assume that the Bundesbank was asked for half a billion dollars, the highest quota of the lot and certainly the largest sum that any central bank other than the Federal Reserve had ever been called upon to supply to another on a few hours notice.
在收到海耶斯的电话，传达这个令人震惊的信息之后，布莱辛很快又接到了来自伦敦的克罗默勋爵的消息，他证实了海耶斯所说的危机的严重性，并重申了请求。虽然可能有些勉强，但德国联邦银行的管理人员原则上同意事情必须得办，但他们的问题也随之而来。布莱辛和他的助手们决定，必须遵循适当的程序。在采取任何行动之前，他们必须与欧洲共同市场和国际清算银行的经济伙伴进行磋商，而因为时任国际清算银行行长的荷兰银行行长马里乌斯·W·霍尔特罗普博士也被要求贡献，因此成为关键的咨询对象。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Hard on the heels of Hayes' call, conveying this jarring information, Blessing heard from Lord Cromer in London who confirmed everything that Hayes had said about the seriousness of the crisis and repeated the request. Winsing a bit, perhaps, the Bundesbank managers agreed in principle that the thing had to be done, but right there their problems began. Proper procedure must be adhered to, Blessing and his aides decided. Before taking any action, they must consult with their economic partners in the European common market and the Bank for International Settlements, and the key man to be consulted since he was then serving as President of the Bank for International Settlements was Dr. Marius W. Holtrop, Governor of the Bank of the Netherlands, which of course was also being asked to contribute.
一通紧急的个人电话从法兰克福拨通至阿姆斯特丹。德意志联邦银行的管理人员被告知，霍尔特罗普博士碰巧在阿姆斯特丹；他当天早上乘火车去了海牙，与该国财政部长商讨其他事务。在没有央行行长知情的情况下，荷兰银行不可能做出如此重要的承诺。同样，比利时银行——其货币政策与荷兰密切相关——也不愿在阿姆斯特丹确认之前采取行动。因此，有一个多小时，虽然美元继续从英格兰银行流失、全球货币秩序岌岌可危，但整个救援行动竟然搁置了，因为霍尔特罗普博士正坐在火车上穿越荷兰低地，或者可能已在海牙并堵在了交通中，找不到他。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A rushed person-to-person call was put through from Frankfurt to Amsterdam. Dr. Holtrop, the Bundesbank managers were informed, was in Amsterdam by chance; he had taken a train that morning to the Hague to meet his country's finance minister for consultation on other matters. For the Bank of the Netherlands to make any such important commitment without the knowledge of its governor was out of the question, and similarly the Bank of Belgium, a nation whose monetary policies are linked inextricably with the Netherlands, was reluctant to act until Amsterdam had given its okay. So for an hour or more, as millions of dollars continued to drain out of the Bank of England and the world monetary order stood in jeopardy, the whole rescue operation was hung up, while Dr. Holtrop, crossing the Dutch lowlands by the train, who were perhaps already in the Hague and tied up in a traffic jam, could not be found.
所有这一切当然意味着纽约正经历着令人痛苦的挫败。当这里的早晨终于来临时，海斯和库姆斯的行动得到了一次来自华盛顿的助力。联邦储备委员会的马丁，以及财政部的迪伦和罗莎，这些主要的政府货币当局，都已密切参与了前一天为救市进行的规划。当然，规划的一部分是决定让纽约银行作为联邦储备系统和财政部在国际货币交易中的正常运作机构，充当行动总部。因此，来自华盛顿的成员在家中睡了一觉，并在正常的上班时间来到办公室。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
All this of course meant agonizing frustration in New York. As morning began here at last, Hayes and Coombs' campaign got a boost from Washington. The leading government monetary authorities, Martin at the Federal Reserve Board, Dylan and Rosa at the Treasury, had all been intimately involved in the previous day's planning for the rescue, and of course part of the planning had been the decision to let the New York Bank, as the Federal Reserve Systems and the Treasury's normal operating arm in international monetary dealings serve as campaign headquarters. So the members of the Washington contingent had slept at home and come to their offices at the normal hour.
了解了海斯所提到的发展困难后，马丁、迪伦和罗莎也参与其中，通过跨大西洋的电话亲自强调美国对此事件的关注程度。但是，无论打多少电话，都无法阻挡时间的流逝，也无法找到霍尔特罗普博士。最终，海斯和库姆斯不得不放弃在纽约上午近十点时准备好一揽子信贷计划并向全世界宣布的想法。此外，最初的希望逐渐消退还有其他原因。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Now having learned from Hayes of the difficulties that were developing, Martin, Dylan and Rosa pitched in with transatlantic calls of their own to emphasize the extent of America's concern over the matter. But no number of calls from anywhere could hold back the clock, or for that matter find Dr. Holtrop. And Hayes and Coombs finally had to abandon their idea of having a credit bundle ready in time for an announcement to the world at her near 10 a.m. in New York. And there were other reasons too, for a fading of the early hopes.
随着纽约市场的开盘，金融界中一夜之间蔓延开的恐慌程度显露无遗。银行七楼的外汇交易台报告称，在纽约市场开盘时，对英镑的冲击如预期一样可怕，本地的外汇市场气氛已接近恐慌状态。来自银行证券部门的报告则显示，美国政府债券市场正遭受多年来最沉重的压力，反映出债券交易员对美元的信心严重不足。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
As the New York markets opened, the extent of the alarm that had spread around the financial world overnight was only too clearly revealed. The bank's foreign exchange trading desk on the seventh floor reported that the assault on the pound at the New York opening had been fully as terrifying as they had expected, and that the atmosphere in the local exchange market had reached a state not far from panic. From the bank securities department came an alarming report that the market for United States government bonds was coming under the heaviest pressure in years, reflecting an ominous lack of confidence in the dollar on the part of bond traders.
这则消息严峻地提醒了海耶斯和库姆斯他们已经知道的一件事：英镑相对于美元的贬值，很可能会引发一种连锁反应，导致美元相对于黄金的被迫贬值，这可能会引发全球范围的货币混乱。假如海耶斯和库姆斯曾有过觉得自己只是一名善良的撒玛利亚人的一丝幻想，这则消息立刻把他们拉回了现实。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
This intelligence served as a grim reminder to Hayes and Coombs of something they knew already, that a fall of the pound in relation to the dollar could quite possibly be followed in a kind of chain reaction by a forced devaluation of the dollar in relation to gold, which might cause monetary chaos everywhere. If Hayes and Coombs had been permitting themselves any moments of idle reverie in which to picture themselves simply as good Samaritans, this was just the news to bring them back to reality.
消息传来，华尔街上流传的那些离奇传闻似乎开始凝聚成一个单一的故事，这个故事让人感到沮丧，因为它如此具体而显得可信。据说英国政府将在纽约时间中午左右宣布贬值英镑。这种传言至少在时间上可以被权威地否定，因为英国显然不会在信贷谈判进行时贬值。海耶斯在抑制这一破坏性谣言的愿望与谈判完成前需要保密之间左右为难，因此他妥协了。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And then word arrived that the wild tales flying around Wall Street showed signs of crystallizing into a single tale, demoralizingly credible because it was so specific. The British government, it was being said, would announce a sterling devaluation at around noon New York time. Here was something that could be authoritatively refuted, at least in respect to timing, since Britain would obviously not devalue while the credit negotiations were underway. Torn between the desire to quell a destructive rumor and the need to keep the negotiations a secret until they were concluded, Hayes compromised.
他让一位助手打电话给几位关键的华尔街银行家和交易员，尽可能明确地告诉他们，关于最近货币贬值的谣言，根据他的可靠消息，是假的。有人追问助手：“你能具体说明吗？”助手只能回答：“不，我不能。”虽然这个没有具体证据的说法稍微缓解了一些紧张情绪，但对外汇和债券市场来说，这还远远不够。Hayes和Coombs现在承认，那天早上有几次他们放下电话后，在Coombs的办公室里隔着桌子对视，心里默默想着：“事情不会及时完成。”
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
He had one of his associates call a few key Wall Street bankers and traders to say, as emphatically as possible, that the latest devaluation rumor was to his firm knowledge false. Can you be more specific? The associate was asked, and he replied, because there is nothing else he could reply, no, I can't. This unsupported word was something, but it was not enough. The foreign exchange and bond markets were only momentarily reassured. There were times that morning Hayes and Coombs now admit, when they put down their telephones, looked at each other across the table in Coombs' office, and wordlessly exchanged the thought. It isn't going to be done in time.
但按照传统的戏剧性发展，尽管在艺术中这种手法似乎已死，但在自然界中却顽强地存活下去，事情在最黑暗的时候，开始传来好消息。有人在海牙的一家餐厅找到了霍尔特拉普博士，当时他正在与荷兰财政部长J.W. Vitifine博士共进午餐。此外，霍尔特拉普博士对救援行动表示支持，至于是否需要咨询他的政府，这并不是问题，因为他的政府的相关代表就坐在他的对面。因此，最大的障碍已经被克服。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
But in the best tradition of melodrama, which sometimes seems to survive stubbornly in nature, at a time when it is dead in art, just when things look darkest, good news began to arrive. Dr. Holtrapp had been tracked down in a restaurant in the Hague, where he was having lunch with the Netherlands Minister of Finance, Dr. J. W. Vitifine. Moreover, Dr. Holtrapp had endorsed the rescue operation, and as for the matter of consulting his government, that was no problem, since the responsible representative of his government was sitting across the table from him. The chief obstacle was thus overcome.
在联系到霍尔特拉普博士之后，困难开始缩小到一些麻烦事，例如不断地向日方道歉，因为在东京的午夜时分，他们被叫醒了。然而，形势已经开始好转。在纽约的中午之前，海斯和库姆斯，以及伦敦的克罗默勋爵和他的副手们都知道，他们已经原则上得到了十家欧洲大陆中央银行的同意，这些银行包括西德、意大利、法国、荷兰、比利时、瑞士、加拿大、瑞典、奥地利和日本的中央银行，以及国际清算银行。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And after Dr. Holtrapp had been reached, the difficulties began narrowing down to annoyances, like the necessity for continually apologizing to the Japanese for routing them out of bed as midnight arrived and passed in Tokyo. The tide had turned. Before noon in New York, Hayes and Coombs, and Lord Cromer and his deputies in London as well, knew that they had agreement in principle from ten continental central banks, those in West Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, Austria, and Japan, and also from the Bank for International Settlements.
每个中央银行都不得不慢慢完成各种手续，以使其行动合法合规，这期间只能等待。以秩序井然著称的德国央行（Bundesbank）也不例外，必须得到董事会成员的批准，而这些成员大多分散在德国各地。为了说服不在场的董事同意此事，德国央行的两位副手分头打电话与他们沟通。这项工作极其微妙，因为事实上，银行总部已经着手执行了相关决定，而这些离开的董事被要求事后批准。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
There remained the wait while each central bank went through the painfully slow process of completing whatever formalities were required to make its action legal and proper. The epitome of orderliness, the Bundesbank, could not act until it had obtained ratification from the members of its board of directors, most of whom were in provincial outposts scattered around Germany. The two leading Bundesbank deputies divided up the job of calling the absent directors and persuading them to go along, a job that was made more delicate by the fact that the absent directors were being asked to approve something that, in effect, the bank's home office had already undertaken to do.
在大陆时间的下午，两名副手正忙于这场模棱两可的谈话时，法兰克福接到了来自伦敦的新电话。毫无疑问，那是克罗默勋爵打来的，他的声音听起来大概已经是能表现出他所处困境的极限了。他要说的是，英国储备金的流失速度太快，以至于英镑无法撑过一天。尽管问题重重，但现在是最后的机会，不容错过。英国央行那天的储备损失从未被公布。据《经济学人》杂志后来推测，损失金额可能高达五亿美元，相当于英国剩余储备总额的四分之一。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And mid-afternoon by continental time, while the two deputies were busy at this exercise in double talk, Frankfurt got a new call from London. It was Lord Cromer, no doubt sounding as exasperated as his situation permitted, and what he had to say was that the rate of British reserve loss had become so rapid that the pound could not survive another day. For maladies notwithstanding, it was a case of now or never. The Bank of England's reserve loss that day has never been announced. The economist later passed along a guess that it may have run to five hundred million dollars, or about a quarter of all that remained in Britain's reserve coffers.
