K'ung, H. H. Orig. K'ung Hsiang-hsi 孔祥熙 T. Yung-chih 庸之 H. Tzu-yüan 子淵 H. H. K'ung (1881-15 August 1967), banker and businessman who married Soong Ai-ling and who entered the service of the new National Government in 1928 as minister of industry and commerce. As minister of finance (1933-44) he was responsible for the currency reform of November 1935 and for the major financial programs undertaken by the National Government during the Sino-Japanese war. He was also known as a staunch Christian and as the founder of the Oberlin-Shansi Memorial Schools. The Ch'üfu district of Shantung was the original home of the K'ung family, who were regarded as lineal descendants of Confucius. During the Wan-li period (1573-1620) of the Ming dynasty, the family moved to Shansi. In the late Ch'ing period, K'ung Hsun-ch'ang enjoined his heirs from accepting government service. His son, K'ung Ch'ing-lin (T. Jui-t'ang) laid the foundation of the family fortune by establishing and successfully managing remittance shops (p'iao-hao), centered at T'aiku, Shansi. He came to have business correspondents in Peking, Canton, and Japan. His third son, K'ung Fan-tz'u, served as chief clerk of the remittance business at Peking and later returned to T'aiku to manage the family interests. Near the end of the Ch'ing dynasty, the domestic remittance business was gradually displaced by semi-modern banking institutions. Accordingly, the K'ung family obtained from the British Asiatic Petroleum Company its general agency for Shansi, established the Hsiang-chi Company, and handled shipments and sales of petroleum products, as well as candles, dye stuffs, and related imports. H. H. K'ung, the son of K'ung Fan-tz'u, was born at T'aiku. His sister, Hsiang-chen, was born three years later. His mother, nee Chia, who came from a prosperous Shansi family, died when he was only eight sui. K'ung attended a primary school in T'aiku which had been established by Dr. Charles Tenney, who had been sent by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to begin missionary and educational work in Shansi in 1883. In addition to introducing K'ung to Christianity, to which he became a convert, the American Protestant teachers at the school taught him English and provided him with the rudiments of a Western education.
From 1896 to 1900 K'ung studied at another missionary institution, North China Union College, which was located at T'ungchow near Peking. At this time, demands for imperial government reforms were increasing steadily, and K'ung soon joined with a classmate, Li Chin-fan, in organizing a secret society, the Wen-yu hui, which supported the republican revolutionary efforts of Sun Yat-sen. When the Boxer Uprising erupted in the summer of 1900, K'ung was at home in T'aiku on vacation. Yü-hsien, the governor of Shansi, executed 159 foreigners in Shansi, of whom 137 were Protestant missionaries or their children. K'ung used personal influence and family influence to shelter Western missionaries in the T'aiku area. His activities at T'aiku during that crisis later were recounted by the American missionary Luella S. Miner in Two Heroes of Cathay. K'ung then went to Peking, where Li Hung-chang (ECCP, I, 464—71) was negotiating with the Allied expeditionary forces that had occupied Peking. Through his friendship with Dr. H. E. Edwards, an English missionary, K'ung helped secure the reduction of the Allied demands on his native province. In recognition of these services, Li provided K'ung with a passport and honorary titles so that he could leave China in 1901 to study in the United States. Li also gave him a letter of introduction to Wu T'ing-fang (q.v.), then the Chinese minister to Washington.
In the United States, H. H. K'ung worked to improve his English and then enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio. In 1905 he met Sun Yat-sen, who was traveling through the United States, in Cleveland. After being graduated from Oberlin in 1906, K'ung went to Yale University, where he received an M.A. in economics in 1907.
Because Shansi lacked modern educational facilities and because K'ung was an advocate of American Christian education, he returned to T'aiku in 1908 as a representative of the Oberlin- Shansi Memorial Association and established the Ming-hsien School, which provided both primary and secondary education for students from north China. Although K'ung maintained an active interest in the family businesses, he devoted much of his attention to the affairs of the Ming-hsien School.
Although K'ung is known to have been a supporter of Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary cause before 1911, the extent of his participation in the revolutionary movement has not been determined. In 1911 his cousin K'ung Ping-chih was killed in the fighting in Shansi, and H. H. Kung served for a time under Yen Hsi-shan (q.v.), who led the anti-Manchu uprising in Shansi. In 1913, after the republic had been established, he went to Japan to serve as secretary of the Chinese YMCA in Tokyo. Thus, he was in Japan when Sun Yat-sen and other Kuomintang leaders sought refuge there after the so-called second revolution of 1913 collapsed. At that time he met Soong Ai-ling [see article on Soong family), the eldest daughter of Charles Jones Soong. She had accompanied Sun Yat-sen to Tokyo and was serving as his English secretary. K'ung, whose first wife. North China Women's College graduate Han Shu-mei, had died of tuberculosis, married Soong Ai-ling in 1914.
