Having said that, I should like to remind the House that on 24th October, the Prime Minister came down and announced the economies which he and his colleagues considered necessary to deal with the Devaluation Crisis, which was, of course, by no means the first financial crisis that we had had since the advent of the Labour Government.
Last October we had the Devaluation Crisis.
I am fortified in that belief when I remember what did in fact happen or was said to be going to happen - although we never found out whether the economies were achieved - at the time of the Devaluation Crisis.
I should like to ask if he received a telegram of thanks and congratulations from the French Government for the brilliant way in which he handled the Devaluation Crisis last year?
It was drawn up, according to his own statement by the Lord President of the Council, following the Devaluation Crisis of 1949.
Since the Devaluation Crisis of September, 1949, that rate, of course, has been considerably below, and sometimes very far below, the rate at which the Government themselves could borrow had they gone into the market for long-term loans.
It was that depression which I think most of us would say precipitated the Devaluation Crisis here, and as recovery took place in the United States, of course the demand for raw materials began to rise, too, and their prices went up.
It was made clear by my right hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth in the education debate on 4th May, 1950, after the Devaluation Crisis, that 1,450,000 new school places were required between the end of the war and the end of 1953 if we were to have a progressive implementation of the Act of 1944.
In 1949, the halcyon calm of Budget Day turned quickly into the hurricane that swept us into the Devaluation Crisis.
In the heat of the Devaluation Crisis, the Prime Minister, followed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced cuts in Government expenditure.
The French economy is so sound that in Our Recent Devaluation Crisis she lent us money.
Then we had the Devaluation Crisis and again defence cuts.
We start from the inevitability of a high Bank Rate after a Devaluation Crisis.
When we were in opposition we made the same case, though it was difficult for the Labour Government to make strides forward in this connection because of the Devaluation Crisis with which they were faced.
Of course, the Government do not have the Devaluation Crisis that faced the Wilson Government.
Perhaps remarkably, I was in the Labour party's research department in 1967 when we had the financial Crisis of Devaluation, which I remember well, and I was in the House in 1976 when the International Monetary Fund came in.
Those were the days of the Devaluation Crisis, a great deal of trade union militancy and the public finances being in some disorder.