‘How Guernsey Beat the Bankers’
November 11, 2024
THIS outstanding 1983 talk by Matthew J. Browning tells the story of the 19th-century Guernsey Experiment in monetary reform, pointing out its relevance to today.
How Guernsey Beat the Bankers is a 1958 pamphlet that tells how the Island of Guernsey “created its own money, without cost to the taxpayer, and established a prosperous community free of debt:” (Note: The “social credit mentioned in this pamphlet is not the Communist-style social credit.)
An excerpt:
Our story opens in the year 1815. It was a year of considerable difficulty for the people of Britain but the people of the little island of Guernsey were particularly hard hit. The effects of the Napoleonic wars had resulted in a state of despair on the part of the island community due to the acute economic distress then prevailing. The following extract from a document presented by the States (as the island Parliament is called) to the Privy Council speaks very eloquently on the state of affairs:
“In this island, eminently favoured by nature, nothing has been done by art or science towards the least improvement; nothing for the display or enjoyment of local beauties and advantages; not a road, not even an approach to the town, where a horse and cart could pass abreast; and the deep roads only four feet six inches wide, with a footway of two or three feet, from which nothing but the steep banks on each side can be seen, appeared solely calculated for drains to the waters which, running over them, rendered them ever yet deeper and narrower. Not a vehicle, hardly a horse kept for hire, no four-wheeled carriage existed of any kind, and the traveller landed in a town of lofty houses, confined and miserably-paved streets from which he could only penetrate into the country by worse roads, left the island in haste and under the most unfavourable impressions.
“In 1813, the sea, which had in former times swallowed up large tracts, threatened, from the defective state of its banks, to overflow a great extent of land. The sum required to avert the danger was estimated at more than £10,000, which the adjoining parishes subject to this charge were not in a condition to raise. The state of the finance was not consolatory, with a debt of £19,137 and an annual charge for interest of £2,390, the revenue of £3,000 left only £600 for unforeseen expenses and improvements. Thus, at the peace, this island round itself with little or no trade, little or no disposable revenue, no inducement for the affluent to continue their abode, and no prospect of employment for the poor.” What a tale of woe. Small wonder that the people were depressed and any that could were making their way to the mainland. As often happens in communities when there are major difficulties, a committee was appointed in 1815 to consider in particular the overcrowded state of the market, of which it was said that “humanity cries out against the crush which it is difficult to get out of, and against the lack of shelter for the people who, often arriving wet or heated, remained exposed for whole hours to wind and rain, to the severity of the cold and the heat of the sun.”