The death of Yuan Shih-k"ai in 1916 brought the period of Kuomintang exile to an end. H. H. K'ung and his wife went to his family home in Shansi, where they remained until 1918, when they embarked on a trip to England, France, and the United States. Early in 1919 they went to Ohio, where K'ung made formal arrangements for cooperation between Oberlin College and the Ming-hsien School. American graduates of Oberlin volunteered to teach at Ming-hsien, or Oberlin-in-China, and outstanding Ming-hsien graduates were selected for study in the United States.
H. H. K'ung returned to Shansi in 1919. He continued to divide his time between the prospering family business and the Ming-hsien School until 1922. As a result of the Washington Conference of 1921-22 and attendant Sino- Japanese negotiations, Japan agreed to return its interests in Shantung to China. The Peking government gave C. T. Wang (Wang Chengt'ing, q.v.) responsibility for the transfer of authority in Shantung and named H. H. K'ung as his deputy. In 1923-24 K'ung's brother-in-law. Sun Yat-sen, who had married Soong Ch'ing-ling (q.v.) in 1914, enlisted K'ung's help in his efforts to reorganize the Kuomintang and to achieve national unification. K'ung served as a channel of communication with such north China leaders as Chang Tso-lin, Feng Yü-hsiang qq.v.y, and Yen Hsi-shan. K'ung presented Feng with a calligraphic copy of Sun's Chien-kuo ta-kang [outline of national reconstruction], and Feng recorded his favorable impressions of that work in his diary. K'ung Went to Canton in 1924 and joined the newly organized Kuomintang. He accompanied Sun to Peking in 1925, served as a witness to his political will, and remained in Peking after Sun's death in March to make arrangements for the private funeral. He went to Shansi to attend the commencement exercises of Ming-hsien, or the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Schools, and then embarked on a journey to the United States, where he received an honorary LL.D. degree from Oberlin College.
During the period of the Northern Expedition, H. H. K'ung became associated with Chiang Kai-shek and his rise to political prominence. After serving as director of the Kwangtung provincial finance bureau and as acting minister of finance in the National Government at Canton and Wuhan, he joined Chiang Kai-shek's opposition government at Nanking in the spring of 1927. He played an important role in inducing Feng Yü-hsiang to come to Chiang's support in June and in smoothing the way for Chiang's marriage to Soong Mei-ling (q.v.) in December. Soong Ai-ling advocated the union; Soong Ch'ing-ling opposed it; and their mother finally gave her consent to the marriage on the condition that Chiang Kai-shek investigate Christianity.
When the new National Government was inaugurated at Nanking in 1928, H. H. K'ung became minister of industry and commerce. In accordance with Sun Yat-sen's Principle of the People's Livelihood, he introduced labor arbitration and insurance systems, established a bureau of trade, and appointed commercial attaches to serve in Chinese missions abroad. He was elected to the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang in 1929. K'ung continued to hold office after the ministry of industry and commerce was merged with the ministry of agriculture and mining in 1931 to form the ministry of industries. However, when Chiang Kai-shek temporarily retired from office in the Winter of 1931 to conciliate dissident Kuomintang leaders, K'ung, as Chiang's close associate and brother-in-law, resigned from office.
In April 1932 H. H. K'ung was appointed special commissioner to study European industrial conditions. One of his most important assignments was to secure foreign aid for the development of an adequate national defense system in China. K'ung went to Italy, where Mussolini agreed to sell planes and send technicians to China to strengthen the Chinese air force. These negotiations also resulted in the establishing of the Central Aviation Academy at Hangchow and an aircraft factory at Nanchang. K'ung's mission then took him to Germany and Czechoslovakia, where he made arrangements for procuring arms and engaging military advisers, and to England, where he met with financial experts to discuss economic reform measures for China.
