text:
Central Bank of Ireland

The Central Bank of Ireland (Banc Ceannais na hÉireann) is the Irish member of the Eurosystem and had been the monetary authority for Ireland from 1943 to 1998, issuing the Irish pound. It is also the country's main financial regulatory authority, and since 2014 has been Ireland's national competent authority within European Banking Supervision.

The Central Bank of Ireland was founded on 1 February 1943, and since 1 January 1972 has been the banker of the Government of Ireland in accordance with the Central Bank Act 1971, which can be seen in legislative terms as completing the long transition from a currency board to a fully functional central bank.

Its head office, the Central Bank of Ireland building, was located on Dame Street, Dublin from 1979 until 2017. Its offices at Iveagh Court and College Green also closed down at the same time. Since March 2017, its headquarters are located on North Wall Quay, where the public may exchange non-current Irish coinage and currency (both pre- and post-decimalization) for Euros, as well as high value Euro banknotes and "mutilated" currency. It also operates from premises at nearby Spencer Dock. The Currency Centre (Irish Mint) at Sandyford is the currency manufacture, warehouse and distribution site of the bank.

From Currency Commission to Central Bank (1920–1942)
On the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922, the new state's trade was overwhelmingly with the United Kingdom (98% of Irish exports and 80% of imports in 1924), so the introduction of an independent currency was a low priority. British banknotes (British Treasury notes, Bank of England notes), and notes issued by Irish trading banks circulated (but only the first were legal tender) and British coins remained in circulation.

Under the terms of the Coinage Act 1926, the Finance Minister was authorised to issue coins of silver, nickel, and bronze of the same denominations as the British coins already in circulation – however, the Irish silver coins were to contain 75% silver as compared to the 50% silver coins issued by Britain at the time. These coins entered circulation on 12 December 1928.

Under the terms of the Currency Act 1927, a new unit of currency, the Saorstát Pound (Free State Pound) was created, which was to be maintained at parity with the British Pound Sterling by a Currency Commission which would keep British government securities, Pounds Sterling cash, and gold to keep a 1–1 relationship.

From 1928 to 1979, the UK and Ireland were in a de facto currency union.

Foundation of the Central Bank to decimalization (1942–1971)
The Central Bank Act 1942 which came into effect on 1 February 1943 renamed the Currency Commission the Central Bank of Ireland, although the organisation did not at that time acquire many of the characteristics of a central bank:

 * it was not given custody of the cash reserves of the commercial banks
 * it had no statutory power to restrict credit, though it could promote it
 * the Bank of Ireland remained the government's banker
 * the conditions for influencing credit through open-market operations did not yet exist
 * Ireland's external monetary reserves were largely held as external assets of the commercial banks

The mid-1960s saw the Bank take over the normal day-to-day operations of exchange control from the Department of Finance. The Central Bank broadened its activities over the decades, but it remained in effect a currency board until the 1970s. Economist Patrick Honohan evaluates the success of the movement from a currency board to the central bank as follows: 'in contrast to many other post-colonial cases, (the currency board's) demise was not followed by a rapid depreciation and slide into semi-permanent high inflation and lack of convertibility.

Such was the proliferation of small industrial banks and hire purchase firms in the late 1960s, the 1971 Central Bank Act introduced significantly enhanced authorisation and supervision standards. In the inevitable consolidation in the marketplace, in 1976 a liquidator was appointed to Irish Trust Bank Ltd after Central Bank investigations and in 1982 Merchant Banking Ltd also collapsed.

Decimalization to European integration (1971–1978)
The 1970s was a decade of change, which began with the decimalisation of the currency which came into effect on 15 February 1971, when the decimal coinage was released into circulation (although 5p, 10p, and 50p coins were released a few years earlier, as they had exact equivalents in old currency units). Decimalisation would have provided an ideal opportunity to break the link with the Pound Sterling, but there was not much demand for this at that time. In 1972 however, the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates broke down, and in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis inflation in Britain increased dramatically, and economic theory would suggest that a smaller economy whose currency is pegged to a larger one will suffer the larger economy's inflation rate. At the same time moves to create a money market in Dublin and the transfer in 1968 of the commercial banks' Pound Sterling assets to the Central Bank made it possible to contemplate a break in the link. In the mid to late 1970s, opinion within the bank was moving toward breaking the link with the Pound Sterling and devaluing the Irish currency in order to limit inflationary effects from abroad.

The EMS and movement toward a single currency
At this time, however, an alternative option became available. In April 1978, the European Council meeting in Copenhagen decided to create a "zone of monetary stability" in Europe, and European Economic Community institutions were invited to consider how to create such a zone. At the following Council meeting in Bremen, Germany in June 1978 the basic features of the European Monetary System were outlined, including the creation of the ECU – European Currency Unit, a basket of the Community's currencies used to determine exchange rates, and the forerunner of the Euro.

The Irish government had to decide whether or not to participate in the EMS. If the EMS had included all the European Economic Community's currencies, it would have provided stability for 75% of Ireland's external trade, but Britain, which still accounted for 50% of Ireland's external trade, decided to stay out of the EMS. Despite this, on 15 December 1978, it was announced that Ireland would participate in the EMS. Countries were given the option of either a 2.25% or 6% margin of fluctuation within the EMS' Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), and Ireland took the narrower margin. The EMS started on 13 March 1979, and towards the end of the month the Pound Sterling started to gain in value against the EMS currencies because of rising oil prices, and by 30 March the Pound Sterling breached the upper fluctuation band limit of the Belgian franc and the Irish currency could no longer track the Pound Sterling. After over 50 years, the parity of the Irish and British currencies was broken, and the Irish currency became known as the Irish pound (or Punt in the Irish language).

The initial experience of the EMS was disappointing. It had been expected that the Irish Pound would appreciate in value against the Pound Sterling, and hence reduce inflation in Ireland, but in practice, Sterling appreciated considerably in value thanks to its status as a petrocurrency and to the tight monetary policies of the new British government of Margaret Thatcher. By late 1980 the Irish Pound had fallen in value to less than 80 British pence, and Irish inflation was higher than British. Economic policy in Ireland was inconsistent with a "hard currency" policy, and the Irish Pound also failed to hold its value against the central rate of the Deutschmark, although it did appreciate in value against some of the other EMS currencies.

Eventually, the EMS settled down (notwithstanding a crisis in 1992 when the Irish Pound was devalued by 10%), and Irish inflation was the same or lower than Britain's inflation rate from 1987 onwards.

Towards the Euro
The idea of a single European currency goes back to the Schumann Plan of 1950. The first blueprint for how to go about implementing the currency, the Werner Report of 1970 was not proceeded with, but the ultimate aim was always kept in mind. The Delors Report endorsed by the Madrid Summit of June 1989 envisaged a three-stage process to monetary union, and this was given legal authority by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 (enacted into Irish law as the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution of Ireland by 70% of those voting in a referendum on 18 June 1992). This envisaged the start of monetary union on 1 January 1999 and the introduction of notes and coins on 1 January 2002.

The Central Bank began production of euro coins in September 1999 in the Currency Centre (Irish Mint) in Sandyford, producing over a billion coins, weighing about 5,000 tons, with a value of €230 million before the introduction into circulation of the euro coins in January 2002. Production of euro banknotes began in June 2000, with 300 million notes worth €4 billion being produced in denominations of 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 euros. Euro banknotes produced for the Central Bank are identified by having the serial number beginning with the letter T. The Bank did not initially issue €200 or €500 notes but has since begun to do so.

Domestic banking crisis
Ireland bond prices.webp in 2011

]]

The Central Bank noted in November 2005 that an overvaluation existed of 40% to 60% in the Irish residential property market. Minutes of a meeting with the OECD indicated that while the Central Bank agreed that Irish property was overvalued it was fearful of precipitating a crash by "putting a number on it". Senior Allied Irish Bank officials expressed concerns in 2006 that Central Bank stress tests were "not stressful enough". The management ignored warnings from its own financial stability unit, according to one former staff member, whose evidence to the parliamentary inquiry was questioned by a number of other staff members, and from the Economic and Social Research Institute about the scale of bank loans to property speculators and developers leading to key information being suppressed. It was reported that it sought to gag a prominent economist from talking about the fragile state of the nation's banks in relation the Irish branch of Northern Rock. The Central Bank "watered down" economic warnings about the property bubble in the run-up to the crash, blocked internal communication reaching board level due to the political interests, and "rigorously" concealed data from the relevant external supervisors on the large exposures of Irish banks to individual developers.

In November 2007, they stated: "The Irish banking system continues to be well-placed to withstand adverse economic and sectoral developments in the short to medium term. The underlying fundamentals of the residential market continue to appear strong and the current trend in monthly price developments does not imply a sharp correction. The central scenario, therefore, is for a soft landing."

