[발췌: IMF's] The White Plan (1942)

출처: IMF. IMF History Volume 3 (1945-1965). 1996(개정판).
자료: 구글도서


※ 발췌 (excerpts):

The White Plan

The first definitive version of Mr. White's plan for Stabilization Fund was a mimeographed draft dated April 1942. This covered both the Fund and the Bank. It comprised an Introduction, an Outline of the Articles proposed for the Fund and for the Bank, and extensive commentaries on these Articles. That extract (A) below omits the Articles for the Bank and also the commentary on them except for a section which dealt with "A New international currency."

The final version of Mr. White's plan was issued by the U.S. Treasury in printed form on July 10, 1943. This is reproduced in (B) below.

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(A) Preliminary Draft Proposal for a United Nations Stabilization Fund and a Bank for Reconstruction and Development of the United and Associated Nations

(April 1942)
H. D. WHITE, Assistant to the Secretary, U.S. Treasury Department

This report has been prepared at the request of Secretary Morgenthau that I draft a plan for an International Stabilization Fund and an International Unit of Currency.

He felt that the requirement of furthering the war effort and preparing for the financial needs of the reconstruction period called for the immediate preparation and study of preliminary proposals.─H. D. WHITE

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INTRODUCTION

Suggested Plan for a United and Associated Nations Stabilization Fund and a Bank for Reconstruction and Development of the United and Associated Nations

It is yet too soon to know the precise form or the approximate magnitude of post-war monetary problems. But one thing is certain. No matter how long the war lasts nor how it is won, we shall be faced with three inescapable problems: to prevent the disruption of foreign exchanges and the collapse of monetary and credit systems; to assure the restoration of foreign trade; and to supply the huge volume of capital that will be needed virtually throughout the world for reconstruction, and for economic recovery.

If we are to avoid drifting from the peace table into a period of chaotic competition, monetary disorders, depressions, political disruption, and finally into new wars within as well as among nations, we must be equipped to grapple with these three problems and to make substantial progress toward their solution.


Specific plans must be formulated now

Clearly the task can be successfully handled only through international action. In most discussions of post-war problems this fact has been recognized, yet to date─though a number of persons have pointed to the solution in general terms─no detailed plans sufficiently realistic or practical to give promise of accomplishing the task have been formulated or discussed. It is high time that such plans were drafted. It is time that detailed and workable plans be prepared providing for the creation of agencies with resources, powers and structures adequate to meet the three major post-war needs.

Such agencies should, of course, be designated to deal chiefly with post-war problems. But their establishment must not be postponed until the end of hostilities. It takes many months to set up such agencies. First, a plan has to be perfected. Then it has to be carefully considered by a number of countries. In each country, again, acceptance can follow only upon legislation. That alone will consume many months and possibly longer. And even when the plan is finally accepted, much time will be further consumed in the collection of personnel, and the performance of the preliminary ground work which must be done before effective operations can begin. Altogether, a year may be required before a proposal can be transformed into an operating agency.

Obviously, therefore, even though no important immediate ends will be served by having such agencies functioning during war time, it will be an error to wait until the end of the war is in sight before beginning serious discussion of plans for establishing such agencies. No one knows how soon the war will end, and no one can know how long it will take to get plans approved and the agencies started. Yet, if we are to "win the peace," which will follow the war, we must have adequate economic instruments with which to carry on effective work as soon as the war is over. it would be ill-advised, if not positively dangerous, to leave ourselves at the end of the war unprepared for the stupendous task of world-wide economic reconstruction.


Specific proposals will help win the war.

But there is an additional important reason for initiating at once serious discussion of specific proposals. Such discussion will be a factor toward  winning the war. It has been frequently suggested, and with much cogency, that the task of securing  the defeat of the Axis powers would be made easier if the victims of aggression, actual and potential, could have more assurance that a victory by the United Nations will not mean in the economic sphere, a mere return to the pre-war pattern of every-country-for-itself, or inevitable depression, of possible widespread economic chaos with the weaker nations succumbing first under the law-of-the-jungle that characterized international economic practices of the pre-war decade. That assurance must be given now. The people of the anti-Axis powers must be encouraged to feel themselves on solid international ground, they must be given to understand that a United Nations victory will not usher in another two decades of economic uneasiness, bickering, ferment, and disruption. They must be assured that something will be done in the sphere of international economic relations that is new, that is powerful enough and comprehensive enough to give expectation of successfully filling a world need. They must have assurance that methods and resources are being prepared to provide them with capital to help them rebuild their devastated areas, reconstruct their war-distorted economies, and help free them from the strangulating grasp of lost markets and depleted reserves. Finally, they must have assurance that the United States does not intend to desert the war-worn and impoverished nations after the war is won, but proposes to help them in the long and difficult task of economic reconstruction. To help them, not primarily for altruistic motives, but from recognition of the truth that prosperity, like peace, is indivisible. To give that assurance now is to unify and encourage the anti-Axis forces, to greatly strengthen their will and effort to win.

Nor will the effect be on the anti-Axis powers alone. Whether within the Axis countries the will to fight would be weakened by such arrangements is not certain, but assuredly it would not be strengthened. And certainly the people in the invaded countries, and the wavering elements in the Axis-dominated and Axis-influenced countries would be given additional cause to throw in their lot more definitely and openly with the anti-Axis forces if their is real promise that an orderly prosperous world will emerge from a United Nations victory.


Two International Government Agencies must be established─A Stabilization Fund and a Bank for Reconstruction

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