After returning to China in April 1933, H. H. K'ung was appointed governor of the Bank of China. In October, he became minister of finance and, for a brief interlude, vice president of the Executive Yuan, serving under Wang Ching-wei (q.v.). He thus succeeded his brother-in-law T.V. Soong (q.v.) in the top financial post of the National Government, which Soong had occupied almost continuously since 1926. Almost immediately, K'ung began Work on a comprehensive program designed to increase the National Government's financial control of the modern sector of the economy. H. H. K'ung began by holding a national financial conference at Nanking in 1934 to deal with the problems created by the more than 7,000 varieties of local taxes then extant in China. As a result of that conference and of action taking during the next three years, 25 provinces had abolished local taxes by the time the Sino-Japanese war began in 1937. K'ung also increased the ratio of government-owned shares in the principal semi-governmental banks. In March 1935 increases in the capital of the Central Bank of China (from CNS20 million to CNSlOO million), the Bank of China (from CNS20 million to CNS40 million), and the Bank of Communications (from CNS12 million to CNS20 million) were made. The increase of government shares in these banks was designed to bolster the capacity of the treasury to float bond issues and make loans and to increase government control of credit. K'ung's action was criticized by private bankers associated with the Bank of China and the Bank of Communications, for their institutions antedated the National Government, and they prided themselves on their reputations for fiscal responsibility and independence of judgment. These and other measures paved the way for the monetary reform of November 1935, when the National Government abandoned the silver standard in favor of a managed paper currency. That reform required the nationalization of silver, the withdrawal of silver dollars from circulation, and the creation of a foreign exchange reserve for the Chinese currency. The reform had been precipitated by the American silver-buying program, the National Government's defense requirements, and the need for a standard legal tender in China. The American program had increased China's depression problems and had resulted in widespread smuggling of silver to foreign countries. The National Government had enacted a silver-export tax and an equilibrium tax, but they had not been effective. Furthermore, China still lacked a standard legal tender. Although some progress had been made in that direction, a wide variety of provincial or regional currencies were still in use, particularly in the northwestern and southwestern provinces. The new system of paper currency, called fapi, was introduced on 3 November 1935. Holders of silver dollars were required to exchange them for the newcurrency. The notes of the four government banks—the Central Bank of China, the Bank of China, the Bank of Communications, and the Farmers Bank of -China—were declared legal tender for payment of taxes. The Central Bank became a central, reserve bank, with responsibility for preserving the stability of the national currency system and foreign exchange. The foreign exchange rate of the Chinese dollar was fixed at CN$lOO to US$33. The currency reform, although its long-term effects have been a subject of much debate, strengthened the economic position of the National Government and enabled China to survive the early stages of the Sino-Japanese war without a serious inflation and to build a national banking system that was independent of foreign powers. However, the success of the reform depended largely on the ability of China to convert its silver stocks into foreign exchange by selling silver to the United States. In 1936 the Chinese Silver Mission, headed by K. P. Ch'en (Ch'en Kuangfu, q.v.) successfully negotiated the purchase of 75,000,000 ounces of silver by the United States. H. H. K'ung also helped increase confidence in the new currency by ordering his own Hsiangchi Company to convert its deposits with the Asiatic Petroleum Company, amounting to some £23 thousand, into fapi at the official exchange rate.
In December 1935 Chiang Kai-shek succeeded Wang Ching-wei, who had been wounded in an assassination attempt, as president of the Executive Yuan. H. H. K'ung continued to serve in the cabinet, and during the Sian Incident of December 1936 (see Chiang Kai-shek) he assumed political authority at Nanking by order of the Central Political Council. Ho Ying-ch'in (q.v.), who had been assigned responsibility for military affairs during the crisis, advocated attacking Sian, but K'ung and his associates persuaded him that this course of action would endanger Chiang Kai-shek's life. The ensuing negotiations at Sian resulted in Chiang's release on 25 December and in the formation of a Kuomintang-Communist united front against the Japanese. In April 1937 H. H. K'ung was sent abroad as a special envoy of the National Government. His stated mission was to represent China at the coronation of King George VI, but the chief purpose of his journey was the procurement of war materiel and financial aid in Europe and the United States. K'ung's chief secretary on this mission was Wong Wen-hao (q.v.), then secretary general of the National -Defense Advisory Council. After arriving in England, K'ung held conferences with British officials and attended the coronation on 12 May. He made a brief trip to France, Belgium, and Germany before going to the United States, where he discussed China's financial requirements with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull. He also received an honorary degree from Yale University in recognition of his achievements in education and finance.