在克伦伯爵呼吁之后，德意志联邦银行的副手们在保持谨慎的同时简明扼要地进行了表态。他们得到了董事们的一致同意，并于法兰克福时间五点过后不久准备通知克伦伯爵和海耶斯，德意志联邦银行将为要求的五亿美元提供支持。其他中央银行也正在加入或已经加入其中。加拿大和意大利各自提供了两亿美元，而且毫无疑问对此感到高兴，因为他们自己的货币曾在1962年和1964年初期类似但规模较小的国际救助行动中受益。如果接受《伦敦时报》后来的报道，法国、比利时和荷兰也参与其中，尽管没有宣布各自的参与金额，但每个国家都贡献了两亿美元。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
After Lord Cromer's call, the Bundesbank deputies tempered their tact with brevity. They got unanimous approval from the directors, and shortly after five o'clock, Frankfurt time, they were ready to tell Lord Cromer and Hayes that the Bundesbank was in for the requested half-billion dollars. Other central banks were coming in or were already in. Canada and Italy put up two hundred million dollars each, and doubtless were glad to do it, inasmuch as their own currencies had been the beneficiaries of much smaller but otherwise similar international bailout operations in 1962 and earlier in 1964, respectively. If a subsequent report in the London Times is to be accepted, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, no one of which ever announced the amount of its participation each contributed to two hundred million dollars, too.
瑞士捐助了一亿六千万美元，而瑞典捐助了一亿美元，同时，奥地利、日本和国际结算银行也参与其中，但具体金额尚未披露。在纽约时间的午餐时间，一切已经基本尘埃落定，剩下的任务就是尽可能有效地宣传，以对市场产生最快速和最有力的影响。这一任务推到了另一位美联储银行家的面前，他是负责公共信息的副总裁，托马斯·奥拉夫·瓦加。瓦加是土生土长的纽约人，他的父亲是挪威出生的拖船飞行员和渔船船长。瓦加几乎整个上午都活跃在库姆的办公室里，不停地通过电话作为与华盛顿的联络人。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Switzerland is known to have come through with a hundred and sixty million dollars and Sweden with a hundred million dollars, while Austria, Japan, in the bank for international settlements, rounded out the bundle with still undisclosed amounts. By lunchtime in New York, it was all over but the shouting, and the last part of the task was to make the shouting as effective as possible to give it the fastest and most forcible impact on the market. The task brought to the fore another Federal Reserve bankman, its vice president in charge of public information, Thomas Olaf Waga. Waga had been present and active in Coom's office almost all morning, constantly on the phone as liaison man with Washington, a born in Brad, New Yorker, the son of a Norwegian-born local tug pilot and fishing boat captain.
瓦加是一个拥有广泛且真实外部兴趣的人，他的兴趣包括歌剧、莎士比亚、特罗洛普以及他的祖传航海传统，还有一个热情，即努力向持怀疑态度、常常眼神呆滞的公众传达央行工作的事实以及其中的戏剧性、悬念和激动。简而言之，瓦加是一名毫无希望的浪漫主义者银行家。当海斯指派他负责准备一份新闻稿，以尽可能强调地向世界传达此次拯救行动时，他感到无比高兴。在海斯和库姆忙于解决他们计划中的各种细节时，瓦加则忙着与华盛顿的联邦储备委员会和财政部的同行协调时间，因为他们将共同发布美国的公告。同时，海斯和克罗默勋爵已经商定由英格兰银行同时发布自己的公告。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Waga is a man of broad and unfained outside interests, among them opera, Shakespeare, Trollup, and his ancestral heritage sailing, and one consuming passion which is striving to convey not only the facts but also the drama suspense and excitement of central banking to a skeptical and often glassy-eyed public. In short, a banker who is a hopeless romantic. So now he was overjoyed when Hayes assigned to him the job of preparing a news release that would inform the world as emphatically as possible about the rescue operation. While Hayes and Coom's struggle to tie up the loose ends of their package, Waga was busy coordinating timing with his counterparts at the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury Department in Washington, which would share in the issuing of the American announcement and at the Bank of England, which Hayes and Lord Cromer had agreed would issue a simultaneous announcement of its own.
Waga回忆说，我们商定的宣布时间是下午两点纽约时间，因为那时候看起来我们应该会有一些可以宣布的内容。当然，那时已经太晚，赶不上当天欧洲大陆和伦敦的市场了，但仍然有整个下午的时间，直到纽约市场在大约五点关闭。如果英镑市场能在关闭前这里戏剧性地逆转，那么等到第二天美国市场因感恩节休市时，欧洲大陆和伦敦的市场就有可能继续复苏。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Two o'clock in the afternoon New York time was the hour we agreed upon for the announcements when it began to look as if we'd have something to announce by that time, Waga recalls. That was too late to catch the continental and London markets that day, of course, but it left the whole afternoon ahead until the New York markets closed at around five. And if the sterling market could be dramatically reversed here before closing time, chances were the recovery would continue on the continent and in London the next day, when the American markets would be closed for Thanksgiving.
关于我们计划宣布的总额度，最初设定为三十亿美元。但我记得在最后关头出现了一个特别尴尬的问题。就在我们以为整个方案已经准备好的时候，查理·库姆斯和我仔细核对了各方承诺的金额，结果只凑到了二十八亿五千万美元。显然，我们在某个地方丢失了一亿五千万美元。事实就是这样，我们算错了，不过最终没问题。资金包及时组装完毕，以配合新的计划，美国联邦储备局、财政部和英格兰银行的声明也如期同时发布给了媒体，美国纽约时间下午2点和英国伦敦时间晚上7点。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
As for the amount of the combined credit we were planning to announce, it still stood at three billion dollars. But I remember that a last-minute snag of a particularly embarrassing sort developed. Very late in the game, when we thought the whole package wasn't hand, Charlie Coom's and I counted up what had been pledged just to make sure, and we got only two billion, eight hundred and fifty million. Apparently, we'd mislaid a hundred and fifty million dollars somewhere. That's just what we'd done. We'd miscalculated, so it was all right. The package was assembled in time to meet the new schedule and statements from the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the Bank of England duly went out to the news media simultaneously, at 2 p.m. in New York and 7 p.m. in London.
由于瓦加的影响，虽然美版的气氛没有达到梅斯特歌手最后一幕的那种感觉，但就银行声明而言，它仍然格外激动人心。讲话中略带沉静的夸张，提到了金额之空前巨大，以及各国央行如何迅速行动，动员大规模反击对英镑的投机性抛售。伦敦的发布则有着不同的特点，体现了一种似乎只出现在重大危机时刻的典型英式风格。声明简单写道：英格兰银行已安排提供三十亿美元以支持英镑。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
As a result of Waga's influence, the American version, though it fell somewhat short of the mood of, say, the last scene of the Meister Singer, was nevertheless exceptionally stirring, as Bank utterances go. Speaking with a certain subdued flamboyance of the unprecedented nature of the sum involved, and of how the central banks had moved quickly to mobilize a massive counter-attack on speculative selling of the pound. The London release had a different kind of distinction, achieving something of the quintessential Britishness that seems to be reserved for moments of high crisis. It read simply, The Bank of England have made arrangements under which three thousand million dollars are made available for the support of sterling.
显然，这次行动的保密工作非常成功，当宣布消息时，整个纽约外汇市场一片哗然，反应迅速，就像电流通过一样，让人感到振奋。对英镑作空的投机者立刻毫不犹豫地决定他们的计划要泡汤了。消息一宣布，美联储就以2.7868美元的价格开始购买英镑。这个价格略高于英格兰银行整天艰难维持住的水平。投机者们急于通过购买英镑来摆脱他们的投机仓位，因此美联储银行在这个价位上找到了非常有限的英镑卖出量。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Apparently, the secrecy of the operation had been successfully preserved, and the announcement struck the New York foreign exchange market all over heap, because the reaction was a swift, and as electric as anyone could have wished. Speculators against the pound decided instantly, and with no hesitation, that their game was up. Immediately after the announcement, the Federal Reserve Bank put in a bid for pounds at two dollars and seventy-eight cents and sixty-eight one-hundredths of a cent. A figure slightly above the level at which the pound had been forcibly maintained all day by the Bank of England. So great was the rush of speculators to get free of their speculative positions by buying pounds that the Federal Reserve Bank found very few pounds for sale at that price.
大约在两点十五分时，在纽约出现了一段既奇怪又令人振奋的时刻——无论多少钱，市场上都买不到英镑。随后，英镑重新开始出售，但价格上涨，随即被抢购一空。因此，英镑的价格整个下午持续攀升，最终收盘价格超过了两美元七十九美分。胜利到来了，英镑暂时脱离了危险。这次行动成功了，来自四面八方的赞扬纷纷涌来。甚至权威经济学家也很快表示，无论其他体系如何崩溃，中央银行家们似乎都有令人惊讶的快速反应能力。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Around two fifteen, there were a strange and heartening few minutes in which no sterling was available in New York at any price. Pounds were eventually offered for sale again at a higher price, and were immediately gobbled up, and thus the price went on climbing all afternoon to a closing of just above two dollars and seventy-nine cents. Triumph. The pound was out of immediate danger. The thing had worked. Tributes to the success of the operation began to pour in from everywhere. Even the magisterial economist was to declare shortly whatever other networks break down. It seems the central bankers have an astonishing capacity for instant results.
如果他们的机制不是最理想的，始终针对短期支持现状，但它却是唯一有效的。因此，随着英镑再次合理升值，美联储因感恩节休息，银行家们回家了。库姆斯回忆说，他曾在一个定制的快速饮品会上喝过马提尼酒。海耶斯回到新迦南的家中，发现他的儿子汤姆从哈佛回来了。他的妻子和儿子都注意到，他似乎显得格外兴奋。当他们询问原因时，他回答说，这刚好是他整个职业生涯中最令人满意的一天。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And if theirs is not the most desirable possible mechanism, geared always to short-term support of the status quo, it happens to be the only working one. So, with the pound writing reasonably high again, the Federal Reserve Bank shut up for Thanksgiving and the bankers went home. Coombs recalls having drunk a martini on a customly fast. Hayes, home in New Canaan, found that his son Tom had arrived from Harvard. Both his wife and his son noticed that he seemed to be in an unusual state of excitement. And when they asked about it, he replied that he had just been through the most completely satisfying day of his entire working career.
在被要求提供更多细节时，他给出了一个简洁且易懂的救援行动描述，始终牢记他的听众包括一位对银行业毫无兴趣的妻子和一个对商业不屑一顾的儿子。当他讲述完毕时，他得到的反应可以温暖一个瓦加的心，或者任何一个认真解释银行业冒险经历的专家的心。起初有点让人摸不着头脑，海耶斯太太说，但是在你讲完之前，我们都被你吸引住了。瓦加回到道格拉斯顿的家中，用他一贯的方式向妻子讲述了这一天的事情。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Pressed for details, he gave them a condensed and simplified account of the rescue operation, keeping, constantly in mind, the fact that his audience consisted of a wife who had no interest in banking in a son who had a low opinion of business. The reaction he got when his recital was concluded was of a sort that might warm the heart of a waga, or of any earnest explicator of banking daring due to the unsympathetic layman. It was a little confusing at first, Mrs. Hayes has said, but before you were finished, you had us on the edge of our chairs. Waga, home in Douglaston, told his wife of the day's events in his characteristic way.
他冲进门，兴奋地喊道：“今天是圣克里斯平节，我和哈里在一起。” 我第一次对英镑及其危机产生兴趣是在1964年的危机期间。从那时起，我对这个话题就着迷了。在接下来的三年半里，我一直关注美国和英国媒体对英镑涨跌的报道，还时不时去美联储银行，与那里的官员交流，看看能学到哪些新的见解。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
It was St. Crispin's day, he exclaimed as he burst through his doorway, and I was with Harry. Having first become interested in the pound and its perils at the time of the 1964 crisis, I found myself hooked by the subject. Through the subsequent three and a half years, I followed its ups and downs in the American and British press, and at intervals went down to the Federal Reserve Bank to renew my acquaintance with its officers and see what additional enlightenment I could garner.