After the bubble burst, Irish banks faced mounting losses which exposed them to a collapse of confidence following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008; they then suffered acute liquidity pressures which had to be met by Central Bank support, including emergency lending. Management abuses were also revealed at Anglo Irish Bank, which had to be nationalised in January 2009.

The Central Bank annual report, published three months before the Irish State unconditionally guaranteed the deposits of Irish-owned banks, said: "The banks have negligible exposure to the sub-prime sector and they remain relatively healthy by the standard measures of capital, profitability and asset quality. This has been confirmed by the stress testing exercises we have carried out with the banks".

The next annual report had little to say about how and why the Irish banking system collapsed. Although there were four Central Bank directors on the board of the Financial Regulator, the Central Bank maintained it had no powers to intervene in the market. Yet, the Central Bank had the power to issue directives to the Financial Regulator if it thought it was conducting its business in a way that was contrary to overall Central Bank policy aims. None were issued.

The regulator's processes and reports, and the findings of external scrutineers, any of which should have raised red flags, failed to do so. As a result, they did not see the enormity of the risks being taken by the banks and the calamity that was to overwhelm them.

The European Commission in a November 2010 review of the financial crisis said: "Some national supervisory authorities failed dramatically. We know that in Ireland there was almost no supervision of the large banks." Two months later, the President of the EU Commission in an angry exchange in the European Parliament, with a vehemence that shocked his audience, said that "the problems of Ireland were created by the irresponsible financial behaviour of some Irish institutions, and by the lack of supervision in the Irish market."

Separation of regulation – The Financial Regulator
In 2003 a new separate division of the Central Bank, with its own chairman, chief executive, and board, was established as the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority. This was a compromise between those who favoured a fully independent regulator and those who believed the Central Bank should maintain full control of regulation of the financial services industry. This division of the Bank authorised and regulated all financial institutions (including insurance undertakings, collective investment funds and credit unions) in Ireland. The "Central Bank of Ireland" was formally renamed Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland (CBFSAI). (There was no entity named "Financial Services Authority of Ireland".)

Under the 2003 arrangements, the Central Bank provided the Financial Regulator with services. The Regulator's industry panel, which provided the Regulator with feedback on its charges and policies said in April 2007 that they had "major concerns with the quality and cost of the services" provided to the Regulator by the Central Bank.

The operations of the Financial Regulator were severely criticised in a report marked "strictly confidential and not for publication", as being poor value for money. The report stated that there were too few specialist staff, compared with its peers. There were also serious shortcomings in the crucial supervisory area. and the report was particularly critical of the regulator's senior management structure, concluding that a clear management and oversight framework, which ensures that issues are escalated through the organisation, was "not fully in place".

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, said that his decision in 2001 to create a new financial regulator was one of the main reasons for the collapse of the Irish banking sector and "if I had a chance again I wouldn't do it". Ahern said: "The banks were irresponsible. But the Central Bank and the Financial Regulator seemed happy. They were never into us saying – ever – 'Listen, we must put legislation and control on the banks'. That never happened."

In April 2010, the new Financial Regulator, outlined his shock at the poor level of financial regulation he discovered when he started his job the previous January and "it is clear to me we need to undertake a fundamental overhaul of the regulatory model for financial services in Ireland." He also said that there was a "critical absence of intellectual firepower within his staff".

Following the banking collapse of 2008 and 2009, the Government re-unified the organisation under a Central Bank of Ireland Commission to replace the board structures of the Central Bank and the Financial Services Regulatory Authority which became effective on 1 October 2010. The name "Central Bank of Ireland" was restored. A July 2009 editorial in the Sunday Business Post said "returning the key powers of regulation to the Central Bank will be useless unless there is a fundamental change in the culture of the organisation. This does not require a complete change of personnel, but a change of key personnel." There can be no denying that the spinning off of the Financial Regulator from the functions of the Central Bank in 2003, was an outright failure.

Post crisis reforms
On 4 November 2014 the European Central Bank formally took supervisory control over the biggest banks in Europe, including those in Ireland. While banking supervision staff in the Central Bank of Ireland remained, a pan-European approach to how banks were supervised was introduced, known as European Banking Supervision.

Subsequent to the parliamentary inquiry into the domestic banking crisis the organization said that the actions taken by the Central Bank combined with legislative reform and an overhaul of international regulation have enabled the organization to deliver effective supervision and financial stability measures since the crisis. Governor Philip Lane said, "The report describes a failure to identify risks to financial stability and recognizes the lack of an overall European framework to deal with the financial and fiscal crises. Many of the issues identified by the Inquiry relating to the Central Bank have been substantially addressed or continue to be addressed through measures including significant institutional reform, additional powers, the promotion of a culture of challenge and the implementation of the model of assertive risk-based supervision underpinned by a credible threat of enforcement."

In early 2015 the Central Bank introduced macro-prudential mortgage regulations to increase the resilience of the banking and household sectors to the property market and to reduce the risk of bank credit and house price spirals from developing in the future. These measures are to be reviewed annually, with the first report published in November 2016.

In response to the July 2016 leprechaun economics affair, on the request of the Central Statistics Office ("CSO"), the Governor of the Central Bank chaired a cross economic steering group (Economic Statistics Review Group, or "ESRG") including the IFAC, ESRI, NTMA, leading academics and the Department of Finance, to recommend new economic statistics to the CSO, that would better represent the Irish economy (given the escalating distortions in GDP and GNP). The result was the introduction of "modified GNI" (or GNI*). Report Site of the ESRG. 2016 Modified GNI* is 70% of 2016 GDP (or 2016 GDP is 143% of 2016 GNI*).

Historical archives and data
The Central Bank opened its archives to the public in 2017 operating a 30 year rule for the release of records. The archives can be accessed by means of the Banks online finding aid and consulted in the Bank's North Wall Quay premises in Dublin.

The bank releases data on the changing wealth of Irish households.

Responsibilities

The Central Bank of Ireland's mandate calls on it to contribute to the well-being of the people of Ireland and more widely in Europe by performing statutory responsibilities which cover a wide range, including :
 * price stability;
 * financial stability;
 * consumer protection;
 * supervision and enforcement;
 * regulatory policy development;
 * payment, settlement and currency systems operations and oversight;
 * the provision of economic advice and financial statistics; and
 * the recovery and resolution of distressed financial services firms.

Governors

The Governor of the Bank is appointed by the President of Ireland on the constitutional advice of the Government of Ireland.

Criticisms

Recurrent criticisms were made both before and after the Irish banking crisis, of the Central Bank of Ireland. As seen in the Irish banking crisis, when global markets are stressed, several of these issues can occur simultaneously (i.e. they are not independent risks), to amplify the seriousness of the situation. While the pre-crisis Central Bank of Ireland was judged to fail on all these criticisms, the Irish State had the financial resources to bail out the Irish banking system (Ireland was almost debt-free before the crisis). Post the 2011–bailout, the Irish State has a debt-to-GNI* ratio of over 100%, and will not be able to withstand such a material failing by the Central Bank of Ireland again. A recurrence would place the Irish banking system, and the Irish State, into creditor restructuring.

Green jersey agenda
In 2016, several Irish bank CEOs testified to being asked by senior officials of the Central Bank during 2007–2011 to follow a "green jersey agenda" in obfuscating the facts of Ireland's deteriorating banking system. After the 2011–bailout by the EU–ECB–IMF (e.g. the European troika) of the Irish banking system, a number of non–Irish senior executives were placed in the Central Bank of Ireland, including the Board of the Bank. However, by 2017, almost all these non–Irish executives had departed the Central Bank, and some have publicised concerns about the Central Bank's tendency to push aside risk-management in pursuit of political and Government objectives.

Mortgage controls post crisis
The Irish Celtic Tiger era was typified by large, interest-only mortgages, at high levels of loan-to-income values. After the 2011 bailout, the Central Bank introduced macro–prudential controls on mortgage lending both in terms of loan-to-value (a cap of 80% and 90% depending on circumstances), and loan-to-income (a cap of 3.5 times income). A limited number of exemptions to these are available to Irish banks for both of these rules on an annual basis. Additionally, the Irish Government introduced a Help To Buy scheme, which allows first-time buyers to receive 5% of the cost price of a house as an income tax rebate – which loosened the LTI requirements further for eligible first-time buyers. The Irish financial crisis showed the small and unusual nature of Ireland's economy (e.g. where a small number of U.S. corporates are 80% of Irish tax, 25% of Irish labour, 25 of top 50 Irish firms, and 57% of Irish value-add), led to foreign banks rapidly withdrawing capital from Ireland in times of stress.