H. H. K'ung returned to Europe soon after the Sino-Japanese war began in July 1937. He was aided in his renewed attempts to obtain armaments by Yü Ta-wei (q.v.), the director of the Chinese army ordnance bureau. K'ung remained in Europe, spending most of his time in Germany and Italy, until October. Germany, which had sent a number of officers to China to train Chiang Kai-shek's troops in the early 1930's, continued to maintain a military advisory group in China until 1938, despite the fact that the German government had signed the Anti- Comintern pact of November 1936 and thus was an ally of Japan.
After returning to China, K'ung instituted a series of emergency financial co
trols. He limited withdrawals of private bank deposits to curb the flight of capital. To support government economic progress a special loan committee was established under the Joint Administration of the four government banks and three adjustment committees were created for agricultural products, industries and mining, and foreign trade. The industrial and mining committee was responsible for the removal of factories from the coastal cities to the interior, and the foreign trade committee supervised essential exports of tung oil, bristles, tea, silk, and other natural products.
When Chiang Kai-shek resigned the presidency of the Executive Yuan in 1938 so that he could devote all of his time to military affairs, H. H. K'ung succeeded him. The cabinet came to include Chang Kia-ngau (Chang Chia-ao, q.v.) as minister of communications, Wong Wen-hao as minister of economic affairs, and Ch'en Li-fu (q.v.) as minister of education. Among other things, the Sino-Japanese war stimulated the development of an industrial cooperatives movement in China. The idea, first developed in conversations in Shanghai in the spring of 1938, attracted the attention of the British ambassador to China, Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr, who made a personal appeal to Madame Chiang Kai-shek. On the strength of the ambassador's interest, H. H. K'ung allocated CNS5 million to the cooperative movement. The Chinese Industrial Cooperative Association was established at Hankow on 5 August 1938, with K'ung as chairman of the board of directors. During the next year, the movement spread rapidly in the provinces of northwest China. The personal interest and prestige of Madame Chiang and H. H. K'ung were especially helpful during the initial stage of the cooperative movement, which continued to expand during the war years.
Although Chiang Kai-shek formally resumed office as president of the Executive Yuan on 11 December 1939, H. H. K'ung, who resumed the vice presidency, continued to serve as his surrogate until the autumn of 1944. During this period, he also served as president of the Chinese-American Institute of Cultural Relations, of which Ch'en Li-fu (q.v.) was the vice president. At the same time, as minister of finance, he bore the responsibility for foreignexchange control and for securing credits from Western governments to support the war effort. Such financiers as T. V. Soong and K. P. Ch'en also played important roles in directing China's financial programs. In February 1939 the United States agreed to grant China a loan of US $25 million, to be secured by shipments of tung oil. A second agreement, concluded in April 1940, provided for an American credit of US $20 million against tin exports from Yunnan, and a third granted US $25 million against tungsten shipments. Also in April 1940 the United States government and the British government granted credits of US $5O million and £5 million, respectively, to the Central Bank of China. These and other funds subscribed by Chinese banks were administered by an American-British-Chinese currency stabilization board, with K. P. Ch'en as its chairman. In February 1942, as a result of negotiations initiated by H. H. K'ung, the United States, which had entered the war against Japan, granted China a loan of US $500 million; in July, a British loan of £50 million was secured. A portion of the American loan was used to purchase gold bullion in the United States in an attempt to support the fapi.
A celebration in honor of H. H. K'ung's tenth anniversary as minister of finance was held at Chungking on 1 November 1943. This event received international attention, for no other National Government official had held a cabinet-level office for so long a period as had K'ung. More than 500 government officials and friends took part in the ceremonies, and laudatory messages came from Chiang Kai-shek, who had recently become Chairman of the National Government, and from such eminent Westerners as United States Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. Such leading Chinese newspapers as the Ta Kung Pao, which often had critized K'ung's policies and actions, praised his achievements.
In June 1944 H. H. K'ung went to the United States as head of the Chinese delegation to the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Chi Ch'ao-ting (q.v.) accompanied him as his personal assistant and secretary general of the Chinese delegation to the Bretton Woods Conference. As the personal representative of Chiang Kai-shek, K'ung met three times with President Roosevelt in Washington.
When the Executive Yuan was reorganized in May 1945, T. V. Soong, who had become its acting president in November 1944, was named president of the yuan and minister of finance. H. H. K'ung retired from political life in June and, at war's end, went to live in Shanghai. In the spring of 1947 he made a trip to north China, where he visited the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Schools. Its staff had returned to T'aiku after having spent the war years at Chint'ang, Szechwan. Early in 1948, before the civil war between the Nationalists and the Chinese Communists reached a critical stage, he and his wife moved to the United States because she was ill. K'ung went to Taiwan for a brief visit in 1962. He later went to Taiwan for a longer stay, but returned to the United States in December 1966 and established residence in Locust Valley, Long Island, New York. He died on 15 August 1967.
