In the 1929–31 Crisis it became accepted by almost everybody that the way to cure unemployment was through economies and balanced Budgets.

I have been through it three times - in 1925–26, when we went back to the gold standard and went on to the General Strike; in the Crisis of 1929–31, when Snowden introduced the maddest Budget ever presented to this House; and again in 1937, when we were only saved from a serious recession by the advent of the Second World War.