Light-touch regulation
In 2017, it was shown that brochures of IFSC services firms market Ireland as a "light-touch" regulatory regime. The Central Bank itself was paying rent to a US distressed debt-landlord who was using a Central Bank-regulated ICAV structure to avoid all Irish taxes. In February 2018, the Central Bank expanded the little-used L–QIAIF vehicle to give the tax benefits as Section 110 SPVs but without requiring public accounts for the Irish CRO, which was how the abuses above were uncovered. In June 2018, the Central Bank reported that distressed debt funds switched €55 billion, or 25% of Irish GNI*, out of Section 110 SPVs, and presumably into L–QIAIFs. Such actions have been highlighted as those of a "captured state" by tax-experts.

Distorted economic data

Research in June 2018 confirmed that Ireland, already a "major tax haven", was the world's largest tax haven. In common with all tax havens, Ireland's economic data is distorted by the BEPS flows from tax management activities. The top–10 GDP-per-capita countries, excluding natural resource countries, are all tax havens (see GDP-per-capita and tax havens). This was shown dramatically in July 2016 during "leprechaun economics" affair when Apple re-structured its Double Irish BEPS tool, as agreed under an ongoing EU tax-investigation into Apple in Ireland, into a new Irish CAIA arrangement BEPS tool.

"At this point, multinational profit shifting doesn't just distort Ireland's balance of payments; it constitutes Ireland’s balance of payments."

Exaggerated credit cycles are a documented feature of tax havens as global capital markets misprice the "headline" debt-to-GDP in benign times, only to reprice aggressively in less benign times, leading to a credit crisis (discussed in tax haven credit cycles). In 2017, the Central Bank of Ireland responded to this issue, post-leprehaun economics, by introducing Modified gross national income (or GNI*), as a more appropriate measure for Ireland's economy.

"Ireland has, more or less, stopped using GDP to measure its own economy. And on current trends [because Irish GDP is distorting EU–28 aggregate data], the eurozone taken as a whole may need to consider something similar."

The issues post-leprechaun economics, and "Modified GNI", are captured on page 34 of the OECD 2018 Ireland survey: 1. On a Gross Public Debt-to-GDP basis, Ireland's 2015 figure at 78.8% is not of concern;

2. On a Gross Public Debt-to-GNI* basis, Ireland's 2015 figure at 116.5% is more serious, but not alarming;

3. On a Gross Public Debt-Per-Capita basis, Ireland's 2015 figure at over $62,686 per capita, exceeds every other OECD country, except Japan.

Commercial property bubbles

Ireland's status as a "major tax haven", and its exposure to a handful of major U.S. multinationals, mean that its commercial property market is prone to overinflating. This effect is amplified because the Irish State enables foreign investors to pay no taxes on Irish commercial property via the Central Bank regulated QIAIFs (and ICAVs in particular). The ratio of the value of prime office in Dublin, to its cost-of-build, is the second-largest in the Eurozone, and only exceeded by Paris. Irish office rents are close to London City office rents.

Irish banks are the main lending institutions to Irish commercial property, and thus most exposed to material price distortions. As was seen in the Irish banking crisis, when global conditions weaken and the demand for Irish office space falls, the drop in Irish commercial valuations is more extreme than other markets. When this occurs in-sync with a global repricing of Irish credit, from a realisation of the level of artificial distortion in Irish economic data, the effects are further amplified. This risk was highlighted in 2014 when the Central Bank consulted the European Systemic Risk Board ("ESRB") after lobbying by IFSC tax-law firms to expand the L–QIAIF vehicle. While the Central Bank agreed with the ESRB in 2014, it changed its mind in 2018, and decided to materially expand the L–QIAIFs vehicle (see ).

The longer-term risks of Irish commercial property were further increased with the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which fundamentally reduces the attractiveness of Ireland to U.S. multinationals, and could see Ireland lose its status as the major U.S. corporate tax haven.

Control of total credit
Irish and the tendency to commercial and residential property bubbles has led to periods when Ireland's economy was over-leveraged and reliant on foreign capital. The ability of foreign capital to use Ireland's tax haven tools (IP–based BEPS tools, and Debt–based BEPS tools) to avoid Irish taxes, attracts further non-domestic credit. It has been shown that smaller countries with a high proportion of non–domestic capital are prone to severe credit cycles. To resolve this imbalance in the 2007–2012 Irish financial crisis, Irish private-sector debt was transferred to Irish public-sector debt. The result is that Ireland is now one of the EU–28's most leveraged countries on a private and public sector basis (when measured GNI or per-Capita measures, to limit the distortion by Irish GDP). This means that the Irish State will not be able to bail out its banking system again for a considerable time.

During the 2008–2012 global credit crisis, reports showed Ireland's combined public and private sector credit as being the highest in the OECD (some reports added in IFSC SPV credit producing higher, but misleading, figures). In this regard, the Central Bank now tracks private and public credit in Ireland in its quarterly bulletins. Private credit is tracked on a credit-to-income ratio, while public sector credit is tracked on a debt-to-GNI* ratio. In addition, as part of the post-crisis reforms, the independent statutory body, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, also reports on Irish leverage (public and private) and its sustainability. It is still common to see other State bodies (e.g. NTMA and IDA Ireland) present the distorted, and misleading, Debt-to-GDP data in their reports.

title: Central Bank of Ireland


text:
Paul Hasluck

Sir Paul Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck, (1 April 1905 – 9 January 1993) was an Australian statesman who served as the 17th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1969 to 1974. Prior to that, he was a Liberal Party politician, holding ministerial office continuously from 1951 to 1969.

Hasluck was born in Fremantle, Western Australia, and attended Perth Modern School and the University of Western Australia. After graduation he joined the university as a faculty member, eventually becoming a reader in history. Hasluck joined the Department of External Affairs during World War II, and served as Australia's first Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1946 to 1947. He would later contribute two volumes to Australia in the War of 1939–1945, the official history of Australia's involvement in the war.

In 1949, Hasluck was elected to federal parliament for the Liberal Party, winning the Division of Curtin. In 1951, less than two years after entering politics, he was made Minister for Territories in the Menzies Government. In his twelve years in the position, he initiated transitions toward self-government in Australia's territories, including Nauru, Papua New Guinea, and the Northern Territory. Hasluck later served as Minister for Defence (1963–1964) and Minister for External Affairs (1964–1969). His tenure in those positions covered Australia's involvement in the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation and the first years of the Vietnam War.

After the disappearance of Harold Holt, Hasluck unsuccessfully stood in the resulting Liberal leadership election. He initially stayed on in cabinet under the new prime minister, John Gorton, but in 1969 Gorton instead nominated him to replace Lord Casey as governor-general. In his five years in the position, Hasluck saw two previous political adversaries (William McMahon and Gough Whitlam) become prime minister; he maintained good working relationships with both. In retirement, he was a prolific author, publishing an autobiography, several volumes of poetry, and multiple works on Australian history.

Early life
Hasluck was born on 1 April 1905 in Fremantle, Western Australia, one of five children born to Patience Eliza (née Wooler) and E'thel Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck. His father was born in England and arrived in Australia in 1876 as a small child. He obtained a position in the colonial postal service and was postmaster in Coolgardie and on the Great Southern Railway, but later resigned to work full-time for the Salvation Army. His mother was born in England and came to Western Australia to work as a domestic servant, also becoming a devout Salvationist where she met her future husband.

Hasluck grew up in relative poverty, with the family often in financial distress as his parents undertook full-time missionary work. He had a "strict religious upbringing" in line with the beliefs and tenets of the Salvation Army, but became estranged from the movement at a young age. As a small child Hasluck spent periods in North Fremantle and in locations around regional Western Australia, including York, Kalgoorlie and Collie. The family lived in Collie for four years, where Hasluck's father ran a boys' home for child migrants, before moving back to Perth in 1916 where he ran the Aged Men's Retreat at Guildford.

After a brief period at the Guildford State School, Hasluck won a scholarship to Perth Modern School, which he attended between 1918 and 1922. He was president of the school debating society but later recalled that he lacked in confidence and did not consider going on to further studies. He would eventually enrol in the University of Western Australia six years after leaving school, completing a diploma in journalism on a part-time basis in 1932 and graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1937.

Journalism and academia
In 1922, after leaving school, Hasluck joined the staff of The West Australian as a probationary cadet. He was offered a full-time position in 1925 and covered a wide range of areas, including court and police reporting, sporting events, finance and drama and politics. He was eventually placed in charge of the newspaper's press gallery staff at Parliament House and wrote a weekly political column covering state politics. He cultivated a close relationship with the Perth Trades Hall and the union movement, developing a friendship with Westralian Worker editor and future prime minister John Curtin.