整个经历有力证明了瓦加的论点：中央银行也能充满紧张感。英镑的拯救并未持久。1964年大危机过后一个月，投机者再次发动攻击，到那年底，英格兰银行已使用超过30亿美元信贷中的一半以上。然而，新年的到来也并未带来缓解。1965年，在相对稳定的1月之后，英镑在2月再度承压。11月的信贷期为三个月。如今，随着期限到来，各国决定将其再延长三个月，以便英国有更多时间整顿经济。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The whole experience was a resounding vindication of Waga's thesis that central banking can be suspenseful. The pound wouldn't stay saved. A month after the big 1964 crisis, the speculators resumed their assaults, and by the end of that year, the Bank of England had used up more than half a billion of its new $3 billion credit. Nor did the coming of the New Year bring Cersei's. In 1965, after a relatively buoyant January, the pound came under pressure again in February. The November credit had been for a term of three months. Now, as the term ran out, the nations that had made it decided to extend it for another three months, so that Britain would have more time to put its economy in order.
但到了三月下旬，英国经济仍然不稳定。英镑再次跌破2.79美元，英国央行重新进入市场。四月，英国宣布了一项更加严厉的预算，市场随后出现反弹，但这一反弹证明是短暂的。到了初夏，英国央行已经动用了三十亿总额中的三分之一来对抗投机者。受到鼓舞的投机者展开了更猛烈的攻击。六月下旬，高级英国官员表示他们认为英镑危机已经结束，但这无异于掩耳盗铃。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
But late in March, the British economy was still shaky. The pound was back below $2.79, and the Bank of England was back in the market. In April, Britain announced a tougher budget, and a rally followed, but the rally proved to be short-lived. By early summer, the Bank of England had drawn and committed to the battle against the speculators more than a third of the whole three billion. Hartened, the speculators pressed their attack. Late in June, high British officials let it be known that they now considered the sterling crisis over, but they were whistling in the dark.
在七月，尽管英国国内经济进一步紧缩，英镑仍然再次下跌。到七月底，世界外汇市场已确信一场新的危机正在形成。到了八月下旬，危机已经到来，而且在某些方面，这次危机比去年十一月的更加危险。问题在于，市场似乎认为各国央行已经厌倦了投入资金来应对危机，现在将任由英镑贬值，无论后果如何。大约在这个时候，我打电话给一位我认识的本地外汇市场资深人士，问他对这个情况的看法，他回答说，据我所知，纽约市场百分之百相信英镑将在这个秋天贬值，我不是说百分之九十五。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In July, the pound sank again, despite further belt tightening in the British domestic economy. By the end of July, the world foreign exchange market had become convinced that a new crisis was shaping up. By late August, the crisis had arrived, and in some ways it was a more dangerous one than that of the previous November. The trouble was the market seemed to believe that the central banks were tired of pouring money into the battle and would now let sterling fall, regardless of the consequences. About that time, I telephoned a leading local foreign exchange man I know to ask him what he thought of the situation, and he replied, to my knowledge the New York market is 100% convinced that devaluation of sterling is coming this fall, and I don't mean 95%.
我的意思是百分之百确认。然后在9月11日，我在报纸上读到消息，这次是同一组中央银行（除了法国外）又在最后一刻推出了一个救助方案。当时没有公布金额，后来报道称大约是一亿。接下来的几天，我看到英镑的市场价格一点一点地上涨，到月底时，16个月来首次超过了2.80美元。中央银行又一次成功了，没过多久，我去了美联储了解详情。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
I mean 100%. Then on September 11, I read in the papers that the same group of central banks, this time, with the exception of France, had come through with another last-minute rescue package. The amount not being announced at the time, it was subsequently reported to have been around one billion, and over the next few days, I watched the market price of the pound rise, little by little, until, by the end of the month it was above $2.80 for the first time in 16 months. The central banks had done it again, and somewhat later I went down to the Federal Reserve Bank to learn the details.
我看到他情绪高涨，格外健谈，才知道是因为他很高兴。他告诉我，今年的行动和去年的完全不同。今年我们采取的是一种积极进攻的策略，而不是最后一搏的防守策略。九月初时，我们得出结论，英镑被严重低估了。也就是说，市场对英镑的投机行为远远超过了经济现实所能证明的合理范围。事实上，今年前八个月，英国的出口额比1964年同期增长了超过5%，而且1964年英国的国际收支赤字预计在1965年会减半。这是非常令人振奋的经济进展，而市场上的悲观投机者似乎没有注意到这一点。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
It was cum, as I saw, and I found him in a sanguine in extraordinarily talkative mood. This year's operation was entirely different from last year's, he told me. It was an aggressive move on our part, rather than a last-ditch defensive one. You see, early this September, we came to the conclusion that the pound was grossly oversold. That is, the amount of speculation against it was way out of proportion to what was justified by the economic facts. Actually, during the first eight months of the year, British exports had risen more than five percent over the corresponding period in 1964, and Britain's 1964 balance of payments deficit seemed likely to be cut in half in 1965. Very promising economic progress, and the bearish speculators seemed not to have taken account of it.
他们继续基于技术市场因素做空英镑，这让他们现在处于一个暴露的境地。我们认为是时候进行官方反击了。Coombs继续解释说，这次的反击是慢慢策划的，不是在电话里进行，而是在9月5日那个周末在巴塞尔面对面商讨的。美联储派出了Coombs，和Hayes一起参与，Hayes甚至缩短了在科孚岛计划已久的假期来参加会议。这次行动计划得像军事行动一样精确。我们决定这次不公布信贷方案的规模，以进一步混淆和不安敌人，即投机者。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
They had gone right on selling the pound short, on the basis of technical market factors. They were the ones who were in an exposed position now. We decided the time was ripe for an official counterattack. The counterattack, Coombs went on to explain, was plotted in leisurely fashion this time, not on the telephone, but face to face, over the weekend of September 5th in Basel. The Federal Reserve Bank was represented by Coombs, as usual, and also by Hayes, who cut short his long-planned vacation on Corfu to be there. The coup was planned with military precision. It was decided not to announce the amount of the credit package this time, in order to further confuse and disconcert the enemy, the speculators.
选定的发布地点是美国联邦储备银行的交易室，时间定在纽约时间早上9点。这是9月10日，设定这个时间是为了能够赶上伦敦和欧洲大陆的业务时间。在“零时”刻，英格兰银行率先开了第一炮，宣布新的中央银行安排即将出台，这将使其能够在外汇市场采取适当行动。在给这个看似温和但实则带有威胁意味的信息消化了十五分钟后，美国联邦储备银行采取了行动。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The place chosen for the launching was the trading room of the Federal Reserve Bank, and the hour chosen was 9 a.m. New York time. Early enough for London and the continent to still be conducting business, on September 10th. At zero hour, the Bank of England fired a preliminary salvo by announcing that new central bank arrangements would shortly enable appropriate action to be taken in the exchange markets. After allowing fifteen minutes for the import of this demurely menacing message to sink in, the Federal Reserve Bank struck.
在英国的同意下，使用新的国际信贷作为“弹药”，他们同时向所有在纽约外汇市场运营的重要银行提出买入英镑的请求，总金额接近3000万美元。当时的汇率为1英镑兑2.7918美元。在这种压力下，市场立刻上扬，美联储银行追随这一趋势，逐步提高其购买报价。在英镑兑2.7934美元的价位时，银行暂时停止了操作，部分原因是想观察市场的自主反应，部分是为了制造混乱。市场保持稳定，这表明在这个价位，购买英镑的独立买家与卖家数量持平，而空头投机者的信心开始动摇。但银行对此仍不满意。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Using, with British concurrence, the new bundle of international credit as its ammunition, it simultaneously placed with all the major banks operating in the New York exchange market bids for sterling totaling nearly $30 million. At the then prevailing rate of $2.79 and 1800s of a cent. Under this pressure, the market immediately moved upward, and the Federal Reserve Bank pursued the movement, raising its bid price step by step. At $2.79 and $3400 of a cent, the bank temporarily ceased operations. Partly to see what the market would do on its own, partly just to confuse things. The market held steady, showing that at that level, there were now as many independent buyers of sterling as there were sellers, and that the bears, speculators, were losing their nerve. But the bank was far from satisfied.
重新强势回归市场，它将价格推高至 2.79 美元和 4500 美分的水平。在当天的过程中，雪球开始自己滚动，结果就是我在报纸上读到的那样。这是一场成功的空头挤压。库姆斯带着某种冷峻的满足告诉我，这种感觉很容易引起共鸣。我不禁想象，一位银行家能够击退他的对手，狠狠打击他们，让他们溃败而逃，不是为了个人或机构的利益，而是为了公众利益。这一定是一种罕见且纯粹的满意感。后来我从另一位银行家那里了解到，这次空头挤压让空头们感到十分痛苦。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Returning vigorously to the market, it bid the price on up to $2.79 and $4500 of a cent, in the course of the day. And then the snowball began to roll by itself, with the results I had read about in my newspapers. It was a successful bear squeeze. Coombs told me with a certain grim relish, which was easy to sympathize with. I found myself musing that for a banker to rout his opponents, to smite them hip and thigh and drive them to cover, and not for personal or institutional profit, but rather, for the public good, must be a source of rare, unalloyed satisfaction. I later learned from another banker just how painfully the bears had been squeezed.
信用和货币投机的利润空间相对较小。举个例子，要对英镑进行价值一百万美元的投机，一名投机者可能只需要拿出三万到四万美元的现金。大多数交易商都做了数千万规模的承诺。如果一名交易商承诺投资一千万英镑或相当于2800万美元，英镑价格每变化一个百分点，他的账户价值就会相应增加或减少一千美元。从9月10日英镑价位2.79美元起到9月29日英镑升至2.80美元10分点，这段时间内，若交易商做空英镑，他将损失9.2万美元。这个金额足够让人三思再三思是否要再次做空英镑。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Margins of credit and currency speculation being what they are, for example, to commit a million dollars against the pound, a speculator might need to put up only 30 or 40 thousand dollars in cash. Most dealers had made commitments running into the tens of millions. When a dealer's commitment was 10 million pounds, or 28 million dollars, each change of one hundredth of a cent in the price of the pound meant a change of a thousand dollars in the value of his account. Between the two dollars and 79 cents in 1800s of a cent on September 10th then, and the two dollars and 80 cents and 10 hundreds of a cent that the pound reached on September 29th, such a dealer on the short side of the pound would have lost 92 thousand dollars, enough, one might suppose, to make him think twice before selling Sterling Short again.
接下来是一段较长时间的平静期。笼罩着过去一年间交流的危机迫在眉睫的气氛消失了，超过六个月的时间里，全球的英镑市场比近年来任何时候都更加光明。英镑的保卫战现在已经结束。匿名的英国高级官员在1964年救市一周年时明智地宣布了这一消息。现在，这些官员说我们正在为经济而战。显然他们在这场战斗中也获得了胜利，因为当最终计算出1965年英国的国际收支状况时，数据显示赤字不仅按照预测减半，而且远远超过减半。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
An extended period of calm followed. The air of impending crisis that had hung over the exchanges during most of the preceding year disappeared, and for more than six months the world's sterling market was sunnier than it had been at any time in recent years. The battle for the pound Sterling is now ended. High British officials, anonymous and wisely so, announced in November on the first anniversary of the 1964 rescue. Now the officials said we're fighting the battle for the economy. Apparently they were winning that battle too, because when Britain's balance of payments position for 1965 was finally calculated, it showed that the deficit had been not merely halved according to predictions, but more than halved.