H. H. K'ung and his wife had four children. Rosamonde (Ling-i) was born in T'aiku; David (Ling-k'an), Jeannette (Ling-wei), and Louis (Ling-chieh) were born in Shanghai. David L. K. K'ung later served as director of the Central Trust of China, a wartime purchasing agency. In 1948 his cousin Chiang Ching-kuo (q.v.), then deputy economic control supervisor for the Shanghai area, ordered his arrest, but Madame Chiang Kai-shek intervened and sent David to Hong Kong. Louis K'ung served as secretary general of his aunt's official party during her trip to the United States in 1943.
Throughout his public career, H. H. K'ung was a controversial figure. His personal wealth alone was sufficient to make his political position a matter for national and international debate. Such Chinese Communist spokesmen as Ch'en Po-ta (q.v.) were particularly outspoken in condemning K'ung and his relationships with the Soongs and Chiang Kai-shek, and, indeed, there was general agreement that his public eminence was largely the result of these relationships. Economists argued about whether the monetary reform of November 1935 had saved the Chinese economy or had caused the postwar hyperinflation that ruined it. However controversial K'ung's financial and political activities may have been, his educational activities, which received less public attention, were acknowledged to be a reflection of his concern with modern education as an instrument of social progress. K'ung was a staunch Christian, a one-time YMCA secretary, and a friend and supporter of many Protestant missionaries in China. For many years, he helped finance and maintained close contact with the school he had founded at T'aiku. He also had a sustained interest in the affairs of Yenching University, the successor of North China Union College. He was chairman of its board of managers for many years and became its chancellor on 17 June 1937. Because of the burden imposed on K'ung by the Sino-Japanese war, J. Leighton Stuart, the president of Yenching, assumed the duties of the chancellorship. After the university was