While at The West Australian, Hasluck also began to publish articles (in that journal and elsewhere) on the history of the state. After he had obtained his MA, he worked as a tutor in the UWA's history department, and in 1939 he was promoted to a lectureship in history. By that time he had been married for seven years to Alexandra Darker (1908–1993), with whom he had two sons. Alexandra Hasluck became a distinguished writer and historian in her own right, and was the first woman to be appointed a Dame of the Order of Australia. Also in 1939, Hasluck established Freshwater Bay Press, through which he released his first book, Into the Desert. The advent of the Second World War, however, saw the publishing company go into hiatus. The Freshwater Bay Press was later revived by his son Nicholas, and among its subsequent publications it issued a second book of Paul Hasluck's poetry, Dark Cottage in 1984.

In 1941 Hasluck was recruited to the staff of the Department of External Affairs (it acquired the name "Foreign Affairs" only in 1970), and served on Australian delegations to several international conferences, including the San Francisco Conference which founded the United Nations. Here he came into close contact with the Minister for External Affairs in the Labor government, Dr H.V. Evatt, towards whom he conceived a permanent aversion, fully reciprocated by Evatt's attitude to him.

After the war Hasluck returned to the University of Western Australia as a Reader in History, and was commissioned to write two volumes of Australia in the War of 1939–1945, a 22-volume official history of Australia's involvement in World War II. These volumes were published as The Government and the People 1939–1941 in 1951 and The Government and the People 1941–1945 in 1970. This work was interrupted by his decision to enter politics, a decision motivated partly by his disapproval of Evatt's foreign policy.

Political career
At the 1949 election Hasluck won Liberal preselection for the newly-created Perth-area seat of Curtin. Although it was notionally a Labor seat, it was located in natural Liberal territory in Perth's wealthy beachside suburbs, and Hasluck won it with a resounding swing of almost 14 percent as part of the Coalition's large victory that year.

In 1951, Prime Minister, Robert Menzies appointed Hasluck as Minister for Territories, a post that he held for twelve years. It gave him responsibility for Australia's colonial possession, Papua New Guinea, and also the Northern Territory, home to Australia's largest population of Aboriginals. Although he shared the paternalistic views of the period about the treatment of the Papua New Guineans and followed an assimilationist policy for Aboriginals he carried out significant reforms in how both peoples were treated.

Hasluck was responsible for the drafting of the bill that became the Welfare Ordinance 1953, which superseded the previous legislation controlling the lives of Aboriginals in the Northern Territory, the Aboriginals Ordinance 1918. There was no explicit reference to race in the Welfare Ordinance, but it made Aboriginals wards of the state. Wards were defined as those who did not have the right to vote, which only applied to Aboriginals.

Michael Somare, who became Papua New Guinea's first Prime Minister, said that his country had been able to enter self-government without fear of having to argue with an Ian Smith "simply because of Paul Hasluck".

Hasluck was briefly Minister for Defence in 1963 and 1964, and then became Minister for External Affairs. He held the office during the height of Australia's commitment to the Vietnam War of which he was a passionate supporter. He worked to strengthen Australia's relationship with the United States and with anticommunist governments in South-East Asia and opposed Australian recognition of the People's Republic of China.

Leadership candidate
When Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared in December 1967 and was presumed to have drowned, Hasluck was determined that Treasurer, William McMahon, of whom he had a very low opinion, should not become prime minister. Although he had no great ambitions for himself, Hasluck put his name forward mainly to provide an alternative to McMahon. In the event, McMahon did not stand, as the interim prime minister, John McEwen, had advised his Country Party would not serve in any government headed by McMahon. The choice was between Hasluck, John Gorton, Billy Snedden and Les Bury, but the last two were never considered serious contenders. Many Liberal MPs saw Hasluck as too old at 64, too conservative and insufficiently telegenic to compete with the Labor leader, Gough Whitlam. Accordingly, they chose the younger and more aggressive Gorton.

Governor-General
In early 1969, Gorton offered Hasluck the post of Governor-General, which he accepted. Reportedly, Gorton was uncomfortable having a potential leadership rival in Cabinet. Hasluck resigned from Parliament on 10 February 1969, being the first Western Australian member of the House of Representatives to resign. He was sworn in as Governor-General on 30 April 1969. That may have cost Hasluck a second opportunity to become Prime Minister. Gorton resigned in 1971, and the Liberals might well have turned to Hasluck instead of McMahon if he had still been available.

At the 1972 election, Whitlam defeated McMahon and became Prime Minister. That created a potentially-awkward situation since Whitlam and Hasluck had bitterly resented one another for years. In a celebrated incident in the House of Representatives in 1965, Whitlam had thrown a glass of water at Hasluck after Hasluck had said, "You are one of the filthiest objects ever to come into this chamber". Nevertheless, Hasluck and Whitlam treated each other with complete civility, which soon became genuine mutual respect. They had no difficulties in their formal dealings. An indication of the change that had taken place occurred soon after Whitlam's victory. Normal practice called for McMahon to stay on as caretaker Prime Minister until Labor could choose a full ministry at its first caucus meeting. However, Whitlam was unwilling to wait that long and asked Hasluck to have Whitlam and his deputy leader, Lance Barnard, sworn in as an interim two-man government once Labor's victory was beyond doubt. Hasluck promptly agreed, and Whitlam and Barnard held 27 portfolios between them until the full Labor ministry was sworn in. In 1973, Hasluck's Official Secretary, Sir Murray Tyrrell, retired after a career during which he had served six governors-general over 26 years. He was succeeded by David Smith.

Hasluck granted Whitlam a double dissolution in April 1974 (with an election on 18 May) when the Liberal Opposition threatened to block the Budget bills in the Senate. Hasluck's term as Governor-General was due to expire in July 1974. Whitlam had offered to extend his term, but Hasluck declined, citing his wife's refusal to remain at Yarralumla longer than the originally-agreed five years.

Hasluck's last official act as Governor-General was to open the 29th Parliament on 9 July 1974. Two days later, his successor, Sir John Kerr, was sworn in.

Retirement and legacy
Hasluck retired to Perth, where he remained active in cultural and political affairs until his death in 1993. He was buried at Karrakatta Cemetery.

Historians of the period are certain that, if Hasluck had still been Governor-General in 1975, the constitutional crisis of that year would have ended differently. Hasluck himself implied this in his 1979 book, The Office of Governor-General, and also in the Queale Lecture. He was even more explicit in his 1985 interview with Clyde Cameron for the National Library of Australia's Oral History series, which was not released until 2010. He said he doubted he would have discussed with anyone but Whitlam about the Senate's 1975 refusal to approve Supply. He also argued that Kerr erred in taking advice from Malcolm Fraser prior to appointing him as prime minister. In Hasluck's view, "the function of the governor-general is not to be the honest broker in political situations".

After Hasluck's death, his son Nicholas Hasluck published a selection of his father's private journals and notebooks, under the title The Chance of Politics. This book contained a number of highly critical comments, both political and personal, about many of Paul Hasluck's contemporaries. The publication of this material caused considerable offence to some people. Others saw the comments as useful historical information.

Set into the footpath along St Georges Terrace, Perth are 150 bronze tablets commemorating notable figures in Western Australia's history, completed as part of WAY 1979. One of the tablets is devoted to Hasluck.

His heraldic banner as Knight Companion of the Garter, from St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, probably the only one in Australia, was hung in the south transept of St George's Cathedral, Perth, in 1995. The Catherine wheels on the banner were taken from the Armorial Bearings granted to him by the College of Arms. The crest beneath the banner includes the seven-pointed Australian Commonwealth Star and a formalised representation of West Australian Xanthorrhoea.

Honours
Hasluck was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1966. On 21 February 1969, as Governor-General-designate, he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG).

During his term as Governor-General, on 29 May 1970, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO), an appointment within her personal gift.

Hasluck received the Commemorative Medal of the 2500th Anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire on 14 October 1971.

On 24 April 1979, he was made a Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter (KG).

The Federal Division of Hasluck is named jointly after Sir Paul and his wife Dame Alexandra Hasluck.

Poetry

 * Collected Verse, Hawthorn Press, 1969.
 * An Open Go, Hawthorn Press, 1971.
 * The Poet in Australia, Hawthorn Press, 1975.
 * Dark Cottage (poems), Freshwater Bay Press, 1984.
 * Dark Cottage (poems), Freshwater Bay Press, 1984.

