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National Geographic : 1961 Jun
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National Geographic, June, 1961 fine," said F. L. Payne of the London Cham ber of Commerce. "A City man depends upon personal contacts and the people he knows. If you let a chap down, you don't get any more business." I once asked the Lord Mayor himself, Sir Bernard Waley-Cohen, if the tempo of mod ern life might not force a change in the City's way of doing business. "The greater the pressures, the greater the need for relying upon one's word," said Sir Bernard, a Lloyd's underwriter. "In the rush of modern business, there is often no time for solicitors and contracts. If a man isn't good for his word, the stigma soon gets around." The interdependence which results from the code gives the City's financial institutions a curiously similar atmosphere. I often felt I was calling at various branches of the same club, different in decor but one in spirit. The "Old Lady" Heads the Club Traditionally this men's club looks to a feminine leader, the Old Lady of Thread needle Street. A cartoon of 1797 depicted the Bank of England as a rich dowager sitting atop a money box, and the name stuck. Arrowed street signs, pointing toward Threadneedle Street, say "To the Bank." Englishmen know this can only refer to the Bank of England, banker to other banks, and banker to the Government since 1694, when William III granted it a charter to raise funds for the war against Louis XIV of France. A detachment from the Brigade of Guards still marches through the City nightly to take up posts inside the Bank, a custom that be gan during the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780. Bank messengers wear pink tail coats, scarlet vests, and top hats, believed to be the livery prescribed by the Bank's first Gover nor, Sir John Houblon, for his servants. Until its nationalization in 1946, the Bank of England administered fiscal matters more by force of tradition than by force of law. Though privately owned, it controlled the banking system's interest rates, ordained other fiscal policy, and worked smoothly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In a sense, this system still prevails. The Chancellor, after consulting with Bank offi cials, issues requests, not orders, and the Bank requests compliance by others. "We call it the 'Old Boy System,' " I was told by the manager of one of the large public banks. "There is no deviation from it at all. Other people may call it 'muddling through.' To us it's flexible organization." On June 30 the grande dame of Thread needle Street is scheduled to install a new Governor, George Rowland Stanley Baring, 42, third Earl of Cromer. He will be the youngest Bank of England boss in nearly 200 years. But all those hoary traditions could not be in safer hands. Members of the Baring family have been merchant bankers in the City for two centuries. Tradition Bends to Changing World When named to his new job, Lord Cromer was Economic Minister at the British Em bassy in Washington, D. C., and his coun try's chief representative to the International Monetary Fund. Before his departure for London, he granted me an interview -a mi nor break with Bank of England precedent. "Some people think adherence to tradition means an inability to change, an ossified at titude," said Lord Cromer. "But it doesn't work that way in the City. The merchant banks, for example, made London a great international banking center, and they have always had to adapt themselves to changing circumstances. Their ways are traditional but flexible, and the essence of the City is its flexibility." Built of heavy stone, its first story a win dowless wall, the Bank of England (opposite) looks almost as formidable as the Tower of London. In its subbasement I saw genera tors capable of supplying electricity to a city of 25,000 and pumps that drew water from nine artesian wells. Officials say the Bank could hold out under siege for three months. In another inner sanctum, the bullion working vault, I walked among stacks of gold bars valued at £20,000,000 ($56,000,000). Most of the bars came from South Africa (page 751). While I hefted one, my guide dis missed the lot as "petty cash which will be sold in a few days." One block from the home of the Old Lady lies Throgmorton Street, site of the Stock Exchange. Enter a narrow door, brave two flights of steps to the visitors' gallery, and pretty girl guides will show you Britain's financial lions in their den: the Stock Ex change's trading floor. From the glass gallery you look down upon seeming chaos. In a cavernous room some 2,500 men mill about or gather in chattering groups. The scene's order and purpose be- 756
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