forced to close, K'ung presided over a meeting of members and former members of the Yenching board on 8 February 1942 at which it was decided to reopen Yenching at Chengtu, Szechwan. Y. P. Alei (Mei Yi-pao, q.v.) served as acting chancellor and acting president at Chengtu. After the university reopened at Peiping in 1946, K'ung continued to head its board of managers until 1949. A laudatory biography by Yu Liang, K'ung Hsiang-hsi, was published in Hong Kong in 1955. An English-language version of this work was published in the United States by the Alumni Club of Oberlin Shansi Memorial College in 1957. Arthur N. Young's China and the Helping Hand 1937-1945, published in 1963, contains more professional information about K'ung as wartime minister of finance.
孔祥熙
字:庸之
号:子渊
孔祥熙(1881—1967.8.15),银行家,实业家。其妻为宋霭龄。1928年他在新成立的国民政府任工商部长。1933—1944年他在财政部长任内,进行了1935年11月的币制改革,并在中日战争期间为国民政府主持重要的财政计划。他是一个虔诚的基督教徒,铭贤学校的创办人。
孔家原籍山东曲阜,是孔子的后裔。明代万历年间,这一支迁居山西。清末孔训昌(译音)以担任官职而承袭封号。他的儿子孔庆麟靠着以太谷为中心建立并经营得法的票号起家。他和北京、广州、日本等地都有业务联系。孔庆霖的第三子孔繁慈在北京当主管汇款的掌柜,不久又回到太谷经营家业。清末,国内汇款业务逐渐改由半新式的银行机构经营。孔家于是在山西代办经销英国亚细亚火油公司的火油,设立祥记公司,运销石油产品以及洋烛、染料和
其他洋货。
孔祥熙是孔繁慈的儿子,出生在太谷。三年后,他的妹妹祥贞(译音)出生。母亲贾氏,出身山西的一门富家,孔祥熙八岁时,他母亲死去。孔祥熙进太谷的丁嘉立创办的小学读书,丁嘉立是1883年由美国对外差会委员会派到山
西传教的教士。丁嘉立除劝孔祥熙入教外,还教他英语和其他一些西方教育的基本知识。
1896—1900年,孔祥熙在北京附近的通州激河学院读书。当时对清政府变法的要求日益增长,孔祥熙和他的同班同学李进方(译音)组织了一个秘密团体文友会(译音)。赞助孙中山共和革命的活动。
1900年夏,义和团起义爆发,当时孔祥熙假期回家。山西巡抚毓贤,处决了159名洋人,其中137人是基督教传教士及其子女。孔祥熙以其个人及家族的势力护庇了太谷地区的西方传教士。孔祥熙在危难之中的此种行动,一个美国传
教士麦美德在《中国的两名英雄》一书中作了叙述。不久,孔祥熙去北京,那时李鸿章正与占据北京的联军谈判。孔祥熙因与英国教士H•E爱德华慈友好,通过他削减了联军对山西的赔偿要求。李鸿章对此很尝识,给孔祥熙护照
和头衔,使他能在1901出国去美国留学。李鸿章还给孔祥熙写信介绍给驻美公使伍廷芳。
孔祥熙在美国补习英语后进俄亥俄州的欧伯林大学,他在克利夫兰遇见正在美国游历的孙中山。1906年,孔祥熙毕业于欧伯林大学后,又进了耶鲁大学,1907年获得经济学硕士学位。
山西缺少新式学校,孔祥熙是一个热心的基督教徒,1908年他以山西欧伯林大学纪念会代表的名义,回到太谷并创办了铭贤学校,为华北学生提供初等及中等教育。此后,他一方面经营家业,一方面又致力于办理几处铭贤学校。
孔祥熙在1911年前赞助过孙中山,但他到底参加革命活动到何等程度,未能确知。1911年,他的兄弟孔炳之(译音)在山西作战而死,他本人一度在率领反清起义的阎锡山手下任职。1913年,民国成立后,他在东京当中华基督教
青年会干事。他在日本时,正是孙中山等人二次革命失败流亡在日本的时候,这时,他与随孙中山去日本的英文秘书宋霭龄相识,她是宋耀如之长女。那时孔祥熙的妻子,潞河女校的学生韩玉梅死于肺病,1914年,孔祥熙就与宋霭龄
结婚。
1916年袁世凯死去。国民党人在外流亡的生活结束。孔祥熙和他的妻子回到山西老家,1918年,他们又去英国,法国,美国。1919年初,他到俄亥俄。正式商定了欧伯林大学和铭贤学校的合作计划;美国毕业生到贤学校教书,选送铭贤学校成绩优良的毕业生到美国留学。