Political writing

 * Black Australians: A Survey of Native Policy in Western Australia, 1829–1897, Melbourne University Press (Melbourne), 1942, 2nd edition, 1970.
 * Workshop of Security, F. W. Cheshire, 1948.
 * The Government and the People, Australian War Memorial, Volume I: 1939–41, 1951, Volume II: 1942–45, 1970.
 * Native Welfare in Australia, P. Brokensha, 1953.
 * A Time for Building: Australian Administration in Papua-New Guinea, 1951–1963, Melbourne University Press, 1976.
 * The Office of Governor-General, (PDF) Melbourne University Press, 1979.
 * Sir Robert Menzies, Melbourne University Press, 1980.
 * Diplomatic Witness: Australian Foreign Affairs, Melbourne University Press, 1980.
 * Shades of Darkness: Aboriginal Affairs, 1925–1965, Melbourne University Press, 1988.
 * The Chance of Politics, edited by Nicholas Hasluck, Text Pub. (Melbourne), 1997

Biographical

 * Mucking About: An Autobiography, Melbourne University Press, 1977, published with a new foreword, University of Western Australia (Nedlands, Australia), 1994.
 * Light That Time Has Made, National Library of Australia (Canberra), 1995.

Critical studies and reviews

 * Review of Light that time has made.
 * Peter Ryan, Brief Lives, Duffy & Snellgrove, Sydney, 2004, "Paul Hasluck", pp. 91–104.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Paul Hasluck


text:
Nicolas Chamfort

Sébastien-Roch Nicolas, known in his adult life as Nicolas Chamfort and as Sébastien Nicolas de Chamfort (6 April 1741 – 13 April 1794), was a French writer, best known for his epigrams and aphorisms. He was secretary to Louis XVI's sister, and of the Jacobin club.

Biography
There are two birth certificates for Chamfort. The first, from Saint-Genès parish in Clermont-Ferrand, the capital city of Auvergne, says he was born there on 6 April 1741, the son of a grocer with the surname of Nicolas, and that he was given the name "Sébastien-Roch", so that his full name was Sébastien-Roch Nicolas. But a second birth certificate gives him the name "Sébastien Roch" and says he was born on 22 June, of "unknown parents", and some scholars argue that he was not born but baptized on that day. Local tradition said that he was the love child of an aristocratic woman, Jacqueline de Montrodeix (née Cisternes de Vinzelles), and of a clergyman named Pierre Nicolas; and that he was then given for adoption to the grocer, who was a relative of the biological father.

At the age of nine he was sent to Paris to study as a scholarship student at the Collège des Grassins. He worked hard, although one of his most contemptuous epigrams reads: "What I learned I no longer know; the little I still know, I guessed" ("Ce que j'ai appris je ne le sais plus; le peu que je sais encore, je l'ai deviné.") He was a brilliant though dreamy student. When the principal of the college promised him a stipend, he replied that he could not accept because he preferred honour to honours: "J'aime l'honneur et non-les honneurs".

Upon graduation he assumed the name of Chamfort.

For some time he subsisted by teaching and hack writing. His good looks and ready wit brought him attention; but, though endowed with immense physical strength – Madame de Craon called him "Hercules under the guise of Adonis" (Hercule]] sous la figure d'Adonis) – he lived so hard that he was glad to have the opportunity for a rest cure in the town of Spa when the Belgian minister in Paris, M. van Eyck, invited him to accompany him to Germany in 1761. On his return to Paris, Chamfort produced a successful comedy, The Young Indian Girl (La Jeune Indienne, 1764), following it with a series of epistles in verse, essays and odes. However, his literary reputation was not established until 1769, when the Académie française awarded him a prize for his Eloge on Molière.

Until then, he lived from hand to mouth, mainly on the hospitality of people who gave him board and lodging in exchange for the pleasure of the conversation for which he was famous. Madame Helvétius entertained him at Sèvres for some years. In 1770, another comedy, Le Marchand de Smyrne, brought him further notice, and he seemed on the road to fame and fortune, when illness struck. A generous friend gave him a pension of 1200 livres, charged on the Mercure de France. Thus assisted, he was able to go to the baths of Contrexéville and to spend some time in the country, where he wrote an Eloge on La Fontaine which won the prize of the Academy of Marseilles in 1774.

In 1775, while taking the waters at Barges, he met the duchesse de Grammont, sister of Choiseul, through whose influence he was introduced at court. In 1776, his tragedy, Mustapha et Zeangir, was played at Fontainebleau before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Subsequently, the king gave him a further pension of 1200 livres and his cousin, the Prince de Condé, made him his secretary. Disliking the constraints of court life, he became increasingly discontented, and after a year he resigned his post in the prince's household and retired to Auteuil. There, comparing the authors of old with his contemporaries, he composed a famous mot that proclaims the superiority of the dead over the living as companions. He fell in love with and married a lady attached to the household of the duchesse du Maine; she was 48 years old, clever, amusing, and a woman of the world. They soon moved to Vaucouleurs, where she died within six months. Chamfort lived in Holland for a time with M. de Narbonne, then returned to Paris where he was elected in 1781 to the Académie française.

He was a member of the Masonic lodge Les Neuf Sœurs.

In 1784, through the influence of Calonne, he became secretary to the king's sister, Madame Élisabeth, and in 1786 he received a pension of 2000 livres from the royal treasury. He was thus once more attached to the court, and made friends there despite his satirical attitude. He quit the court for good after an unfortunate and mysterious love affair, and was taken into the house of M. de Vaudreuil. Here, in 1783, he met Honoré Mirabeau, with whom he remained steadfast friends, whom he assisted with money and influence, and at least one of whose speeches he wrote.

The outbreak of the French Revolution profoundly changed Chamfort's life. He threw himself into the republican movement, forgetting his old friends at court and devoting his small fortune to revolutionary propaganda. He became a street orator and was among the first to enter the Bastille when it was stormed. Until 3 August 1791 he was secretary of the Jacobin club. He worked for the Mercure de France, collaborated with Pierre-Louis Ginguené in the Feuille villageoise, and drew up for Talleyrand his Addresse au peuple français.

With the reign of Marat and Robespierre, he became critical of uncompromising Jacobinism, and with the fall of the Girondins his political life came to an end. But he could not restrain the tongue that had made him famous; he no more spared the Convention than he had spared the court. His notorious republicanism failed to excuse the sarcasms he lavished on the new order of things. Fingered by an assistant in the Bibliothèque Nationale, to a share in the direction of which he had been appointed by Jean Marie Roland, he was taken to the prison des Madelonnettes. Soon after his release, he was threatened again with arrest, but he decided that death was preferable to a repetition of the moral and physical restraint to which he had been subjected.

Suicide attempt
Unable to tolerate the prospect of being imprisoned once more, in September 1793 he locked himself into his office and shot himself in the face. The pistol malfunctioned and he did not die even though he shot off his nose and his right eye. He then repeatedly stabbed his neck with a razor, but failed to cut an artery. He finally used the razor to stab himself in the chest and to cut his own hocks, aiming at the veins. He dictated to those who came to arrest him the well-known declaration Moi, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort, déclare avoir voulu mourir en homme libre plutôt que d'être reconduit en esclave dans une maison d'arrêt ("I, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort, hereby declare my wish to die a free man rather than to be brought (again) as a slave in a prison") which he signed in a firm hand. His butler found him unconscious in a pool of blood. From then until his death in Paris the following year, he suffered intensely and was attended to by a gendarme, whom he paid a crown a day.

To the Abbé Sieyès Chamfort had given fortune in the title of a pamphlet (Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-État ? Tout. Qu'a-t-il ? Rien), and Sieyès was likewise the person to whom he told his famous sarcastic bon mot ''Ah ! mon ami, je m'en vais enfin de ce monde, où il faut que le cœur se brise ou se bronze'' (And so I leave this world, where the heart must either break or turn to lead.) Thus the maker of constitutions followed the dead wit to the grave.

Writings
The writings of Chamfort include comedies, political articles, literary criticisms, portraits, letters, and verses. His Maximes et Pensées, highly praised by John Stuart Mill, are, after those of La Rochefoucauld, among the most brilliant and suggestive sayings of the modern era. His aphorisms, less systematic and psychologically less important than those of La Rochefoucauld, are as significant in their violence and iconoclastic spirit of the period of storm and preparation that gave them birth as the Réflexions in their exquisite restraint and elaborate subtlety are characteristic of the tranquil elegance of their epoch. Moreover, they have the advantage of richness of colour, picturesqueness of phrase, passion, and audacity. Sainte-Beuve compares them to well-minted coins that retain their value, and to keen arrows that arrivent brusquement et sifflent encore. Although situated at the exact opposite of the political spectrum (see French Revolution) the maxims of Antoine de Rivarol are among those that easily compare in acidity and brilliance.

Works

 * Praise of Molière, crowned (1769)
 * The Fountain of Praise (1774)
 * The young Indian (1764);
 * The Merchant of Smythe, comedy
 * Mustapha and Zéangir, tragedy.

