Graphic Chronicle from the Ministry of Finance (1852 - 2007) (1852 - 2007)
Chapter: "Daily memory of the finances" (accessible HTML text)
Image: 1965 photograph of the customer service desk in the Central Service of Information for Tax Investigation. There are people waiting and workers are helping them.
Narrator: In all of these years I can’t begin to think how many people have passed through my corridors, or sat at the desks, chatted on the terrace... the number of stories that have been told, the laughter, and the tears...
Image: Camera travelling covering several rooms of the Ministry of Finance.
Image: Current view of the roofs of the Banco Bilbao and Banco Español de Crédito buildings taken from the roof-top of the Ministry.
Image: Camera travelling along a corridor of the Ministry. A door opens as the camera gets in.
Narrator: And, of course, the daily toil... mountains of books and dossiers piled up on desks and on chairs, miles and miles of papers decorating walls, and doors, and windows, which today are kept in the Ministry’s Archive.
Image: Two old photographs of Ministry offices. Tables are piled high with folders and papers and we can see workers sitting on their chairs and working.
Sound: Sound effect of typing machines and office work.
Image: Camera travelling among the numerous shelves of the Ministry Archives piled high with documents and books.
Narrator: Official acts and decorations has also formed a typical part of my life, as here, with the President of the Council of Ministers, Primo de Rivera, together with the Treasury Minister.
Image: 1927 photograph taken in the main hall of the Ministry of Finance. We can see a group of people, including General Primo de Rivera, the Minister of the Treasury and provincial delegates of the Ministry.
Narrator: Another daily feature has been that of the swearing-in. Here the Treasury Minister, Espinosa San Martín, swearing in high-ranking ministry officials.
Image: 1963 photograph of Minister of the Treasury Espinosa San Martín taking some officers-oath of office.
Narrator: The Charles III Hall has served as the stage for these official acts, and for other strictly social occasions, such as the giving out of games to the kids of the Treasury Orphans College, or the wedding of the under-secretary of the Treasury, Isidoro Vergara, in 1933, which boasted Azaña as a witness.
Image: Photograph of the 1931 Group of the State Attorneys’ Organization during the awarding of the gold medal to such institution for the work performed.
Image: 1927 photograph of the ceremony in which toys were delivered to children from the Ministry of Finance Orphan School. In the first row, we can see several girls with their dresses and hats; behind them, several public figures from the Ministry.
Image: 1933 photograph of the wedding of Isidoro Vergara, Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Finance. In the centre of the photograph, the bride and the groom, and around them, several relatives and friends. Among them, we can see Azaña.
Narrator: After the civil war of 1936, things got back to normal, administrative and tax reforms were made, and then with the coming of Democracy, a modernisation of the Public Treasury was necessary.
Image: Photograph of one of the Ministry rooms, in which workers can be seen working hard on their desks.
Image: 1959 photograph of Minister Navarro Rubio announcing the Stabilization Plan during a press conference.
Image: Two photographs from the early 80’s of the main lobby of the Ministry of Finance in the public exhibition of the National Registry of Income-Bearing Assets and Assets (Registro de Rentas y Patrimonios).
Image: 1965 photograph of the data processing central of the Information Service for Tax Investigation.
Narrator: In the search for greater efficiency and simplification, information would begin to be organised under the auspices of a new technological culture based on the mechanisation of the administrative processes.
Image: 1991 photograph of the official visit of the Prince of Asturias, Don Felipe de Borbón, to the Ministry of Finance.
Image: 1965 photograph of the manual files of the old Income-Bearing Assets and Assets Registry, which depended on the Central Service of Information for Tax Investigation. The walls of the room are covered with shelves full of filers.
Sound: Sound effect of computers.
Image: 1965 photograph of the archives of magnetic tapes of the Central Service of Information for Tax Investigation. A worker is picking up one of the tapes from the shelves.
Image: 1965 photograph of the filing cards punching room for data processing in the Central Service of Information for Tax Investigation. We can see many people working on their desks.
Image: 1982 photograph of a queue of citizens waiting to submit the IRPF statement in the General Fund of Deposits (Caja General de Depósitos) of the Ministry of Finance.
Narrator: The Public Treasury, as we know it today, is fruit of the work of each and every one of the ministers who have known me. Their portraits, fixed as they are on my walls, testify to who they were, and to a certain degree, who I am.
Image: Camera travelling around the Goya Hall.
Image: Camera travelling along a corridor of the Ministry. There are pictures hanging on both sides of the corridor, with portraits of the Ministers of the Treasury.
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