1919年。孔祥熙回山西。1922年以前,他一直把时间用在积聚家财和办理铭贤中学上面。在1921—1922年的华盛顿会议中涉及中日谈判,日本同意把山东的权利交还给中国。北京政府派王正廷为督办负责接交,孔祥熙为会办。1923—1924年,1914年和宋庆龄结婚的孙中山请孔祥熙协助他进行国民党改组以利全国统一事业,孔祥熙成了与北方首领张作霖、冯玉祥、阎锡山等人的联系渠道,他把孙中山的《建国大纲》手抄本送给冯玉祥,冯曾在日记中表示对此
书的赞赏。1924年孔祥熙到广州,加入了新改组的国民党。1925年他陪同孙中山到北京,成了孙中山政治遗嘱的见证人,孙中山去世后,他留在北京料理丧事。以后又去山西,他主持几处铭贤学校的成立式后去美国,接受欧伯林大学授予的名誉博士学位。
北伐期间,他与蒋介石共事,在政治上很快升到显要地位,任广东省财政厅长,代理广州及武汉国民政府的财政部长,1927年春他参加了蒋介石在南京成立的反武汉的政府。6月间他在罗致冯玉祥对蒋介石的支持中,12月间和为
促成蒋介石与宋美龄的婚事均起重要作用。这件婚事,宋霭龄是同意的,而宋庆龄反对,最后她们的母亲以蒋介石入基督教为条件而同意了。
1928年新的国民政府在南京成立,孔祥熙任工商部长,他按照孙中山民生主义的原则,建立了劳工仲裁、劳保制度,成立了贸易司,并向驻外使馆派出商务参赞。1929年,选入中央执行委员会。1931年,工商部与农矿部合并而为实业部,孔仍任部长。1931年冬,蒋介石为了安抚反对派而短期下野,作为蒋介石的心腹和姻亲的孔祥熙也辞职了。
1932年4月,派孔祥熙为特使去欧洲考察实业。他的最主要任务之一是为发展国防体系争取外援。孔祥熙在意大利时,墨索里尼答应他出售飞机和派遗技术人员加强中国空军。抚州创办中央航空学校,南昌创办飞机厂都是这次谈
判的结果。他又去德国和捷克购买军火并聘用顾问,他又去英国,与财政家商谈中国的财经改革。
1933年4月,孔祥熙回国,任中央银行总裁,10月,任财政部长并一度在汪精卫任内任行政院副院长,他就此担任了他的姻亲宋子文从1926年以来所担任的最高财政职务,立即开始为国民政府对现代经济部门加强财政控制并制
订全面计划。
1934年,他在南京召开全国财政会议,处理当时全国存在七千多种地方税所引起的问题。此次会议及此后三年所采取行动的结果,在1937年中日战争开始时已有二十五个省份取消了地方税。他还在主要的半官方的银行中增加官股
比重。增资的各银行为:中央银行(由二千万元增为一亿元),中国银行(由二千万元增为四千万元),交通银行(由一千二百万元增为二千万元)。增加官股的目的是支持国库发行公债及放款和增加政府控制信贷的能力。孔祥熙的这一措施受到与中国银行、交通银行有联系的私家银行的批评,它们是早在国
民政府成立前就已存在,并以它们的财政可靠性和判断独立性而自豪。
以上措施为1935年11月的币制改革准备了条件,国民政府放弃银本位而改用管理纸币。这一改革首先须实行白银国有并废止银圆流通和设立外汇储备。美国收购白银的计划,国民政府的国防要求和对中国合法标准货币的需要促进
了这一改革。美国收购白银的计划加剧了中国的萧条,并造成大量白银向国外私运。国民政府颁布白银出口税和平衡税,但未能生效。此外,中国仍然没有一个标准合法的货币。虽然在这一方面有了一些进展,但不少省份和地区仍通
行本地货币,尤以西南、西北地区为甚。称为法币的新币制自1935年11月3日实行。银元持有人需兑换新币,中央银行、中国银行、交通银行、农民银行等四行的纸币为交纳赋税的法定货币。中央银行成为一家储备银行,负责维持本
国币制和外汇的稳定。中国货币与外汇的兑换率规定为法币一百元对美元三十三元。币制改革就其长远的效果来说虽然是一个议论纷纭的题目,但它加强了国民政府的经济地位,中日战争初期未曾出现严重的通货膨胀,建立了不依赖
列强的本国银行体系。1936年,陈光甫率领白银代表团议定了由美国收购七千五百万英两白银。孔祥熙本人还把祥记公司及经销的亚细亚火油公司的资财共计二万五千镑按法定价格兑换成法币以增加新币的信用。
1935年12月,汪精卫被刺受伤,蒋介石继任行政院长。孔祥熙在行政院内任职,并在西安事变期间由中央政治会议派他在南京主持政局。在此期间,何应钦主持军事,主张讨伐西安,孔祥熙等人加以劝阻,认为此举会危及蒋介石
的生命。经西安谈判,12月25日蒋介石获得释放,国共建立了抗日统一战线。
1937年4月,孔祥熙为国民政府特使率代表团参加英皇乔治六世加冕典礼,但此行的主要目的是从欧美获取作战物资和财政援助。孔祥熙率领的代表团的秘书长是国防顾问委员秘书长翁文灏。孔祥熙到英国后与英国官员进行商谈,
并参加了5月11日的加冕礼。他在法、比、德诸国作暂短逗留后去美国,和罗斯福总统及赫尔国务卿,讨论了中国的财政要求。他还接受了耶鲁大学为他在教育和财政工作上的成就而授予的名誉学位。