Collected works

 * By Pierre Louis GINGUENE, 1795, 4 vols.
 * (original edition Auguis, 1824, 5 vol.)

title: Nicolas Chamfort


text:
Charles Alexandre de Calonne

Charles Alexandre de Calonne (20 January 1734 – 30 October 1802), titled Count of Hannonville in 1759, was a French statesman, best known for being Louis XVI's Controller-General of Finances (minister of finance) in the years leading up to the French revolution.

Calonne attempted repeatedly to pass reforms that lowered government spending and implemented property added value tax among other things, but failed due to popular opposition to his policies from the Parlement and the Assembly of Notables. Realizing that the Parlement of Paris would never agree to reform, Calonne handpicked an Assembly of Notables in 1787 to approve new taxes. When they refused, Calonne's reputation plummeted and he was forced to leave the country.

Origins and rise to prominence
Born in Douai of an upper-class family, he entered the legal profession and became a lawyer to the general council of Artois, procureur to the parlement of Douai, Master of Requests (France), intendant of Metz (1768) and of Lille (1774). He seems to have been a man with notable business abilities and an entrepreneurial spirit, while generally unscrupulous in his political actions. In the terrible crisis preceding the French Revolution, when successive ministers tried in vain to replenish the exhausted royal treasury, Calonne was summoned as Controller-General of Finances, an office he assumed on 3 November 1783.

He owed the position to the Comte de Vergennes, who for over three years continued to support him. According to the Habsburg ambassador, his public image was extremely poor. Calonne immediately set about remedying the fiscal crisis, and he found in Louis XVI enough support to create a vast and ambitious plan of revenue-raising and administrative centralization. Calonne focused on maintaining public confidence through building projects and spending, which was mainly designed to maintain the Crown's capacity to borrow funds. He presented the king with his plan on 20 August 1786. At its heart was a new land value tax that would replace the old vingtième taxes and finally sweep away the fiscal exemptions of the privileged orders. The new tax would be administered by a system of provincial assemblies elected by the local property owners at parish, district and provincial levels. This central proposal was accompanied by other reforms meant to further rationalize the French economy, a package that included free trade in grain and abolition of France's myriad internal customs barriers. It was in effect one of the most, if not the most, comprehensive attempts at enlightened reform during the reign of Louis XVI.

Measures

After taking office, he discovered the nation had debts of 110 million livres (partly incurred by France's involvement in the American Revolution) and no means of paying them. At first he tried to get credit and support the government with loans so as to maintain public confidence in its solvency. In October 1785 he reissued gold coinage and developed the Caisse d'Escompte (dealing in cash discounts). Knowing the Parlement of Paris would veto a single land tax that all landowners would have to pay, Calonne persuaded Louis XVI to call an assembly of notables to vote on his referendum. Calonne's eventual reform package, which was introduced to the Assembly of Notables, consisted of five major points:

 * 1) Cut government spending
 * 2) Revive free trade methods
 * 3) Authorize the sale of Church property
 * 4) Equalize salt and tobacco taxes
 * 5) Establish a universal land value tax

All these measures failed because of the powerlessness of the crown to impose them.

As a last resort, Calonne proposed that the king abolish internal customs duties and implement a property tax on nobles and clergy. Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and Jacques Necker had tried and failed to get these reforms adopted. Calonne attributed their failure to the opposition of the parlements, so he called another Assemblée des notables in February 1787. After he made a presentation to the assembly on the French deficit and its causes and dangers as he saw them, Calonne proposed the establishment of a subvention territoriale, which would be levied on all property without distinction.

Conflict with the Assembly of Notables of Versailles
This suppression of privileges was badly received. Calonne's spendthrift and authoritarian reputation was well known to the parlements, earning him their enmity. Knowing this, he intentionally submitted his reform programme directly to the king and the hand-picked assembly of notables, not to the sovereign courts or parlements, first. Composed of the old regime's social and political elite, however, the assembly of notables balked at the deficit presented to them when they met at Versailles in February 1787, and despite Calonne's plan for reform and his backing from the king, they suspected that the controller-general was in some way responsible for the enormous financial strains. Protests against Calonne erupted, supported by the middle and lower-middle classes, who burnt effigies of Calonne in support of the notable assembly's resistance to tax. On September 14, 1788, after Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes retired, there were riots in Paris on Rue Mélée and the Rue de Grenelle, where more figures of Calonne were burned, along with those of Breteuil and the Duchess de Polignac.

Calonne, angered, printed his reports and so alienated the court. Louis XVI dismissed him on 8 April 1787 and exiled him to Lorraine. The joy was general in Paris, where Calonne, accused of wishing to raise taxes, was known as Monsieur Déficit.

Dismissal and exile
Calonne soon afterwards left for Great Britain, and during his residence there kept up a polemical correspondence with Necker. After being dismissed, Calonne stated, "The King, who assured me a hundred times that he would support me with unshakable firmness, abandoned me, and I succumbed”. He was replaced by Loménie de Brienne, who similarly fared poorly in the political environment.

In 1789, when the Estates-General were about to assemble, he crossed to Flanders in the hope of offering himself for election, but he was forbidden to enter France. In revenge he joined the émigré group at Coblenz, wrote in their favour, and spent nearly all the fortune brought him by his wife, a wealthy widow. He was present with the Count of Artois, the reactionary brother of Louis XVI, at Pillnitz in August 1791 at the time of the issuance of the Declaration of Pillnitz, an attempt to intimidate the revolutionary government of France that the Count of Artois pressed for. In 1802, having again settled in London, he received permission from Napoleon Bonaparte to return to France. He died about a month after his arrival in his native country.

Legacy
Calonne's negative reputation and assumed responsibility for France's financial crisis in the years leading to the Revolution of 1789 have been judged unfair by historians such as Munro Price. During his position as controller-general, he had genuinely tried to make amends for his previous spendthrift policies. As a contemporary writer, Nicolas Chamfort, remarked, Calonne was "applauded when he lit the fire, and condemned when he sounded the alarm." However, economic historians such as Eugene White have stressed the negative role played by Calonne, who continued the restoration of a venal system of financial administration.

His fall had important significance to the fate of the monarchy in France before 1789. The financial strains made apparent through Calonne's attempts at reform revealed the instability of the monarchy as a whole, which up until then had been managed on the basis of traditional monarchical absolutism: secretly, hierarchically, without public scrutiny of accounts or consent to taxation. For centuries, the monarchy had controlled fiscal policy on its own terms, and when knowledge of an unmanageable and growing deficit became more widely known, the image was of a failed and, in many ways, corrupt institution. Louis XVI, who had backed Calonne's reform programme wholeheartedly, saw its refusal by the notables and the parliament as a personal failure. Conscientious in his attempts to alleviate the suffering of the French people, the king, it is clear, genuinely hoped to implement an enlightened policy with the help of Calonne. Crushed by this opposition to Calonne's project, the king withdrew to long hours of hunting and larger meals. Many historians see the ensuing months as the beginning of the king's bouts of depression.

Literature

 * 1963 - Robert Lacour-Gayet. Calonne. Financier, réformateur, contre-révolutionnaire, 1734-1802. Paris: Hachette

title: Charles Alexandre de Calonne


text:
Talk:Church of God

Question
I wonder why this Church of God page redirects to the Seventh-day Adventist Church? Some entries for the Church of God evidently do not intend the Seventh-day Adventists - for example, Demographics of Jamaica, where both Seventh-day Adventist and Church of God are listed separately (two different Protestant groups). Rlvaughn 14:34, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Disambiguation page
I have looked over the links to Church of God, which currently includes only four: I think now is a good time to turn Church of God into a disambiguation page rather than a redirect to Seventh-day Adventist Church, since that church is only one of many that are the Church of God. In his 5th edition Handbook of Denominations in the United States, Mead said there were then at least 200 separate religious bodies in the United States alone that carried Church of God in its name. Most of the "Churches of God" are either Pentecostal/Holiness bodies or Adventist bodies. This is my first attempt at a disambiguation page. If it needs help, please jump in. Thanks. Rlvaughn 20:25, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Demographics of the Cayman Islands
 * Demographics of Kiribati
 * Demographics of Jamaica
 * Organization of the Islamic Conference

Church of God Restoration
Could someone add Church of God (Restoration) to the appropriate list. Thanks --nixie 00:02, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Adventists and Sabbatarians
In light of two summaries on edits on the Church of God page, I'd like to offer some comments and a suggestion. Here are the comments:
 * These groups DO NOT consider themselves to be Adventists, with the exception of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Calling them Adventist is inaccurate & not a NPOV...Most in the Churches of God do not consider themselves to be Adventist but Sabbatarian. Also, I put a link to the most popular site concerning news and teachings of the Sabbatarian Churches of God.

First I would say that categorizing these churches as "Adventist" is not necessarily inserting a "non-neutral" point of view. It is categorizing them by the historical connections rather than theological viewpoints. Religious taxonomy is an inexact science, and there is no perfect way to present a quick category without explanation. The articles themselves should serve as the explanation.

