译者 frmann
Margaret Thatcher knew the single currency would devastate Europe
玛格丽特·撒切尔早知道单一货币会毁掉欧洲
By Peter Oborne Politics Last updated: November 18th, 2010
彼得·奥本讷，政治，最后更新2010年11月18日
Next week it will be 20 years since Margaret Thatcher fell. Pressure had been building on a number of fronts, but the issue which finally destroyed her was the yet-to-be-born euro. In the last weekend of October 1990, she travelled to a European summit in Rome, where Jacques Delors’ dream of European Monetary Union was high on the agenda. But while Mrs Thatcher was fighting her lone battle against the prospective single currency abroad, she was being fatally undermined at home. Geoffrey Howe, her bitterest cabinet critic, went on television to tell the interviewer Brian Walden that in principle Britain did not oppose the euro.
玛格丽特·撒切尔下台（1990年11月28日）20周年纪念日就在下周。她面临着各个方面的压力，不过最终压垮她的是当时尚未诞生的欧元。在1990年10月的最后一个周末，她前往罗马参加欧洲峰会，雅克·德洛尔梦想的欧洲货币联盟是这次峰会最重要的议题。不过正当撒切尔夫人在国外无助地抵挡将要诞生的单一货币时，国内有人给了她致命的一击。撒切尔内阁中最尖刻的批评者杰弗里·豪登上荧幕，告诉主持人布莱恩·瓦尔登英国原则上不反对欧元。
In her Commons statement after returning home, she was forced to slap Howe down: “this government believes in the pound sterling.” Howe resigned, and days later delivered the famous speech from the back benches that set in motion a leadership contest.
撒切尔夫人归国后在下院作报告时被迫镇压豪：“我的政府只相信英镑。”豪辞职了，数日后他在下院后排座位上发表了引起保守党领导权之争的著名演说。
Today, Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography, first published in 1993, reads like a prophecy. It shows how deeply and with what extraordinary wisdom she had examined Delors’ proposals for the single currency. Her overriding objection was not ill-considered or xenophobic, as subsequent critics have repeatedly claimed.
如今，玛格丽特·撒切尔在1993年发表的自传读起来像是预言。这本书反映了她以怎样非凡的智慧考察德洛尔的单一货币方案并进行了何等深入的思考。她至关重要的否决并非如后来的批评家一直宣称的是考虑不充分的结果或是出于排外主义思想。
They were economic. Right back in 1990, Mrs Thatcher foresaw with painful clarity the devastation it was bound to cause. Her autobiography records how she warned John Major, her euro-friendly chancellor of the exchequer, that the single currency could not accommodate both industrial powerhouses such as Germany and smaller countries such as Greece. Germany, forecast Thatcher, would be phobic about inflation, while the euro would prove fatal to the poorer countries because it would “devastate their inefficient economies”.
根本的原因是经济问题。早在1990年，撒切尔夫人就清晰地预见单一货币必将带来的灾难和痛苦。她的自传写下了她对自己欢迎欧元的财政大臣约翰·梅杰的警告，德国这样的经济强国无法和希腊这样的小国共用单一货币。撒切尔预言说，德国对通货膨胀充满恐惧，欧元将因为“摧毁弱国效率低下的经济”而对它们产生致命的损害。
It is as if, all those years ago, the British prime minister possessed a crystal ball that enabled her to foresee the catastrophic events of the past year or so in Ireland, Greece and Portugal. Indeed, it is one of the tragedies of European history that the world chose not to believe her. President Mitterrand of France and Chancellor Kohl of Germany dismissed her words of caution. And when Mrs Thatcher was driven from office in 1990, a crucial voice was lost, and a new consensus started to form in Britain in favour of the euro.
多年以前，英国首相仿佛掌握了能让她看到过去一年中发生在爱尔兰、希腊和葡萄牙的灾难的水晶球。事实上，世界不相信撒切尔夫人的预言酿成了欧洲历史上的又一个悲剧。法国总统密特朗和德国总理科尔都把她的警告当成了耳旁风。撒切尔夫人在1990年被赶下首相宝座以后，这个至关重要的反对声消失了，英国国内开始达成欢迎欧元的共识。
This consensus stretched across the entire spectrum of the British establishment. It took in Tony Blair’s New Labour and all of Paddy Ashdown’s Liberal Democrats. The CBI came out for the euro, and so did the trades unions. The Foreign Office was doctrinally pro-single currency. Leading businessmen, such as Peter Sutherland (chairman of BP and Goldman Sachs International) and the fashion-conscious Richard Branson were strongly in favour. The Financial Times, a newspaper whose judgment has been wrong on every great economic issue of the last 40 years, was another supporter.