与此同时，英镑的强势不仅使英格兰银行偿还了其对其他央行的所有短期债务，还让它能够在公开市场上用新获青睐的英镑购入了超过十亿新美元，增加了其宝贵的储备。因此，从1965年9月至1966年3月，这些储备从26亿美元上升到了36亿美元，达到了一个相当安全的水平。然后，英镑顺利度过了全国大选活动，这通常是一个对货币来说动荡的时期。当我在1966年春天见到库姆斯时，他对英镑显得非常自信和无所谓，就像过去的纽约扬基队的统治者对他的球队那样。我几乎得出结论，关注英镑的走势不再有趣了。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In meanwhile, the pound's strength enabled the Bank of England not merely to pay off all its short-term debts to other central banks, but also to accumulate in the open market in exchange for its newly desirable pounds, more than a billion fresh dollars to add to its precious reserves. Thus between September 1965 and March 1966, those reserves rose from $2,600 million to $3,600 million, a fairly safe figure, and then the pound breezed nicely through a national election campaign, as always a stormy time for the currency. When I saw Coombs in the spring of 1966, he seemed as cocky and blase about sterling as an old-time New York Yankee ruler about his team. I had all but concluded that following the fortunes of the pound was no longer any fun.
当新的危机爆发时，海员罢工导致英国的贸易逆差再次出现。在1966年6月初，汇率再次跌至2.79美元以下，有报道称英格兰银行又开始动用储备进行干预。6月13日，中央银行像久经沙场的消防员接到例行报警一样不慌不忙地提供了一揽子新的短期信贷。但这些措施只能暂时缓解问题。到了7月底，为了一劳永逸地解决英镑的问题，首相威尔逊对英国人民施加了有史以来和平时期最严格的经济限制措施。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
When a new crisis exploded, a seamen strike contributed to a recurrence of Britain's trade deficit. And in early June of 1966, the quotation was back below $2.79, and the Bank of England was reported to be back in the market spending its reserves on the defense. On June 13, with something of the insouciance of veteran firemen responding to a routine call, back came the central banks with a new bundle of short-term credits. But these helped only temporarily, and toward the end of July, in an effort to get at the root of the pound's troubles by curing the deficit once and for all, Prime Minister Wilson imposed on the British people the most stringent set of economic restraints ever applied in his country in peacetime.
高额税收、严格的信贷压缩、工资和物价冻结、削减政府福利开支，以及每位英国人每年用于出国旅行的支出限额仅为140美元。联邦储备委员会在英国宣布紧缩计划后立即进入英镑市场，为此提供了帮助，英镑反应良好。为了加大力度，联邦储备委员会在9月将与英格兰银行的外汇掉期额度从7.5亿美元增加到13.5亿美元。我在9月见到WAGA，他热情地谈论英格兰银行重新积累的所有美元。经济学家在这个时候用最能让人安心的英国式冷静表示，英镑危机已经变得令人厌烦。一切恢复平静，不过仅仅多持续了六个多月而已。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
High taxes, a merciless squeeze on credit, a freeze on wages and prices, a cotton government welfare spending, and a limit of $140 on the annual amount that each Britain could spend on travel abroad. The Federal Reserve, Coombs told me later, helped by moving into the sterling market immediately after the British announcement of the austerity program, and the pound reacted satisfactorily to this brodding. In September, for good measure, the Federal Reserve increased its swap line with the Bank of England from $750 million to $1,350 million. I saw WAGA in September, and he spoke warmly of all the dollars that the Bank of England was again accumulating. Sterling crises have become a bore. The economists remarked at about this time with the most reassuring sort of British phlegm. Calm again, and again for just a little more than six months.
1967年4月，英国没有短期债务，外汇储备充足。然而，不到一个月的时间内，一系列令人心痛的挫折开始出现。由于短暂的阿以战争，导致了两个后果：大批阿拉伯资金从英镑兑换成其他货币，以及苏伊士运河被关闭，这条运河是英国主要的贸易通道之一。这几乎在一夜之间引发了一场新的危机。到6月时，由于1966年总裁洛德·克罗默由莱斯利·奥布赖恩爵士接任，英格兰银行在新领导的指导下，不得不大量动用与美联储的互换额度。而到了7月，英国政府发现自己不得不重新实施上一年痛苦的经济限制措施。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In April of 1967, Britain was free of short-term debt and had ample reserves. But within a month or so, came the first of a series of heartbreaking setbacks, two consequences of the brief Arab-Israeli war, a huge flow of Arab funds out of Sterling into other currencies, and the closing of the Suez Canal, one of Britain's main trade arteries, brought on a new crisis almost overnight. In June, the Bank of England, under new leadership now, for a 1966 Lord Cromer had been succeeded as Governor by Sir Leslie O'Brien, had to draw heavily on its swap line with the Federal Reserve, and in July the British government found itself forced to renew the painful economic restraints of the previous year.
即便如此，到了9月，英镑滑落至2.7830美元，这是自1964年危机以来的最低点。我联系了我的外汇专家，询问为什么英格兰银行将其最后的底线设在2.7860美元（1964年11月）后，现在却任由汇率危险地接近这个几乎是最低点的水平，而没有进行贬值。要知道，根据他们最新的声明，银行储备超过了25亿美元。他回答说，情况其实并没有数字显示得那么糟糕。目前的投机压力还没有1964年那么强烈。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Even so, in September the pound slipped down to $2.78 and $30.00 of a cent. Its lowest point since the 1964 crisis. I called my foreign exchange expert to ask why the Bank of England, which in November 1964, had set its last-line trench at $2.78 and $60.00 and which, according to its latest statement, now had on hand reserves amounting to more than $2.5 billion, was letting the price slide so dangerously near the absolute bottom, short of devaluation of $2.78. Well, the situation isn't quite as desperate as the figure suggests, he replied. The speculative pressure, so far, isn't anything like as strong as it was in 1964.
今年的基本经济状况，至少到目前为止，好了很多。尽管有中东战争，但紧缩计划已经奏效。在1967年前八个月，英国的国际收支几乎平衡。英格兰银行显然希望这段英镑疲软期能在不干预下过去。然而，就在那个时候，我察觉到了一种令人不安的迹象。英国人似乎放弃了他们长期以来对“货币贬值”这一词的忌讳。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And the fundamental economic position this year, up to now at least, is much better. Despite the Middle East War, the austerity program has taken hold. For the first eight months of 1967, Britain's international payments have been nearly in balance. The Bank of England is evidently hoping that this period of weakness of the pound will pass without its intervention. At about that time, however, I became aware of a disturbing portent in the air. The apparent abandonment by the British of their long-standing taboo against bandaging about the word devaluation.
像其他禁忌一样，这项禁忌似乎也源于某种实际逻辑和迷信的结合。谈论货币贬值很容易引发投机热潮，从而导致其发生。然而，现在我发现英国的媒体和几本备受尊敬的期刊中已经在自由且频繁地讨论货币贬值，甚至有人在其中倡导这一观点。但这还不是全部。诚然，首相威尔逊仍然在小心谨慎地避免使用这个词，尽管他多次积极承诺他的政府不会采取货币贬值的行动。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Like other taboos, this one seemed to have been based on a combination of practical logic. Talk about devaluation could easily start a speculative stampede and thereby bring it on, and superstition. But now I found devaluation being freely and frequently discussed in the British press, and in several respected journals, actually advocated. Nor was that all. Prime Minister Wilson, it is true, continued to follow a careful path around the word, even in the very active pledging, as he did over and over, that his government would abstain from the deed.
他曾经委婉地表示，现行的海外货币政策不会改变。然而，在7月24日，财政大臣詹姆斯·卡拉汉在下议院公开谈论货币贬值，抱怨这种政策作为国家政策受到推崇，并声明这种政策将破坏与其他国家及其人民之间的信任。他承诺他的政府绝不会采用这种政策。他的观点是熟悉且令人安心的，但他如此直率地表达出来却是不同以往的。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
There would be no change in existing policy as to overseas monetary matters, he said delicately on one occasion. On July 24, though, Chancellor of the Exchequer, James Callahan, spoke openly in the House of Commons about devaluation, complaining that advocacy of it as a national policy had become fashionable, declaring that such a policy would represent a breach of faith with other nations, and their people, in also pledging that his government would never resort to it. His sentiments were familiar and reassuring. His straightforward expression of them was just the opposite.
在1964年最黑暗的日子里，没有人在议会中提到贬值。整个秋天，我感觉英国正被一系列可怕的不幸所困扰，其中一些对英镑造成了特别严重的损害，而其他的一些只是打击了英国的士气。就在前一个春天，一艘破损的油轮泄漏出的石油污染了康沃尔的海滩。现在，一场疫情正在摧毁成千上万的牛群。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In the darkest days of 1964, no one had said devaluation in Parliament. All through the autumn, I had a feeling that Britain was being overtaken by a fiendish concatenation of cruel mischances, some specifically damaging to the pound and others merely crushing to British morale. The previous spring, oil from a wrecked and wretched tanker had defiled the beaches of Cornwall. Now an epidemic was destroying tens and ultimately hundreds of thousands of head of cattle.
英国的经济紧缩政策持续了一年多，导致失业率达到多年来的最高水平，使工党政府成为战后最不受欢迎的政府。六个月后，在《星期日泰晤士报》的一项民意调查中，英国人将威尔逊评为本世纪第四位最恶名昭著的人，仅次于希特勒、戴高乐和斯大林。9月中旬开始的伦敦和利物浦码头工人罢工持续了两个多月，进一步削弱了原本就捉襟见肘的出口贸易，彻底终结了英国希望在年底实现国际收支平衡的幻想。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The economic straightjacket that Britain had worn for more than a year had swelled unemployment to the highest level in years, and made the Labour government the most unpopular government in the postwar era. Six months later, in a poll sponsored by the Sunday Times, Britain's would vote Wilson the fourth most villainous man of the century, after Hitler, de Gaulle, and Stalin in that order. A dock strike in London and Liverpool that began in mid-September and was to drag on from more than two months decreased still further the already hobbled export trade and put in abrupt end to Britain's remaining hope of ending the year with its international accounts in balance.
1967年11月初，英镑兑美元的汇率为2.782美元，是十年来的最低点，之后情况迅速恶化。11月13日星期一晚上，威尔逊在伦敦市长的年度晚宴上发表讲话。这是三年前他曾在这里坚定承诺捍卫英镑的平台。他恳请国家和全世界不要因即将公布的最新对外贸易数据而恐慌，因为这些数据受到临时因素的影响而出现了扭曲。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Early November 1967, the pound stood at $2.78 and 2200s of a cent, its lowest point in a decade, and then things went downhill fast. On the evening of Monday the 13th, Wilson took the occasion of his annual appearance at the Lord Mayor of London's banquet, the very platform he had used for his fiery commitment to the defence of sterling in the crisis three years earlier, to implore the country and the world to disregard, as distorted by temporary factors, his nation's latest foreign trade statistics, which would be released the next day.
在星期二的14号，英国正式发布了其外贸数据，显示10月份的贸易逆差超过一亿英镑，这是有史以来最严重的。内阁于星期四的16号中午召开会议，当天下午，在下议院上，财政大臣卡拉汉被要求确认或否认有关中央银行将提供巨额新贷款的传闻，而这一贷款将取决于进一步导致失业的紧缩措施。对此，他热烈回应，并且后被称为缺乏谨慎地表示，政府会根据我们对英国经济需求的理解来做出适当的决策，而不是依据他国的需求，目前阶段不会采取任何增加失业的措施。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On Tuesday the 14th, Britain's foreign trade figures duly released showed an October deficit of over a hundred million pounds, the worst ever reported. The cabinet met at lunch on Thursday the 16th and that afternoon in the House of Commons, Chancellor Callahan, upon being asked to confirm or deny rumors of an enormous new central bank credit that would be contingent upon still further unemployment-breeding austerity measures, replied with heat, and with what was later called a lack of discretion, the government will take what decisions are appropriate in the light of our understanding of the needs of the British economy and no one else's, and that at this stage does not include the creation of any additional unemployment.
一致认为，外汇市场决定汇率贬值的决定已经做出，而卡拉汉无意中泄露了这个消息。17号星期五成为外汇市场有史以来最动荡的一天，并且是英镑一千年历史中最黑暗的一天。为了将英镑维持在2.78美元和2500点分之一美元这个被当作最终防线的价格，英格兰银行耗费了一笔可能永远不会被披露的储备美元。华尔街的商业银行家估计，这个数额大约在十亿美元左右，这意味着储备金全天候的流失速度超过每分钟两百万美元。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
With one accord, the exchange markets decided that the decision to devalue had been taken and that Callahan had inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. Friday the 17th was the wildest day in the history of the exchange markets and the blackest in the thousand-year history of sterling. In holding it at $2.78 and 2,500 of a cent, the price decided on this time as the last line trench, the Bank of England spent a quantity of reserved dollars that it may never see fit to reveal. Wall Street commercial bankers, who have reason to know, have estimated the amount at somewhere around a billion dollars, which would mean a continuous day-long reserve drain of over two million per minute.