A possible resolution to this problem would be to divide this and make two categories - Adventist and Sabbatarian. Then the churches could be moved to one of the appropriate categories. This move would need to be made by someone who is both knowledgable concerning these groups and able to sort them without bias. I believe I could do it without bias, but just am not knowledgable enough on these churches. That lack of knowledge is probably what created the problem to start with. - Rlvaughn 22:46, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

 * I for one would be interested to see which ones arose from the Millerite Adventist movement, and believe that this would be properly encyclopedic. Colin MacLaurin 10:47, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * An old version of the Millerites page does list "Church of God Adventists". Colin MacLaurin 13:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

 * I have tried to reorganize the page. I would appreciate a review from someone else.  Over the last several days, I have added a number of extra Wikipedia pages for groups with some variation of either a current or historical "Church of God" name.  As for organizing the various organizations, I used each group's page to guide the categorization.  Thanks for the advice on Adventist / Sabbatarian.  I let the Adventist template guide which churches went under that label.  The Sabbatarian then tended to be churches that separated from the Worldwide Church of God as it changed its theology, hence the "Armstrongism" reference.  I would greatly appreciate someone else reviewing my work. Dawynn (talk) 03:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Table of Contents
I have removed the block to the TOC, and having done so, I can see why it was removed. The opening sentence is needed to introduce the topic, and the first heading should follow directly after it. Unfortunately Wkipedia automatically inserts the TOC immediately before the first heading and after the preamble. We could get around this by placing a heading before the introductory clause, but this would look clumsy. Can we work something out? Copey 2 15:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Church of God


text:
André Dacier

André Dacier (Andreas Dacerius; 6 April 1651 – 18 September 1722) was a French classical scholar and editor of texts. He began his career with an edition and commentary of Festus' De verborum significatione, and was the first to produce a "readable" text of the 20-book work. His wife was the influential classical scholar and translator, Anne Dacier.

Life and career
Dacier was born at Castres in upper Languedoc. His father, a Protestant lawyer, sent him first to the Academy of Puy Laurens, and afterwards to the Academy of Saumur to study under Tanneguy Le Fèvre here he converted to Catholicism and remained a devout Catholic for the rest of his life. On Lefebvre's death in 1672, Dacier moved to Paris, and was appointed an editors of the Delphin Classics series. In 1683 he married Anne Lefèvre, the daughter of his old tutor. Better known by her married name of Madame Dacier, her work as a classicist has been acknowledged by encyclopedia editors to be far superior to his.

In 1695 he was elected to the Academy of Inscriptions, and also to the Académie française; not long after this, as payment for his share in the medallic history of the king's reign, he was appointed keeper of the library of the Louvre. He died two years after his wife.

Work
The most important of Dacier's works were his editions of Pompeius Festus and Verrius Flaccus, and his translations of Horace (with notes), Aristotle's Poetics, the Electra and Oedipus the King of Sophocles; Epictetus, Hippocrates and Plutarch's Lives.

Dacier and his wife Anne together translated Meditations by Marcus Aurelius into French in 1690–91, as well as writing an extensive commentary on the work.

In editing Festus, Dacier worked from the proposals of Joseph Scaliger, who provided notes and additions. His stated goal was to produce a "clear and educationally useful text." Addressing his work to the Dauphin (in usum Delphini), at that time Louis, he was more interested in the realia of Roman law, treaties, and the foundations of power than in the literary quality of the text or its lack thereof. Dacier's work on Festus was first published in Paris, 1681, with subsequent editions in 1692, 1699, and 1700.

title: André Dacier


text:
Elections in Finland

There are four types of elections in Finland. Each Finnish citizen at least 18 years of age has the right to vote in each of the elections, which decide the following: the president, the parliament, the MEPs, and the municipal and city councils.

Finland has a presidential election every six years, in which a President of Finland is elected in two rounds on the basis of a direct popular vote.

Parliamentary elections are held every four years with a system of proportional representation in multiple seat constituencies. Finnish parliamentary elections use the D'Hondt method. Finland has a multi-party system wherein it is very uncommon for a single party to achieve a majority in parliament; thus most Finnish governments consist of coalitions.

European Parliament elections are held every five years. Finland has 14 seats in the European Parliament.

Municipal elections are held every four years. Municipal elections are held separately in the Municipalities of Åland at the same time as the election of the Parliament of Åland. A new type of election, aluevaalit, was made by the Marin Cabinet in which determines the councils of each of the country's 21 welfare area. The first aluevaalit will be held in 2022.

Presidential elections
The president is elected by popular vote for a six-year term. An election was last held January 28, 2018 (there was no second round). See 2018 Finnish presidential election.

2018 Presidential election
The incumbent president Sauli Niinistö won in the first round receiving over 60% of the votes. Green League's candidate Pekka Haavisto came second, followed by Laura Huhtasaari of the Finns Party.

Parliamentary elections

Under Finland's parliamentary system the prime minister can ask the president to dissolve parliament at any time during its 4-year term, which would result in "early" elections. However, this has not occurred in the past two decades and general elections have been held every four years on the third Sunday in March in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007. The 2011 parliamentary elections took place on 17 April 2011. The 2015 parliamentary elections took place on 19 April 2015.

The D'Hondt method of proportional representation, used in Finland, encourages a multitude of political parties and has resulted in many coalition-cabinets. The D'Hondt method, while easy to understand and use, tends to favor large, established political parties. For example: in 2007, there were 2,000 candidates representing 18 different parties (plus independents) running for the 200 seats, and those who were elected came from just eight parties. The Prime Minister of Finland is appointed by the president, based on the vote in the parliamentary elections. Usually the chairman of the biggest party becomes the next prime minister.

In the parliamentary elections of 16 March 2003, there were two dominating parties: the Centre Party got 55 seats and the Social Democratic Party got 53 in the 200-seat Parliament. A new cabinet was formed by the Centre Party and Social Democrats together with the Swedish People's Party.

In the parliamentary elections of 2007, the Center Party retained its lead at 51 seats, but the election was a major victory for the National Coalition, which got 50 seats, and a major loss to SDP, which got 45 seats, losing 8 seats. A new coalition cabinet, Vanhanen II, between Center, Coalition, Greens, and the Swedish People's Party was formed.

Åland's parliamentary elections
Åland is a province that accounts for 0.5% of Finland's population, a total population of 27,210. The Åland's autonomous political status under the Act on Åland Autonomy gives the Parliament of Åland legislative powers over a number of areas. Aside from these issues, the state of Finland, represented by the Provincial Governor, is sovereign and residents vote in general parliamentary elections for one representative to the Finnish parliament.

Elections in Åland are held every four years at the same time as municipal elections are held in the Municipalities of Åland. A proportional representation system encourages a multitude of political parties and has resulted in many coalition cabinets. Åland has different political parties than continental Finland.

The Premier of the Government of Åland, Lantråd, is appointed by the speaker of the Parliament, based on the vote in the parliamentary elections. Usually the chairman of the biggest party becomes the next prime minister. In the parliamentary elections on 21 October 2007 there were two dominating parties: the Liberals for Åland got 10 seats, and the Åland Centre got 8 seats, in the 30-seat Lagting. These parties then formed a new cabinet led by Viveka Eriksson.

Municipal elections

Municipalities of Finland, that include cities and other (rural) municipalities, are the basic local administrative units of the country. Most of basic services are provided by the municipality, and are bound to do so by law. Municipalities have council-manager government, where the council (valtuusto) is the highest authority. Every four years, a council is elected.

Councils name a civil servant, the city manager or municipal manager, to conduct day-to-day administration of the municipality. In addition, councils name committees (lautakunta) and a municipal executive board (kunnanhallitus). Councils meet periodically and decide on major issues. The executive board prepares the bills and is responsible for the administration, finances and supervision of the interests of the municipality. Unlike in central government, executive boards usually consist of all parties represented in the council; there is no opposition.

2017 municipal elections
Although municipal elections are local only, and local results vary, they do function as a measure of the sentiments and party strengths also nationally. In the 2017 election, National Coalition was the most-voted party, with Social Democrats second and Center the third. Proportionally, the biggest winner was the Green League, whose share of votes rose to 12.5% from 8.5% in 2012 municipal elections. The biggest losers were the Finns Party, whose share of votes dropped to 8.8% from 12.3% in 2012.

EU elections
Finland has participated in European parliament elections since joining the European Union in 1995. The first Finnish election was held in 1996.

County elections
Finland's first county elections were held in 2022.

Referendums
The Constitution of Finland allows only for a non-binding (consultative) referendum called on by the Parliament (Article 53 of the Constitution ).

