I was reminded of this when I read the recent quote of one banker who, when asked why his bank had come through the U.K. 1973 secondary banking crisis so well, replied that ”it was simple: we only lent to people who had been to Eton”.
Things happened differently in that gentlemanly and old-fashioned world;  ·  the close working relationship between the central bank and the government might be 1 illustrated by quoting H C Coombs’ endorsement of the Montagu Norman view ”that a central bank should be like a good wife.