I cannot, I think, properly present it to the Committee at the present time without bringing to their notice that we have had to enforce considerable and drastic economies arising out of the Crisis of Last Autumn.
The Minister of Health has stated that in general he raises no objection in the special circumstances to the principle of the proposal that existing superannuation rights should not be prejudiced by arrangements due to the Crisis of Last Autumn.
I have said that the immediate reasons for the Bill were the presentation of the Lane Fox Report under the Addison Act, the Crisis of Last Autumn in regard to meat, and the prospect of the crisis which is upon us in regard to dairy products.
It is true that there has been difficulty about the distribution of this wireless service in Australia, and, in fact, the newspapers there were not able to take it during the Crisis of Last Autumn.
One is bound to say our recovery from the Crisis of Last Autumn has been a good deal less sharp than our recovery from the crises either of 1947 or 1949.
Surely the fact is, is it not, that one of the main causes of the Crisis of Last Autumn was that in the previous autumn, at the end of 1955, the Soviet Union went into the Middle East, as it were, with the arms deal with Egypt?
The financial Crisis of Last Autumn showed how very essential it is to keep defence expenditure within bounds and to reduce military demands upon the country's productive resources.
It may be argued that there is one factor for which I have not allowed and that is that we shall get more gold in and get further from the Crisis of Last Autumn.
I should like, but have not time now, to develop this, but in considering the reasons for inflation and particularly the reasons for the Crisis of Last Autumn, I believe, although no one would he dogmatic about this, that it is absolutely unproven to say that wages or costs have been the major factor in inflation.
He was saying that the Crisis of Last Autumn was a crisis of confidence in this Government.
We on this bench feel that the responsibility for the economic Crisis of Last Autumn rests fairly and squarely on the Conservative Party.
Mr. Shepherd asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the extent to which forward dealings in foreign currencies by United Kingdom importers and exporters contributed to the financial Crisis of Last Autumn.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the extent to which forward dealings in foreign currencies by United Kingdom importers and exporters contributed to the financial Crisis of Last Autumn.
This is especially tragic when, after the Crisis of Last Autumn, it seemed that the threat of closure had been averted and that the firm was set for a promising future.