The Treasury and British Public Policy, 19061959

Abstract

The twentieth‐century Treasury has had a bad press. Keynesian‐age critics accused it of a bias against public spending so gross as to retard the growth of wealth and social progress. Ancillary faults include lack of financial and statistical expertise, sacrificing the interests of industry to those of the City of London, and ‘missing the boat' for Europe in the 1950s. In the first archivally based history of the twentieth‐century Treasury, which is certain to become the standard work, Professor George Peden chronicles the Treasury's role from Asquith to Macmillan. It is a remarkable story of institutional persistence, authoritatively told and enlivened by sharp pen portraits of personalities who have mostly remained invisible to the public. Throughout the period, the Treasury was fighting a battle on two fronts: to uphold the Victorian fiscal constitution against political pressure and to retain its control over the allocation of supply. It was forced to retreat on the first, but won the second. That is why it is still the central department of British government.