这种共识弥漫整个英国。它吸纳了托尼·布莱尔的新工党和帕蒂·阿什顿的自由民主党。英国工业联合会和工会一起欢迎欧元。外交部一直是支持单一货币的。彼得·苏斯蓝（BP和高盛的总裁）和潮人理查德·布兰森等重要的商人都强烈支持欧元。《金融时报》这张在过去四十年中猜错了每一个重大经济事件的报纸则是又一个欧元支持者。
This consensus was all the more powerful because it contained Conservative grandees. The Britain in Europe campaign, featuring an ambitious young Liberal Democrat called Danny Alexander, now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was launched in 1999. Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine treacherously spoke alongside Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson.
这种共识显得更为有力是因为它控制了保守党要人们。“欧洲的英国”活动在1999年发起，它让雄心勃勃的年轻自由民主党人丹尼·亚历山大脱颖而出，现在他已经是财政部首席大臣。肯·克拉克和麦克尔·黑斯廷也背信弃义地同托尼·布莱尔和彼得·曼德尔森一个鼻孔出气。
“The price we would pay,” announced Mandelson, “in lost investment and jobs in Britain would be incalculable.” He projected that “outside the euro, there is little we can do to protect industry against destabilising swings in the value of sterling.” Michael Heseltine spoke apocalyptically about the terrifying consequences for British competitiveness outside the euro. Chris Huhne, now a Lib Dem cabinet minister, was scathing about eurosceptics who warned that entry to the euro would cause the Irish economy to overheat – warnings that proved to be all too accurate.
曼德尔森宣称：“我们要付出的代价是失去在英国的投资和工作，这是无法用数字来衡量的。”他指出：“如果我们不加入欧元，我们就很难保护工业免受英镑汇率波动的影响。”迈克尔·黑斯廷则以先知的口吻描绘了英国游离于欧元之外进行竞争的可怕后果。如今已经成为自由民主党内阁大臣的克里斯·休恩当时尖刻地指责欧洲怀疑论者的警告：加入欧元会让爱尔兰经济过热——这个警告已然成为事实。
Irishman Niall Fitzgerald, chairman of the industrial giant Unilever, forecast British economic obliteration outside the euro. In a dark irony, it is his native country that now faces obliteration. Those who challenged this consensus were ridiculed. Even William Hague, then leader of the opposition, received this contemptuous treatment. Hague made a series of speeches which, reread today, rival Margaret Thatcher’s in their prescience. He predicted that membership would “lead to huge booms and deep recessions”. Hague chillingly added that “the single currency is irreversible. One could find oneself trapped in the economic equivalent of a burning building with no exits.” He noted that euro membership could lead to a “full-blown banking and financial crisis.”
工业巨头联合利华总裁爱尔兰人尼尔·菲茨杰拉德预言英国会因为留在欧盟之外而经济闭塞。反讽的是，正是他的祖国如今面临闭塞的局面。所有质疑欧元“共识”的人都受到了奚落。就连当时的反对党领袖威廉·黑格也受到了这样轻蔑的对待。黑格进行了一系列演说，今天重读这些文章时可以发现他在预见性上堪与玛格丽特·撒切尔比肩。他预言欧元区成员国的身份会“引起空前的繁荣和深深的衰退”。黑格还冷峻地指出“单一货币的命运不可更改。人们将发现自己身陷火海，无路可逃。”他特别指出欧元区成员国的地位可能引起“全面的银行和金融危机”。
Nobody listened, many mocked, and Hague was accused of dragging the Tory party to the Right. The BBC, an integral part of the pro-European alliance, played its full role in marginalising critics such as Hague. The state-owned national broadcaster lumped the Tory leader in with cranks and xenophobes. By contrast, euro supporters were invariably presented as mainstream and sensible.
没人听进了黑格的警告，很多人还嘲弄他，有人指责他把保守党推向右翼。亲欧洲联盟不可或缺的一员——英国广播公司也在边缘化黑格这样的批评者上作出了自己的贡献。这家国营广播公司把保守党领袖刻画成古怪的仇外分子，与之形成鲜明对照的是支持欧元的人们都毫无疑义地成为明智的主流人士。
But it is Hague’s speeches that have stood the test of time, while the excitable expostulations of Heseltine, Blair, Mandelson and Clarke all look ridiculous today. So let’s try a thought experiment and ask where Britain would be today if they had won the argument.