毫无疑问，英国的储备跌破了二十亿美元，甚至可能远远低于这一水平。在一个充满混乱警报的星期六，11月18日，英国宣布了投降。我是在纽约时间下午5点30分从瓦嘎那里得知这个消息的。他打电话告诉我，就在一个小时前，英镑被贬值到2.40美元，英国银行利率上调到了8%。他在说这些话时，声音有些颤抖。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Doubtless the British reserves dropped below the two-billion-dollar mark and perhaps far below it. Late on a Saturday, November 18, full of confused alarms, Britain announced its capitulation. I heard about it from Wagga, who telephoned me that afternoon at 5.30 New York time. As of an hour ago, the pound was devalued to $2.40 and the British bank rate went to 8%. He said his voice was shaking a little.
星期六晚上，考虑到除了大规模战争之外，几乎没有什么比主要货币贬值对全球金融安排的冲击更大，我来到了世界金融中心——华尔街，四处看看。一阵刺骨的寒风把街上的废纸刮得到处飘舞，周围弥漫着一如既往让人倍感压抑的下班后的寂静，但这次情况有些不同。许多大楼的窗户亮着灯，而整个建筑物大部分都是黑暗的，每栋大楼通常只有一排窗口亮着灯。其中有些是大银行的外汇部门。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On Saturday night, bearing in mind that scarcely anything but a major war upsets world financial arrangements more than devaluation of a major currency, I went down to the capital of World Finance Wall Street to look around. A nasty wind was whipping papers through empty streets, and there was the usual rather intimidating off-hour stillness in that part-time city. There was something unusual, though. The presence of rows of lighted windows and the otherwise dark buildings, for the most part, one lighted row per building. Some of the rows I could identify as the foreign departments of the big banks.
银行的大门紧锁着，上了锁杆。看起来，外事部门的人显然是在周末打电话请求进入，或者使用隐秘的侧门或后门。我竖起衣领，沿着拿骚街走向自由街，想去看看联邦储备银行。我发现它的灯光并不是沿着单一的线路排列，而是更加多样化地、不规则地照亮了整个佛罗伦萨式的外墙。然而，它的正门对着街道也是紧闭的。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The heavy doors of the banks were locked and barred. Foreign department men evidently ring to gain entrance on weekends or use invisible side or rear entrances. Turning up my coat collar, I headed up Nassau Street toward Liberty to take a look at the Federal Reserve Bank. I found it lighted not in a single line but more hospitably, somehow, in an irregular pattern over its entire Florentine facade, yet it too, presented to the street a formatively closed front door.
当我看着它的时候，一阵风送来了一段不协调的管风琴音乐，也许是从几条街外的三一教堂传来的，这让我意识到在这十到十五分钟里，我没有看到任何人。在我看来，这个场景可以代表中央银行的两个面孔之一：冷漠和敌意的一面，暗示着那些自负且保密的决策者在做影响我们所有人的决定，而这些决定我们既无法影响也无法理解。而不是那种更加友好的样子，像在巴塞尔品尝松露和葡萄酒时，优雅而博学的绅士们慷慨解救衰退货币一样。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
As I looked at it, a gust of wind brought an incongruous burst of organ music, perhaps from Trinity Church a few blocks away, and I realized that in 10 or 15 minutes, I hadn't seen anyone. The scene seemed to me to epitomize one of the two faces of central banking, the cold and hostile face suggesting men and arrogant secrecy, making decisions that affect all the rest of us, but that we can neither influence nor even comprehend. Rather than the more congenial face of elegant and learned men of affairs, beneficently saving faltering currencies over their truffles and wine at Basel.
这不是适合展示后者的面孔的晚上。在周日下午，Wagga在银行10楼的一个房间里召开了新闻发布会，我和其他十几位记者一起参加了会议，他们大多是报道美联储新闻的常客。Wagga主要谈论了货币贬值的问题，对于一些不愿回答的问题，他就像他以前当老师时那样，用反问的方式回应。他说，现在判断货币贬值是否会导致另一个1931年经济危机还为时过早。几乎任何预测都是在试图揣测全球数千家银行的数百万人。接下来的几天将揭示事情的真相。Wagga看上去是受到激励而不是沮丧。他的态度显然是既担忧又坚定。在离开的路上，我问他是否整夜没睡。他回答：“没有，我昨晚去参加了一个生日聚会，我必须说，相比之下，Pinter的世界这些天比我的世界更有意义。”
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
This was not the night for the latter face. On Sunday afternoon, Wagga held a press conference in a room on the 10th floor of the bank, and I attended it, along with a dozen other reporters, mostly regulars on the Federal Reserve beat. Wagga discussed generally on the devaluation, parrying questions he didn't want to answer, sometimes by replying to them like a teacher he once was with questions of his own. It was still far too early, he said, to tell how great the danger was that the devaluation might lead to another 1931. Almost any prediction, he said, would be a matter of trying to outguess millions of people in thousands of banks around the world. The next few days would tell the story. Wagga seemed stimulated rather than depressed. His attitude was clearly one of apprehension, but also of resolution. On the way out, I asked him whether he had been up all night. No, last evening I went to the birthday party, and I must say, Pinter's world makes more sense than mine does these days, he replied.
在接下来的几天里，周四和周五发生的事情逐渐清晰起来。大多数流传的传闻基本上都被证实为真。英国一直在与其他国家协商，申请另一笔巨额贷款，以避免货币贬值，这笔贷款规模与1964年那次30亿美元的贷款类似，并且美国仍然计划提供其中最大的一部分。至于英国是主动选择贬值还是迫于无奈，这一点仍存在争议。威尔逊在电视讲话中向民众解释贬值时表示，通过向各国央行和政府借款，有可能度过本次针对英镑的外汇投机浪潮，但这次这样做是不负责任的，因为国外的债权人可能会要求我们对某些国家政策做出保证。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The outlines of what had happened Thursday and Friday began to emerge during the next few days. Most of the rumors that had been abroad turned out to have been more or less true. Britain had been negotiating for another huge credit to forestalled devaluation, a credit of the order of magnitude of the $3 billion 1964 package, with the United States again planning to provide the largest share. Whether Britain had devalued from choice or necessity remained debatable. Wilson, in explaining the devaluation to his people in a television address, said that it would have been possible to ride out this present tide of foreign speculation against the pound by borrowing from central banks and governments, but that such action this time would have been irresponsible, because our creditors abroad might well insist on guarantees about this or that aspect of our national policies.
他并没有明确地说他们这样做了。无论如何，英国内阁在此前的周末就已经在原则上勉强决定要进行货币贬值，并在周四中午的会议上确定了具体贬值幅度。当时，内阁还决定通过对国家实施新的紧缩措施来确保贬值的效果，其中包括提高企业税、削减国防支出和实行五十年来的最高银行利率。至于推迟两天才实施贬值所导致的英国储备损失，官员们现在解释说，这段时间是为了与其他主要货币大国进行磋商而必需的。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
He did not say explicitly that they had done so. In any event, the British Cabinet had, with what grim reluctance may be imagined, decided in principle on devaluation as early as the previous weekend, and then determined the exact amount of the devaluation at its Thursday noon meeting. At that time the Cabinet had also resolved to help ensure the effectiveness of the devaluation by imposing new austerity measures on the nation, among them higher corporate taxes, a cutback in defense spending, and the highest bank rate in fifty years. As for the two-day delay in putting the devaluation into effect, which had been so costly to British reserves, officials now explained that the time had been necessary for conferences with the other leading monetary powers.
根据国际货币规则，在贬值前需要召开这样的会议。此外，英国急需世界贸易领先竞争对手的保证，即他们不打算通过对等贬值来削弱英国贬值的效果。目前也对周五英镑恐慌性抛售的原因有了一些了解。并不是所有的抛售都是那些著名的、虽不可见但或许并不存在的苏黎世侏儒的肆意投机。相反，其中很大一部分是大型跨国公司出于自我保护而进行的一种操作，称为套期保值。这些公司中很多是美国企业，他们通过卖空相当于几周或几个月后应收的英镑来进行套期保值。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Such conferences were required by international monetary rules before devaluation, and besides, Britain had urgently needed assurances from its leading competitors in world trade that they did not plan to vitiate the effect of the British devaluation with matching devaluations of their own. Some light was now shed, too, on the sources of the panic selling of pounds on Friday. By no means all of it had been wanton speculation by those famous, although invisible, and perhaps non-existent gnomes of Zurich. On the contrary, much of it had been a form of self-protection, called hedging, by large international corporations, many of them American, that made short sales of sterling equivalent to what they were due to be paid in sterling weeks or months later.
这一点的证据来自公司自身，其中一些公司迅速向其股东保证，因为他们的远见，他们在货币贬值中损失很小甚至没有损失。例如，国际电话电报公司在周日宣布，由于管理层早就预料到可能的货币贬值，1967年的收益不会受到影响。国际收割机公司和德州仪器公司则表示，他们通过类似卖空英镑的方式保护了自己。胜家公司甚至表示，他们可能在这笔交易中意外获利。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The evidence of this was supplied by the corporations themselves, some of them being quick to assure their stockholders that through their foresight they had contrived to lose little or nothing on the devaluation. International telephone and telegraph, for example, announced on Sunday that the devaluation would not affect its 1967 earnings because management anticipated the possibility of devaluation for some time. International harvester and Texas Instruments reported that they had protected themselves by making what amounted to short sales of sterling. The Singer Company said it might even have accidentally made a profit on the deal.
其他美国公司表示他们的情况还不错，但出于担心如果透露使用的方法可能会被指责在英国极端困难时期趁机占便宜，因此拒绝详细说明。正如一位公司发言人所说：“只能说我们很聪明。”虽然这种说法缺乏优雅与体面，但可能也算公平。在国际商务的丛林中，对冲弱势外币被视为一种完全合法的自卫手段。而进行投机性抛售则不太被认可。有趣的是，那些在星期五对英镑进行投机并事后谈论此事的人中，有些人并不在苏黎世。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Other American companies let it be known that they had come out all right, but declined to elaborate, on the ground that if they revealed the methods they had used they might be accused of taking advantage of Britain in its extremity. Let's just say we were smart, was the way a spokesman for one company put it. And perhaps that, if lacking in grace and elegance, was fair enough. In the jungle of international business, hedging on a weak foreign currency is considered a wholly legitimate use of clause for self-defense. Selling short for speculative purposes enjoys less respectability, and it is interesting to note that the ranks of those who speculated against sterling on Friday and talked about it afterward included some who were far from Zurich.
一群来自俄亥俄州扬斯敦市的职业男性，他们是资深的股票市场参与者，但从未涉足过国际货币市场。星期五，他们决定英镑即将贬值，于是卖空了7万英镑，并在周末获得了近2.5万美元的利润。显然，他们卖出的英镑最终是由英格兰银行用美元买入的，从而为英国的储备损失增添了微小的一笔。在《华尔街日报》上读到这次小规模的成功，通过他们的经纪人报告来告知，作者希望这些扬斯敦的学徒精英至少能理解他们所做事情的意义。这就是关于在周末进行道德思考的故事。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A group of professional men in Youngstown, Ohio, veteran stock market players, but never before international currency plungers, decided on Friday that sterling was about to be devalued and sold short 70,000 pounds, netting a profit of almost $25,000 over the weekend. The pound sold, had of course, ultimately been bought with dollars by the Bank of England, thus adding a minuscule drop to Britain's reserve loss. Reading about the little coup in the Wall Street Journal, to which the group's broker had reported it, presumably with pride, I hoped the apprentice gnomes of Youngstown had at least grasped the implications of what they were doing. So much for Sunday in moral speculation.