1937年7月中日战争爆发后,他去欧洲由兵工署长俞大维协助重新试图取得军火的供应。10月以前,他大部份时间都在德、意两国。德国曾在三十年代初派出若干人员为蒋介石训练军队,一直到1938年还有军事顾问团在中国,尽
管德国已于1936年11月与日本签订了反共协定。
孔祥熙回国后,采取了一系列紧急财政管制。限制私人提取银行存款以防止资本外逃。他在四行联合办事处下设立了特别货款委员会和农产、工矿、外贸调整委员会以支持政府的经济发展。工矿委员会负责把沿海工厂迁入内地,
外贸委员会管理桐油,猪鬃,茶叶、丝及其他土产等主要出口品。
1938年蒋介石辞去行政院长以便集中精力于军事。孔祥熙继任,以张嘉璈为交通部长,翁文灏为经济部长,陈立夫为教育部长。此外,中日战争促进了工合运动。这个主张,最先出现在1938年春英国大使卡尔在上海的一次谈话,
他向宋美龄提出个人建议。由于英国大使的关心,孔祥熙为工合运动拨款五百万元。1938年8月5日,工合协会在汉口成立。孔祥熙任董事长。此后几年,工合运动在西北各省迅速发展。宋美龄和孔祥熙的影响和声望,对早期的工合运动特别起作用,这一运动在战争年代中一直不断扩展。
蒋介石于1939年12月11日名义上任行政院长,孔祥熙作为他的代理人任副院长直到1944年秋。在此期间他还任中美文化关系协会会长,陈立夫为副会长。作为财政部长,负责管制外汇及争取西方各国的贷款以支持抗战。其他财
政专家如宋子文,陈光甫等人对中国的战时财政计划也起很大作用。1939年2月,美国同意以出口桐油为抵押给与贷款二千五百万美元,1940年4月,第二项协定以云南锡出口为抵押提供贷款二千万美元。第三项协定以出口钨换取贷款二千万百万美元。1940年4月,美英政府分别给中央银行以五千万美元,五百万英镑贷款。这些贷款和中国各银行认捐之款由中英美平准基金委员会经管,主席陈光甫。美国对日作战后,1942年2月,经孔祥熙之谈判,美国给与中国贷款五亿美元。7月,又取得英国五千万英镑贷款。美国的贷款一部份用来从美国购进金条以维持法币。
1943年11月1日,在重庆举行孔祥熙任财政部长十周年纪念会。这件事引起国际的注意,因为在国民政府中任部长一级的职务至十年之久,除孔祥熙之外,别无他人。五百多名政府官员和孔祥熙的朋友参加了庆祝会,现任国民政府主
席的蒋介石,西方知名人士有美国陆军部长史汀生发来贺电,重要的报纸如大公报虽经常批评孔祥熙的政策和行为,也对他的成就加以赞扬。
1944年6月,孔祥熙作为中国代表团团长去美国参加在新罕布什尔州的布雷顿秣林举行的联合国货币与金融会议。冀朝鼎随行担任孔祥熙的个人助理和参加该会议的中国代表团秘书长。孔祥熙代表蒋介石与罗斯福在华盛顿会晤三次。
1945年5月,行政院改组,1944年11月后任代院长的宋子文改任行政院长,财政部长。7月,孔祥熙退出政界,战争结束后,住在上海。1947年春一度去华北,视察铭贤学校,该校曾迁于四川金堂数年,此时全部教职员工迁回太谷。
1948年初,当国共内战达到紧急的时刻之前,孔祥熙因他的妻子生病一起去美国。以后,他在台湾短暂逗留,1966年12月又去美国,定居在纽约州长岛的新洛喀斯特,1967年8月15日死去。孔祥熙和宋霭龄有子女四人;洛沙曼(令仪)生在太谷,大卫(令侃)珍妮特(令俊)、路易斯(令杰)生在上海。孔令侃后来成了战时的采购机构中央信托局局长,1948年,他的表兄蒋经国任上海经济督察专员,下令逮捕孔令侃,宋美龄出来干预,把孔令侃送到香港。孔令杰曾在宋美龄于1943年到美国去时任她的秘书长。
从孔祥熙的全部经历来看,他是一个毁誉交加的人物。单就他的个人财富而论,就已足以使他处于被国内外议论的地位。例如共产党发言人陈伯达公开遣责他和宋家及蒋介石的关系,他之所以能取得显赫地位是由他的姻亲关系,
这是公认的看法。经济学家则对他的币制改革是挽救了中国经济还是造成战后的通货膨胀而使中国经济崩溃还有争论。不管孔祥熙的财政和政治方面的活是多么众说纷纭,但对他在较少为人注意的教育方面的活动,则认为他是把教
育看作为社会进步工具的一个反映。孔祥熙是一个虔诚的基督教徒,曾一度担任过基督教青年会干事,他是许多基督教会的朋友和支持者。他多年来对他在太谷创办的学校与以经济上的支持保持密切关系。他对协和大学的后身燕京大
学的事务也很关心,多年任该校董事长,1937年6月18日任该校校长。中日战争使孔祥熙的责任加重,校务长司徒雷登担任了校长职务。该大学被迫关闭后,1942年2月,孔祥熙主持燕京前任及现任董事开会商议决定迁往四川成都开
学,梅贻宝在成都任代校务长兼代校长之职。1946年,燕京在北平复校,孔祥熙继续任董事长到1949年。
瑜亮写的《孔祥熙》一书是推崇他的一本传记,1955年于香港出版,其英文译本由欧伯林山西分校(即铭贤学校)校友令于1957年在美国出版。杨约琴的《1937—1945年中国援及其手》一书于1963年出版,偏重孔祥熙任战时财政
部长的业务上的资料。