As of 2013 there have been only two referendums in Finland: In both cases measures passed, and Parliament acted according to the results of the vote (although the referendum in Finland is non-binding).
 * Finnish prohibition referendum in 1931
 * Finnish European Union membership referendum in 1994.

Municipal law 30-31 § gives right to Referendum since year 1990. It had been used 56 times between 1990 and 2010. Citizens of Turku collected 15,000 names in one month for referendum against the underground car park. Politicians with in the elections unknown financing from the parking company neglected the citizens opinion. According to International Association of Public Transport UITP parking places are among the most effective ways to promote private car use in the city. Therefore, many European cities have cancelled the expensive underground car parking after the 1990s. The EU recommended actions cover develop guidance for concrete measures for the internalisation of external costs for car traffic also in urban areas. Parking control can only be successful if they are enforceable. In Finland the shops routinely offer free parking for customers which rises the prices of food for all customers, also for those who bicycle or walk.

There were also around 40 municipal referendums in Finland (as of 2006). Most have been about municipal mergers.

If fifty thousand Finnish citizens sign an initiative (for an act or a referendum), the Parliament has to discuss it, but the initiative is not binding, so the parliament does not have to initiate a referendum. This provision entered into force on 1 March 2013, and the first such initiative to reach Parliament was an initiative to ban fur farming, which was rejected by the Parliament. Several other initiatives reached the Parliament in 2013, including "Common Sense in Copyright" initiative, and a gay marriage initiative.

title: Elections in Finland


text:
Open Inventor

Open Inventor, originally IRIS Inventor, is a C++ object-oriented retained mode 3D graphics toolkit designed by SGI to provide a higher layer of programming for OpenGL. Its main goals are better programmer convenience and efficiency. Open Inventor exists as both proprietary software and free and open-source software, subject to the requirements of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), version 2.1.

The primary objective was to make 3D programming accessible by introducing an object-oriented API, allowing developers to create complex scenes without the intricacies of low-level OpenGL. The toolkit incorporated features like scene graphs, pre-defined shapes, and automatic occlusion culling to streamline scene management. While Open Inventor focused on ease of use, the OpenGL Performer project, spawned from the same context, emphasized performance optimization. The two projects later converged in an attempt to strike a balance between accessibility and performance, culminating in initiatives like Cosmo 3D and OpenGL++. These projects underwent various stages of development and refinement, contributing to the evolution of 3D graphics programming paradigms.

Early history
Around 1988–1989, Wei Yen asked Rikk Carey to lead the IRIS Inventor project. Their goal was to create a toolkit that made developing 3D graphics applications easier to do. The strategy was based on the premise that people were not developing enough 3D applications with IRIS GL because it was too time-consuming to do so with the low-level interface provided by IRIS GL. If 3D programming were made easier, through the use of an object oriented API, then more people would create 3D applications and SGI would benefit. Therefore, the credo was always “ease of use” before “performance”, and soon the tagline “3D programming for humans” was being used widely.

Use
OpenGL (OGL) is a low level application programming interface that takes lists of simple polygons and renders them as quickly as possible. To do something more practical like “draw a house,”the programmer must break down the object into a series of simple OGL instructions and send them into the engine for rendering. One problem is that OGL performance is highly sensitive to the way these instructions are sent into the system, requiring the user to know which instructions to send and in which order, and forcing them to carefully cull the data to avoid sending in objects that aren't even visible in the resulting image. For simple programs a tremendous amount of programming has to be done just to get started.

Open Inventor (OI) was written to address this issue, and provide a common base layer to start working with. Objects could be subclassed from a number of pre-rolled shapes like cubes and polygons, and then easily modified into new shapes. The “world” to be drawn was placed in a scene graph run by OI, with the system applying occlusion culling on objects in the graph automatically. OI also included a number of controller objects and systems for applying them to the scene, making common interaction tasks easier. Finally, OI also supplied a common file format for storing “worlds,” and the code to automatically save or load a world from these files. Basic 3D applications could then be written in a few hundred lines under OI, by tying together portions of the toolkit with “glue” code.

On the downside OI tended to be slower than hand-written code, as 3D tasks are notoriously difficult to make perform well without shuffling the data in the scene graph by hand. Another practical problem was that OI could only be used with its own file format, forcing developers to write converters to and from the internal system.

Performer
About a year into the Inventor project, a different philosophy began to emerge. Instead of simply making it easy to write applications on SGI systems, the goal was changed to make it difficult to write slow applications. Members of the Inventor team left to form their own group, which founded the basis of the OpenGL Performer project. Performer was also based on an internal scene graph, but was allowed to modify it for better speed as it saw fit, even dropping “less important” objects and polygons in order to maintain guaranteed performance levels. Performer also used a number of processes to run tasks in parallel for added performance, allowing it to be run (in one version) on multiple processors. Unlike Inventor, Performer remained proprietary so that SGI would have the agility to modify the API as needed to keep in step with the latest hardware enhancements.

Mid 1990s
At some point in the mid-1990s it was realized that there was no good reason that the two systems could not be combined, resulting in a single high-level API with both performance and programmability. SGI started work on yet another project aimed at merging the two, eventually culminating in Cosmo 3D. However Cosmo had a number of practical problems that could have been avoided with better design.

Eventually all of these ideas would come together to create the OpenGL++ effort, along with Intel, IBM and DEC. Essentially a cleaned up and more “open” version of Cosmo 3D, work on Cosmo ended and SGI turned to OpenGL++ full-time. The OpenGL++ effort would drag on and eventually be killed, and SGI then tried again with Microsoft with the similar Fahrenheit project, which also died. In 1994 SGI licensed Open Inventor to two third-party developers, Template Graphics Software (TGS) and Portable Graphics; in 1996 TGS bought Portable Graphics, making them the sole licensee.

Recent history
After many years of being solely available under proprietary licensing from TGS (now FEI), Inventor was released under the LGPL open source license in August 2000 and is available from SGI. Around the same time, the Coin3D API clone library was released by SIM (Systems in Motion). SIM was later acquired by the Kongsberg group and renamed Kongsberg SIM. The Coin library had been written in a clean-room fashion from scratch, sharing no code with the original SGI Inventor library but implementing the same API for compatibility reasons. Kongsberg ended development of Coin3D in 2011, and released the code under the BSD 3-clause license.

The open-source version from SGI is not maintained, and SGI has not indicated a commitment to further develop the library. The open-source release is used in MeVisLab (MeVis Medical Solutions AG and Fraunhofer MEVIS), however, and development of that continues. Thermo Scientific Open Inventor is still being developed, and has added a number of improvements to the original Inventor API for medical imaging, medical image computing, 3D reflection seismology, and petroleum reservoir modeling.

The Open Inventor API is still commonly used for a wide range of scientific and engineering visualization systems around the world for the development of complex 3D application software. TGS was acquired by Mercury Computer Systems in 2004. It became an independent company, Visualization Sciences Group (VSG), in June 2009. In 2012, VSG was acquired by FEI Company. FEI Company was acquired in 2016 by the Thermo Fisher Scientific Materials & Structural Analysis Division, which continues to develop (and support) Open Inventor.

title: Open Inventor


text:
Tanneguy Le Fèvre

Tanneguy Le Fèvre (Tanaquil[lus] Faber) (1615 – 12 September 1672) was a French classical scholar. He wrote many books, and translated numerous classical works. Somewhat unusual in this era, he educated his daughter Anne Dacier in Greek and Latin, and she subsequently became the notable classical scholar and translator better known as Madame Dacier.

Life and work

Le Fèvre was born at Caen. After completing his studies in Paris, he was appointed by Cardinal Richelieu inspector of the printing-press at the Louvre. After Richelieu's death, he left Paris, joined the Reformed Church, and in 1651 obtained a professorship at the Academy of Saumur, which he filled with great success for nearly twenty years. His increasing ill-health and a certain moral laxity (as shown in his judgment on Sappho) led to a quarrel with the consistory, as a result of which he resigned his professorship. Several universities were eager to obtain his services, and he had accepted a post offered him by the elector palatine at Heidelberg, when he died suddenly. One of his children, Anne, became the distinguished classical scholar and translator Madame Dacier.

Le Fèvre was a highly cultivated man and a thorough classical scholar. He brought out editions of various Greek and Latin authors: Longinus, Anacreon and Sappho, Virgil, Horace, Lucretius and many others. His most important original works are: Les Vies des poètes Grecs (Lives of the Greek Poets, 1665); Méthode pour commencer les humanités Grecques et latines (Method to Start the Greek and Latin Humanities, 2nd ed., 1731), of which several English adaptations have appeared, such as Jenkin Thomas Philipps's A Compendious Way of Teaching Ancient and Modern Languages (1750); and Epistolae Criticae (1659).

title: Tanneguy Le Fèvre