周一，金融界的大部分人恢复了工作，货币贬值开始接受考验。考验由两个问题组成。问题一：此次贬值能否实现其在英国的目的，即通过刺激出口和减少进口来解决国际赤字问题，并终止针对英镑的投机活动？问题二：这次贬值是否会像1931年那样，引发其他货币的一连串竞争性贬值，最终导致美元相对黄金贬值，引发全球货币混乱，甚至可能引发全球经济萧条？我看到答案开始逐渐浮现。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On Monday, the financial world, or most of it, went back to work, and the devaluation began to be put to its test. The test consisted of two questions. Question 1. Would the devaluation accomplish its purpose for Britain, that is, stimulate exports and reduce imports sufficiently to cure the international deficit and put an end to speculation against the pound? Question 2. Would it, as in 1931, be followed by a string of competitive devaluations of other currencies, leading ultimately to a devaluation of the dollar in relation to gold, worldwide monetary chaos, and perhaps a world depression? I watched the answers beginning to take shape.
周一，伦敦的银行和交易所都因政府命令而关闭，只有少数其他地方的交易员在英格兰银行缺席市场的情况下谨慎地避免进行交易。因此，关于英镑在新估值下的强弱问题被推迟了。在伦敦金融区的 Threadneedle 街和 Throgmorton 街，人群中挤满了经纪人、交易员和职员，他们兴奋地交谈，但没有进行任何交易。这是因为当天恰逢女王的结婚纪念日，所有旗杆上都飘扬着米字旗。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On Monday, the banks and exchanges in London remained firmly closed by government order, and all but a few traders elsewhere avoided taking positions and sterling in the Bank of England's absence from the market. So the answer to the question of the pound's strength or weakness at its new valuation was postponed. On thread needle and Throgmorton streets, crowds of brokers, jobbers and clerks milled around and talked excitedly, but made no trades, in a city where the Union Jack was flying from all flagstaffs, because it happened to be the Queen's wedding anniversary.
纽约股市开盘时大幅下跌，但随后回升。最初的下跌并没有真正合理的解释。证券界人士指出，货币贬值这个词听起来本身就让人感到压抑。到周一晚上，已经宣布西班牙、丹麦、以色列、香港、马耳他、圭亚那、马拉维、牙买加、斐济、百慕大和爱尔兰的货币也将贬值。这倒不太严重，因为货币贬值的破坏性影响与该货币在世界贸易中的重要性成正比，而这些货币都不是特别重要。然而，最具威胁性的变化是丹麦的决定，因为丹麦之后很可能会有其亲密经济盟友挪威、瑞典和荷兰跟随，这可能会非常严重。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The New York Stock Market opened sharply lower than recovered. There was no really rational explanation for the initial drop. Securities men pointed out that devaluation just generally sounds depressing. By nightfall on Monday, it had been announced that 11 other currencies, those of Spain, Denmark, Israel, Hong Kong, Malta, Guyana, Malawi, Jamaica, Fiji, Bermuda, and Ireland, were also being devalued. That wasn't so bad, because the disruptive effect of a currency devaluation is in direct proportion to the importance of that currency in world trade, and none of those currencies were of great importance. The most ominous move was Denmark's, because Denmark might easily be followed by its close economic allies, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, and that would be pretty serious.
在货币贬值时，埃及立即损失了3,800万美元的储备英镑，但依然坚挺，科威特则损失了1,800万美元。周二，全球市场都在全力运作。正在恢复业务的英格兰银行设定了英镑的新交易限额，最低为2.38美元，最高为2.42美元。结果，英镑就像孩子手中滑脱的气球一样，直接到达了上限，并且全天都保持在这个位置。事实上，出于不明确的原因，这个“气球”大部分时间还略超过了上限。此时，英格兰银行不再支付美元购买英镑，而是提供英镑兑换美元，从而开始重新建立其储备。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Egypt, which was an instant loser of $38 million on pounds, held in its reserves at the time of devaluation, held firm, and so did Kuwait, which lost $18 million. On Tuesday, the markets everywhere were going full blast. The Bank of England, back in business, set the new trading limits of the pound at a floor of $2.38 and a ceiling of $2.42. Whereupon the pound went straight to the ceiling, like a balloon slipped from a child's hand and stayed there all day. Indeed, for obscure reasons, inapplicable to balloons, it spent much of the day slightly above the ceiling. Now, instead of paying dollars for pounds, the Bank of England was supplying pounds for dollars, and thereby beginning the process of rebuilding its reserves.
我打电话给瓦加，想分享我以为他会感到欢欣鼓舞的消息，但发现他对此十分冷静。他说，英镑的坚挺是技术性的，原因是前一周卖空英镑的人在买回英镑以套现他们的利润。而对新英镑的首次客观测试要到星期五才能进行。当日还有七个小国家宣布货币贬值。在马来西亚，他们让旧的与英镑挂钩的货币贬值，但基于黄金的新元未受影响，仍继续流通这两种货币。这种不公正引发了骚乱，两周内有超过27人在骚乱中丧生，这也是贬值带来的首批伤亡。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
I called Waga to share what I thought would be his jubilation, but found him taking it all calmly. The pound's strength, he said, was technical. That is, it was caused by the previous week's shortsellers buying pounds back to cash in their profits, and the first objective test of the new pound would not come until Friday. Seven more small governments announced devaluations during the day. In Malaysia, which had devalued its old sterling back pound, but not its new dollar, based on gold, and which continued to keep both currencies in circulation, the injustice of the situation led to riots, and over the next two weeks, more than 27 people were killed in them, the first casualties of devaluation.
除了这个痛苦的提醒——在引人入胜的国际金融游戏中，筹码其实是人们的生计甚至生命——目前情况尚可。但在星期三22号，一种不太局部的问题预兆出现了。长期以来对英镑的投机攻击已经粉碎了它，现在如大家所担心的那样，这种攻击转向了美元。作为唯一一个承诺以固定价格每盎司35美元向任何其他国家的中央银行出售任何数量黄金的国家，美国是全球货币体系的关键，而它国库中的黄金——在那个星期三价值还不到130亿美元——是这个体系的基础。美联储主席马丁曾多次表示，美国将在任何情况下继续按需出售黄金，如果必要的话，直到最后一根金条。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Apart from this painful reminder that the counters in the engrossing game of international finance are people's livelihoods and even their lives, so far so good. But on Wednesday the 22nd, a less localized portent of trouble appeared. The speculative attack that had so long battered and at last crushed the pound now turned, as everyone had feared it might, on the dollar. As the one nation that is committed to sell gold in any quantity to the central bank of any other nation at the fixed price of $35 an ounce, the United States is the keystone of the world monetary arch, and the gold in its treasury, which on that Wednesday amounted to not quite $13 billion worth, is the foundation. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Martin had said repeatedly that the United States would, under any condition, continue to sell it on demand, if necessary down to the last bar.
尽管有这样的承诺，并且在英国货币贬值后约翰逊总统又重申了这一点，但投机者依然开始用美元大量购买黄金，对官方的保证表示怀疑。这种怀疑与差不多同时期纽约人囤积地铁代币的行为如出一辙。巴黎、苏黎世和其他金融中心尤其是伦敦——全球最大的黄金市场突然出现了对黄金的异常需求，人们开始谈论起伦敦的“淘金潮”。每天的黄金订单量，据一些权威估计超过了5000万美元，看起来来自世界各地，除了美国或英国的公民，他们依法禁止购买或持有货币黄金。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Despite this pledge, and despite President Johnson's reiteration of it immediately after Britain's devaluation, speculators now began buying gold with dollars in huge quantities, expressing the same sort of skepticism toward official assurances that were shown at about the same time by New Yorkers who took to accumulating and hoarding subway tokens. Gold was suddenly in unusual demand in Paris, Zurich, and other financial centers, and most particularly in London, the world's leading gold market, where people immediately began to talk about the London gold rush. The day's orders for gold, which some authorities estimated at over $50 million worth, seemed to come in from everywhere, except presumably from citizens of the United States or Britain, who are forbidden by law to buy or own monetary gold.
谁来将这些黄金卖给如潮水般突然涌现出渴望的无形大众呢？不是美国财政部，因为它通过联邦储备系统只向中央银行出售黄金；也不是其他中央银行，因为它们根本没有承诺出售黄金。为了填补这一空白，另一国际合作组织——伦敦金池于1961年成立。其成员包括美国、英国、意大利、荷兰、瑞士、西德、比利时，最初还有法国。伦敦金池提供了数量惊人的金条，其中59%来自美国。其目的是通过向非政府购买者提供所需数量的黄金（价格与联邦储备基本一致），来平息货币恐慌，从而保护美元的稳定和整个体系的运作。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And who was to sell this stuff to these invisible multitudes, so suddenly repossessed by the age-old lust for it? Not the United States Treasury, which, through the Federal Reserve, sold gold only to central banks, and not other central banks, which did not promise to sell it at all. To fill this vacuum, still another cooperative international group, the London Gold Pool, had been established in 1961. Provided by its members, the United States, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, West Germany, Belgium, and originally France, with gold ingots in quantities that might dazzle a cresis—59 percent of the total coming from the United States—the pool was intended to quell money panics by supplying gold to non-governmental buyers in any quantity demanded, at a price effectively the same as the Federal Reserve's, and thereby, to protect the stability of the dollar and the system.
这就是游资周三的动作。然而，周四的情况更糟，巴黎和伦敦掀起的黄金购买热潮甚至打破了1962年古巴导弹危机时的纪录。许多人——包括英美的高级官员——确信他们早先的怀疑：这场黄金热潮是法国戴高乐将军的阴谋，目的是打压英镑，现在又转向美元。当然，这些证据都是间接的，但却具有说服力。戴高乐和他的部长们曾多次表示希望将英镑和美元在国际上的地位降到比现在小得多的水平。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And that is what the pool did on Wednesday. Thursday, though, was much worse, with the gold buying frenzy in both Paris and London breaking even the records set during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and many people—high British and American officials among them—became convinced of something they had suspected from the first—that the gold rush was part of a plot by General De Gaulle in France to humble first the pound and now the dollar. The evidence, to be sure, was all circumstantial, but it was persuasive. De Gaulle and his ministers had long been on record as wishing to relegate the pound and the dollar to international roles far smaller than their current ones.
许多可疑的黄金购买行为，甚至在伦敦，都能追溯到法国。周一晚上，也就是金市风波开始前的36小时，法国政府通过媒体泄漏消息，称他们打算退出金本位体系。根据后来的消息，法国自上一个六月以来就没有对金本位体系做出任何贡献。此外，法国政府还被指控散布虚假谣言，说比利时和意大利也准备退出。而现在，逐渐曝光的消息显示，在货币贬值前的几天里，法国是最不愿意参与到拯救英镑的另一项信贷计划中的国家。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A suspicious amount of the gold buying, even in London, was traceable to France. On Monday evening, 36 hours before the start of the gold rush, France's government had led slip, through a press leak, that it intended to withdraw from the gold pool; according to subsequent information, France hadn't contributed anything to the pool since the previous June anyhow. And the French government was also accused of having had a hand in spreading false rumors that Belgium and Italy were about to withdraw, too. And now, it was coming out, bit by bit, that in the days just before the devaluation, France had been by far the most reluctant nation to join in another credit package to rescue sterling.
为确保万无一失，法国直到最后一刻才保证，即使英国贬值，他们也会保持自己的汇率。总的来说，有人指责戴高乐及其团队在其中扮演了不光彩的角色，这项指控还是很有道理的。不论这些指控是否属实，我不禁觉得，这些指责可谓是给贬值危机增添了不少"调料"。而几个月后，这些"调料"将变成"辛辣"，因为届时法郎将陷入困境，美国会因形势所迫而不得不出手相助。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And that, for good measure, France had withheld until the very last minute its assurance that it would maintain its own exchange rate if Britain devalued. All in all, there was a good case for the allegation that De Gaulle and company had been playing a mischievous part, and whether it was true or not, I couldn't help feeling that the accusations against them were adding a good deal of spice to the devaluation crisis, spice that would become or pique on a few months later, when the Frank would be in dire straits and the United States forced by circumstances to come to its aid.