但今天是黑格的演讲经受了时间的考验，而黑斯廷、布莱尔、曼德尔森和克拉克激动人心的忠告都已经称了笑话。我们可以做个思想实验，看看如果当初他们赢得了辩论，英国会是怎样的局面。
The first point to note is the British economic boom which ended in 2008 would have been headier still, thanks to the soft interest rate policies pursued by the European Central Bank in the early years of this century.
首先需要指出的是到2008年结束的英国经济增长会更强劲，这应当感谢欧洲中央银行在本世纪头几年实施的柔性利率政策。
The second is that the subsequent crash would have been far, far worse. We would not have been able to lower rates as far and as fast as we did. We could not have devalued out of trouble. We would have been unable to fuel economic growth by printing money.
其次是后来的崩溃也会糟糕得多得多。我们会以最快的速度最大幅度地降低利率。我们不能通过贬值本币来减少麻烦，也不能通过加印本币来刺激经济增长。
With these options unavailable, the recession would have turned into depression. It is likely that unemployment would now be heading towards five million and our already broken public finances would be in ruins. Just like Greece and Ireland, we would be unable to raise funds on the international markets and the IMF would have moved in. Angela Merkel of Germany would be offering a bail-out – but only on condition that we follow policies set for us in Europe. We would have lost our independence and become a wholly owned subsidiary of Brussels – the fate Ireland faces today.
因为我们没有这些手段，衰退会演化为萧条。失业人数可能增至500万，我们已经不堪重负的公共财政会崩溃。与爱尔兰和希腊一样，我们无力从国际市场筹集资金，国际货币基金会介入。德国的安吉拉·默克尔会提供援助——但前提是我们接受欧洲为我们制定的政策。我们会失去自由，和爱尔兰一样成为布鲁塞尔的全资子公司。
Yesterday, I tried to reach the leading politicians who tried so hard 10 years ago to abolish the pound – Heseltine, Leon Brittan, Mandelson, Neil Kinnock, Charlie Kennedy. I wanted to ask them whether they stood by their extravagant warnings. I wanted to ask them for an apology. Not one of them came back.
昨天，我尝试联系10年前努力推动废除英镑的主要政治家：黑斯廷，莱昂·布里坦，曼德尔森，尼尔·基诺克，查理·肯尼迪……我想问他们是否坚持当年不切实际的警告。我想请他们道歉。没有人回应。
Other apologies are called for. From the BBC, which distorted the debate. From the superior commentators who sneered at politicians like William Hague, John Redwood and Iain Duncan Smith as they fought against the euro. From Heseltine and Clarke for their calculated betrayal of Hague. From the CBI, which (under its then director general Adair Turner, now chairman of the Financial Services Authority) sold the interests of British business down the river.
我还想请其他人道歉：扭曲了辩论的英国广播公司，嘲笑努力抵制威廉·黑格、约翰·莱德伍德和伊恩·邓肯·史密斯等政治家的高级评论员，密谋出卖黑格的黑斯廷和克拉克，出卖英国商业利益的全国工业联合会（当时的主任是阿德尔·特纳，他现在是金融服务局主席）……
One other point. Margaret Thatcher may have been the first victim of the single currency, but there have been many more since: the millions who have lost their jobs and the nations that are being stripped (as she forecast) of their pride and independence. Baroness Thatcher has often been accused by her politically motivated enemies of callousness. But backers of the European project are today happy to countenance unlimited human suffering in their mission to enforce economic and monetary union. Mrs Thatcher knew this would be the result of their deranged plan, which is why she fought to stop it. Her last battle as prime minister could not have been fought in a greater or more compassionate cause.
还有一点。玛格丽特·撒切尔可能是单一货币的第一个牺牲品，但其后这张名单越来越长：数百万丢了工作的人和被剥夺了光荣与独立的国家（正如她预言的）。撒切尔女爵经常被她各怀动机的政敌指责冷酷无情。但欧洲计划的支持者们如今可以坦然面对人们因为他们推进经济和货币联盟的使命而承担的无尽苦难。撒切尔夫人知道他们的疯狂计划的可怕后果，因而为反对它而战斗。她在作为首相最后的战斗中如此伟大而富于同情心！
from 译言-每日精品译文推荐 http://article.yeeyan.org/view/235852/240686