周五在伦敦，英镑整天都保持在其上限，这标志着它成功通过了首次重要的重估测试。自周一以来，只有少数小国家宣布进行了重新估值，现在可以看出，挪威、瑞典和荷兰将会保持稳定。但在美元方面，情况比以往更糟。周五伦敦和巴黎的黄金购买量远远超过了前一天的记录。估计过去三天所有市场的黄金销售总额接近十亿美元。在约翰内斯堡，几乎陷入了一片混乱，因为投机者争相购买金矿公司的股票。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On Friday in London, the pound spent the whole day tied up against its ceiling, and thus came through its first really significant post-evaluation test with colors flying. Only a few small governments had announced evaluations since Monday, and it was now evident that Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands were going to hold firm. But on the dollar front, things looked worse than ever. Friday's gold buying in London and Paris had far exceeded the previous day's record. An estimate was that gold sales in all markets over the preceding three days added up to something not far under the billion-dollar mark. There was near pandemonium, old day in Johannesburg, as speculators scrambled to get their hands on shares in gold mining companies.
在整个欧洲，人们不仅用美元兑换黄金，还用美元兑换其他货币。虽然美元未必达到一周前英镑的地位，但至少可以看出两者之间不那么愉快的相似之处。随后有报道称，在贬值的最初几天，美联储习惯于支援其他货币，却不得不借入价值近20亿美元的外币来保卫自己的货币。周五晚些时候，我参加了一个会议，会上瓦加以一种反常的紧张调侃的态度，让我也感到紧张。我离开了美联储银行，半信半疑地认为可能会在周末宣布美元贬值。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
In all over Europe, people were trading in dollars not only for gold, but for other currencies as well. If the dollar was hardly in the position that the pound had occupied a week earlier, at least they were uncomfortable parallels. Subsequently, it was reported that in the first days after devaluation, the Federal Reserve, so accustomed to lending support to other currencies, had been forced to borrow various foreign currencies, amounting to almost two billion dollars worth, in order to defend its own. Late Friday, having attended a conference at which Wagga was in an unaccustomed mood of nervous jocularity that made me nervous too, I left the Federal Reserve Bank, half believing that devaluation of the dollar was going to be announced over the weekend.
这完全没有发生。相反，最糟糕的情况暂时过去了。在周日，有消息宣布金汇国家的央行代表，包括海耶斯和库姆斯，在法兰克福会面，并正式同意继续用他们的联合资源维持美元的当前金汇率。这似乎消除了人们对美元背后不仅有美国130亿美元的黄金储备，还有比利时、英国、意大利、荷兰、瑞士和西德额外的140亿美元黄金支持的任何疑虑。投机者显然对这一声明印象深刻。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Nothing of the sort happened. On the contrary, the worst was temporarily over. On Sunday, it was announced that central bank representatives of the gold pool countries, Hayes and Coombs among them, had met in Frankfurt and formally agreed to continue maintaining the dollar at its present gold exchange rate with their combined resources. This seemed to remove any doubt that the dollar was backed not only by the United States' 13 billion dollar gold hoard, but also by the additional 14 billion dollars worth of gold in the coffers of Belgium, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and West Germany. The speculators were apparently impressed.
周一，伦敦和苏黎世的黄金购买量大幅减少，只有巴黎的购买量仍然保持在创纪录的水平。尽管如此，这一天法国总统戴高乐在媒体上发表了激烈言论，除了对其他问题的混淆看法外，他还认为当前的趋势是美元的国际重要性正在下降。周二，各地的黄金销售都大幅下降，即使在巴黎也是如此。那天下午，Wagga在电话中告诉我今天的情况不错，希望明天更好。周三，黄金市场恢复正常，但这一周的交易导致财政部损失了约450吨黄金，价值近五亿美元，以履行对黄金储备库的承诺和满足外国央行的需求。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On Monday, gold buying was much lower in London and Zurich, continuing at a record pace only in Paris, and this in spite of a sulphurous press audience granted that day by De Gaulle himself, who along with bemusing opinions on various other matters, hasroded the view that the trend of events was toward the decline of the dollar's international importance. On Tuesday, gold sales dropped sharply everywhere, even in Paris. A good day today, Wagga told me on the phone that afternoon, a better day tomorrow, we hope. On Wednesday, the gold markets were backed in normal, but as a result of the week's doings, the treasury had lost some 450 tons of gold, almost half a billion dollars worth in fulfilling its obligations to the gold pool and meeting the demands of foreign central banks.
在货币贬值发生十天后，一切似乎恢复了平静，但这只是接下来一连串冲击之间的短暂低谷。从12月8日到18日，又一轮针对美元的狂热投机开始，这次又从黄金储备中抽走了大约400吨黄金。像之前的波动一样，美国及其黄金储备合作伙伴通过重申他们维持现状的决心最终平息了局势。到年底，自从英国货币贬值以来，美国财政部损失了价值近十亿美元的黄金，其黄金储备首次跌破了120亿美元，这是自1937年以来的最低水平。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Ten days after devaluation, everything was quiet, but was only a trough between succeeding shockwaves. From December 8th to 18th, there came a new spell of wild speculation against the dollar, leaching another 400 tons or so of gold out of the pool. This, like the previous wave, was eventually calmed by reiterations on the part of the United States and its gold pool partners of their determination to maintain the status quo. By the end of the year, the treasury had lost almost a billion dollars worth of gold since Britain's devaluation, reducing its gold stock to below the $12 billion mark for the first time since 1937.
1968年1月1日，约翰逊总统宣布了一项国际收支平衡计划，该计划主要通过限制美国银行在国外的贷款和工业投资来实现。在接下来的两个月里，这一计划帮助抑制了市场的投机行为。但黄金的需求热潮并不是那么容易平息的。尽管有各种承诺，这种热潮背后有强大的经济和心理力量。从更广泛的意义上来说，这反映了人们在危机时期对纸币的长期不信任。更具体地，这股热潮是对英镑贬值长期担忧的结果，最明确的是，它表明人们对美国是否有决心管好经济事务缺乏信心，尤其是在无尽的战争需要不断增加的巨额资金支持，而国内民用消费水平却达到了超乎想象的高峰时刻。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
President Johnson's Balance of Payments Program announced January 1st, 1968, and based chiefly on restrictions on American bank lending and industrial investments abroad, helped keep speculation down for two months. But the gold rush was not to be quelled so simply. All pledges notwithstanding, it had powerful economic and psychological forces behind it. In a larger sense, it was an expression of an age-old tendency to distrust all paper currencies in times of crisis, but more specifically, it was the long-feared sequel to sterling devaluation and perhaps most specifically of all, it was a vote of no confidence in the determination of the United States to keep its economic affairs in order, with particular reference to a level of civilian consumption beyond the dreams of avarice at a time when ever-increasing billions were being sent abroad to support a war with no end in sight.
这段文字的大意是：原本世界应该信仰的货币，在黄金投机者看来，就像是最不负责任和挥霍无度的浪费者一样。当他们在2月29日再次发起攻击时，选择这个日期并没有特别的原因，仅仅是因为美国参议员雅各布·贾维茨刚刚发表了一个评论，不管他是出于极度认真的态度还是不经意的失言，他认为美国或许应该暂时停止向外国支付黄金。这样的发言激起了极大的反应，导致局面迅速失控。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The money in which the world was supposed to be putting its trust looked to the gold speculators like that of the most reckless and improvident spendthrift. When they returned to the attack on February 29th, choosing that day for no assignable reason except that a single United States senator, Jacob Javits, had just remarked, with either deadly seriousness or casual indiscretion, that he thought his country might do well to suspend temporarily all gold payments to foreign countries. It was with such ferocity that the situation quickly got out of hand.
3月1日，黄金储备池在伦敦分发了约40到50吨黄金，而正常情况下每天只分发三到四吨。3月5日和6日，每天分发40吨；3月8日，超过75吨；到3月13日，总量已经无法准确估算，但远远超过100吨。与此同时，英镑的汇率首次跌破了1英镑兑2.40美元，而如果美元相对于黄金贬值，英镑的不可能避免进一步贬值。尽管如此，在3月10日，巴塞尔中央银行俱乐部再次重申了那些已知的承诺，但似乎完全没有效果。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On March 1st, the gold pool dispensed an estimated 40 to 50 tons in London as against three or four tons on a normal day. On March 5th and 6th, 40 tons per day; on March 8th, over 75 tons; and on March 13th, a total that could not be accurately estimated but ran well over 100 tons. Meanwhile, the pound, which could not possibly escape a further devaluation if the dollar were to be devalued in relation to gold, slipped below its par of $2.40 for the first time. Still another reiteration of the now familiar pledges, this time from the Central Bankers Club at Basel on March 10th, seemed to have no effect at all.
市场处于一种典型的混乱状态，对每一次公众保证都心存疑虑，并且受制于每一个流言蜚语。一位著名的瑞士银行家严肃地称这种情况是自1931年以来最危险的。一位巴塞尔俱乐部成员在绝望中表达着善意，他说这些黄金投机者似乎没有意识到他们的行动正在危及世界的货币体系。《纽约时报》在社论中表示，国际支付系统显然正在瓦解。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The market was in a classic state of chaos, distrustful of every public assurance and at the mercy of every passing rumor. A leading Swiss banker grimly called the situation the most dangerous since 1931. A member of the Basel Club, tempering desperation with charity, said that the gold speculators apparently didn't realize their actions were imperiling the world's money. The New York Times, in an editorial, said it is quite clear that the international payments system is eroding.
在3月14日星期四，恐慌加剧了混乱。伦敦的黄金交易商在描述当天的情况时使用了与英式表达不符的词汇，如“失控”、“灾难”和“噩梦”。当天售出的黄金总量一如既往地没有公布，即使可能也无法精确统计，但大家都同意这已创下历史新高。大多数估计认为，总量约为200吨，价值2.2亿美元，而《华尔街日报》的估算是这个数值的两倍。如果前一个估算是对的，那么在这一天的交易中，仅美国财政部通过其在黄金池的份额，每3分42秒就支付出100万美元的黄金。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On Thursday, March 14th, panic was added to chaos. London gold dealers, in describing the day's action, used the un-British words, stampede, catastrophe and nightmare. The exact volume of gold sold that day was unannounced as usual. Probably it could not have been precisely counted in any case, but everyone agreed that it had been an all-time record. Most estimates put the total at around 200 tons, or 220 million dollars worth, while the Wall Street Journal put it twice that high. If the former estimate was right, during the trading day, the United States Treasury had paid out through its share of the gold pool alone, $1 million in gold every three minutes and 42 seconds.
如果期刊中的数字是正确的，随后财政部的公告也证实了这一点，那么平均每1分51秒就会损失一百万资金。显然，这种情况是不可接受的。就像1964年的英国一样，以这样的速度，美国的“储藏室”几天内就会被掏空。当天下午，美联储将贴现率从4.5%上调到5%，这是一项防御措施，但由于实在太过温和和不足以应对局面，以至于一位纽约银行家将其形容为一把玩具枪。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
If the journal figure was right, as a subsequent Treasury announcement made it appear to be, a million every one minute and 51 seconds. Clearly this wouldn't do. Like Britain in 1964, at this rate, the United States would have a bear cupboard in a matter of days. That afternoon, the Federal Reserve System raised its discount rate from four and a half to five percent, a defensive measure so timid and inadequate that one New York banker compared it to a pop gun.
纽约联邦储备银行作为美元体系的外汇执行机构，对这一象征性竞争感到不满，进而拒绝参与其中。当天纽约已近黄昏而伦敦接近午夜时，美国请求英国于次日周五继续关闭黄金市场，以避免更大的灾难，并为周末的面对面国际磋商创造条件。对此事一无所知的美国公众，可能首次感受到事态的严重性，是在周五早晨得知英国女王伊丽莎白二世在午夜至凌晨1点间紧急会见部长们商讨危机。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
And the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as the system's foreign exchange arm, was moved to protest by refusing to go along with the token race. Late in the day in New York, and toward midnight in London, the United States asked Britain to keep the gold market closed the next day, Friday, to prevent further catastrophe and clear the way to the weekend when face-to-face international consultations could be held. The bewildered American public, largely unaware of the gold pool's existence, probably first sensed the general shape of things when it learned on Friday morning that Queen Elizabeth II had met with her ministers on the crisis between midnight and 1 a.m.
星期五，这是个令人紧张等待的一天。伦敦市场关闭，几乎所有其他地方的外汇交易也暂停，但在巴黎市场，黄金价格却大幅上涨——从美国的立场来看，这有点像黑市。在纽约，英镑因失去英格兰银行的支撑，一度跌破2.38美元的官方底价，随后才有所回升。周末，由美国、英国、西德、瑞士、意大利、荷兰和比利时组成的黄金池国家的中央银行家齐聚华盛顿，商讨对策，而法国在这次会议上依然显眼地缺席，甚至没有被邀请。美联储派出的代表是库姆斯，同时参加会议的还有美联储主席马丁。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
On Friday, a day of nervous waiting, the London markets were closed and so were foreign exchange desks nearly everywhere else, but gold shot up to a big premium in the Paris market, a sort of black market from the American standpoint, and in New York, sterling unsupported by the firmly locked Bank of England briefly fell below its official bottom price of $2.38 before rallying. Over the weekend, the central bankers of the gold pool nations, the United States, Britain, West Germany, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium, with France still conspicuously missing and indeed uninvited this time, met in Washington with Coombs participating for the Federal Reserve, along with Chairman Martin.
经过整整两天严格保密的讨论，在金融界屏息以待的情况下，他们于星期天下午晚些时候宣布了他们的决定。金价将继续保持每盎司35美元的官方货币定价，并用于各国央行之间的交易。黄金储备协议将被解散，央行将不再向伦敦市场提供黄金，在那里，私人交易的黄金将被允许自行定价。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
After two full days of rigidly secret discussions, while the world of money waited with baited breath, they announced their decisions late on Sunday afternoon. The $35 in ounce official monetary price of gold would be kept for use in all dealings among central banks. The gold pool would be disbanded, and the central banks would supply no more gold to the London market, where privately traded gold would be allowed to find its own price.
对那些试图从央行价格与自由市场价格差价中获利的央行，将采取制裁措施，而伦敦金市将关闭几周，直到局势稳定。在新安排实施后的前几天内，英镑强劲反弹，自由市场上的金价稳定在比央行价格高出两到五美元之间，这个差价比许多人预期的小很多。危机已经过去，或者说那个危机已经过去。美元逃过了贬值，国际货币机制依然完好，解决方案也并不算特别激进。毕竟，黄金交易规模巨大，而且在1960年金汇池形成之前，黄金就是采取双重价格的。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Sanctions would be taken against any central bank seeking to profit from the price differential between the central bank price and the free market price, and the London gold market would remain closed for a couple of weeks until the dust settled. During the first few market days under the new arrangements, the pound rallied strongly, and the free market price of gold settled at between two and five dollars above the central bank price, a differential considerably smaller than many had expected. The crisis had passed, or that crisis had. The dollar had escaped devaluation, and the international monetary mechanism was intact, nor was the solution a particularly radical one. After all, gold was a very large deal, gold had been on a two-price basis in 1960 before the gold pool had been formed.
但这个解决方案只是一个临时的权宜之计，戏剧的帷幕并未落下。就像哈姆雷特中的幽灵，最初引发行动的英镑现在退居幕后。舞台上的主要角色是接近联邦储备局和美国财政部的人，他们在技术上尽力保持局势稳定。然而，国会因享受繁荣而自满，专注于即将到来的选举，因此抵制上涨税收和其他不受欢迎的紧缩措施。就在伦敦恐慌的那个下午，参议院财政委员会投票否决了附加所得税。而最后，总统呼吁实行国家紧缩计划以保卫美元，但同时越南战争的开支不断增加，许多人认为这场战争不仅威胁到美国的财政健康，还威胁到美国的灵魂。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
But the solution was a temporary stopgap one, and the curtain was not down on the drama yet. Like Hamlet's Ghost, the pound which had started the action was offstage now. The principal actors on stage as some approached with a federal reserve and the United States Treasury doing what they could in a technical way to keep things on an even keel. The Congress, complacent with prosperity, preoccupied with coming elections, and therefore resistant to higher taxes and other uncomfortable retrenching measures, on the very afternoon of the London panic, the Senate Finance Committee had voted down an income tax surcharge. And finally, the president, calling for a program of national austerity to defend the dollar, yet at the same time carrying on at ever increasing expense the Vietnam War, which had become as menacing to the health of America's money as, in the view of many, it was to that of America's soul.
最终，这个国家似乎只有三种可能的经济选择：第一，设法结束越南战争，这是支付问题的根源，也是问题的核心；第二，采纳全面战争经济政策，即实施高额税收、工资和物价管制，甚至可能采取配给制；第三，面临美元被迫贬值的局面，可能导致全球货币混乱，并带来经济衰退。除了越南战争及其对全球货币体系的广泛影响，央行官员们继续努力解决问题。在解决美元危机的权宜之计出台两周后，十个最强大的工业国在斯德哥尔摩举行会议，除法国外，各国一致同意逐步创建一种新的国际货币单位，以补充黄金作为所有货币的基础。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Ultimately, it appeared, the nation had just three possible economic courses. To somehow end the Vietnam War, root of the payments problem, and therefore heart of the matter, to adopt a full wartime economy with sky-high taxes, wage and price controls, and perhaps rationing, or to face forced devaluation of the dollar, and perhaps a depression-breathing world monetary mess. Looking beyond the Vietnam War, and its incredibly broad worldwide monetary implications, the central bankers went on plugging away. Two weeks after the stopgap solution of the dollar crisis, those of the ten most powerful industrial countries met in Stockholm and agreed, with only France dissenting, on the gradual creation of a new international monetary unit to supplement gold as the bedrock underlying all currencies.
如果这一决议付诸行动，将包括国际货币基金组织的特别提款权，按各国现有储备的比例分配给各国。银行界将这些权利称为SDRs，而大众则立即称之为“纸黄金”。这个计划能否成功实现目标，例如避免美元贬值、克服全球货币黄金短缺，并因此无限期推迟一个潜在的危机，要取决于人类和国家是否能在理性的胜利中，最终实现他们在将近四百年的纸币历史中未能实现的目标。也就是说，人们能否克服人类历史上最古老、最非理性的特性之一——对黄金外观和触感的渴望，并真正给予写在纸上的承诺以同等的价值。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
It will consist, if action follows on resolution, of special drawing rights on the International Monetary Fund, available to nations in proportion to their existing reserve holdings. In Bankers' jargon, the rights will be called SDRs. In popular jargon, they were at once called Paper Gold. The success of the plan in achieving its ends, averting dollar devaluation, overcoming the world's shortage of monetary gold, and thus postponing indefinitely the threatened mess, will depend on whether or not men and nations can somehow at last, in a triumph of reason, achieve what they have failed to achieve in almost four centuries of paper money. That is, to overcome one of the oldest and least rational of human traits, the lust for the look and feel of gold itself, and come to give truly equal value to a pledge, written on a piece of paper.
这个问题的答案将在最后一幕揭晓，不过结局的前景不太乐观。当最后一幕开始 unfolding 时，正值英镑贬值之后但黄金恐慌之前，我来到了自由街，看到了 Cooms 和 Haze。我发现 Cooms 看起来非常疲惫，但在谈到过去三年在一场注定失败的斗争中度过时，语气并不气馁。他说：“我不认为为英镑而战完全是徒劳无功的。我们争取到了这三年，在此期间，英国采取了很多内部措施来增强自身实力。如果他们在1964年被迫贬值，很可能工资和物价的通货膨胀会吞噬掉他们获得的任何好处，把他们重新推回同样的困境。”
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
The answer to that question will come in the last act, and the outlook for a happy ending is not right. As the last act was beginning to unfold, after the sterling devaluation but before the gold panic, I went down to Liberty Street and saw cooms and haze. I found cooms looking bone-tired, but not sounding disheartened about three years spent largely in a losing cause. I don't see the fight for the pound as all having been in vain, he said. We gained those three years, and during that time the British put through a lot of internal measures to strengthen themselves. If they'd been forced to devalue in 1964, there's a good chance that wage and price inflation would have eaten up any benefit they'd derived and put them back in the same old box.
此外，在这三年中，国际货币合作进一步加强了。天晓得如果没有1964年的贬值，整个体系会发生什么。如果没有那三年的国际努力和后备行动，你可以说，英镑可能会在更混乱的状况下崩溃，带来比我们现在看到的更严重的影响。请记住，我们和其他中央银行的努力并不是单纯为了支撑英镑，而是为了保护整个体系，而这个体系也得以存续下来。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Also, over those three years, there have been further gains in international monetary cooperation. Goodness knows what would have happened to the whole system with devaluation in 1964. Without that three-year international effort, that rear guard action, you might say, sterling might have collapsed in much greater disorder, with far more damaging repercussions than we've seen even now. Remember that after all, our effort and the effort of the other central banks wasn't to hold up sterling for its own sake. It was to hold it up for the sake of preserving the system, and the system is survived.
表面的阴霾看起来和我一年半前最后一次见到他时一模一样，显得平静而不受影响，就好像他这段时间都在研究Khorfu。我问他是否还坚持过银行家的作息时间，而他微微一笑回复说，这个原则早已为了实际需要而放弃。他提到，1967年的英镑危机比1964年的危机更耗费时间，而随后的美元危机似乎也同样棘手。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Haze on the surface seemed exactly as he had when I last saw him a year and a half earlier, as placid and unruffled as if he had been spending all that time studying up on Khorfu. I asked him whether he was still living up to his principle of keeping bankers' hours, and he replied, smiling very slightly, that the principle had long since yielded to expediency. That, as a time consumer, the 1967 sterling crisis had made the 1964 crisis seem like child's play, and that the subsequent dollar crisis was turning out to be more of the same.
他说，这三年半的整个经历带来的一个附带好处是，其中经常令人痛苦的情节推动了Haze太太对银行业的兴趣，甚至在一定程度上影响了Tom在其价值观中的商业地位。不过，当Haze谈到货币贬值时，我发现他的平静只是一个伪装。“哦，我确实感到失望，”他平静地说，“毕竟，我们拼命努力去阻止它，而几乎就成功了。在我看来，英国本可以从国外获得足够的帮助来维持汇率。这可以在没有法国的情况下实现。但是英国选择了贬值。”
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
A side benefit of the whole three-and-a-half-year affair, he said, was that its frequently excruciating melodrama had contributed something to Mrs. Haze's interest in banking, and even something, if not so much, to the position of business in Tom's scale of values. When Haze spoke of the devaluation, however, I saw that his placidity was a mask. Oh, I was disappointed, all right, he said quietly. After all, we worked like the devil to prevent it, and we nearly did. In my opinion, Britain could have got enough assistance from abroad to hold the rate. It could have been done without France. Britain chose to devalue.
我认为贬值最终有很大可能会取得成功。而且，国际合作方面获得的收益是不容置疑的。查理·库姆斯和我在11月于法兰克福的金币库会议上就能够感受到这种氛围，与会的每个人都意识到现在是携手合作的时机。但哈兹还是停顿了一下。当他再次开口时，他的声音充满了那种平静而又强烈的力量，我通过他的视角看到了贬值，不仅仅是一场重大的职业挫折，而是一种理想的丧失和偶像的坍塌。他说，那年11月，在银行中，当一名信使将一份标记为最高机密的英国文件交给我，告知我们关于贬值的决定时，我感到身体不适。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
I think there's a good chance that the devaluation will eventually be a success. And the gain for international cooperation is beyond question. Charlie Coombs and I could feel that at Frankfurt in November, at the Goldpool Meeting, a sense everyone there had that now is the time to lock arms. But still, Haze paused. And when he spoke again, his voice was full of such quiet force that I saw the devaluation through his eyes, not as just a severe professional reverse, but as an ideal lost and an idol fallen. He said, that day in November, here at the bank, when a courier brought me the top secret British document informing us of the decision to devalue, I felt physically sick.
英镑将不再是过去的样子。它在全球范围内再也无法获得相同程度的信任。
▶ 英文原文 ⏱
Sterling would not be the same. It would never again command the same amount of faith around the world.