The reason why it is slipping through so quietly is that the country is today faced with an External Crisis.

this is because it may lead to an External Crisis 720 —balance of trade, balance of payments, and all that—or it may lead to so heavy a fall in the value of money as to make savings unattractive and, therefore, the provision of fresh capital resources for industry and production correspondingly difficult.

It is an economic problem in the sense that it may, in a country like our own, where we depend so much on exports, if it is allowed to develop, threaten the whole stability of the economy and, therefore, the lives and happiness of the very classes - the producing classes in the widest sense - who have reached this high standard; this is because it may lead to an External Crisis - balance of trade, balance of payments, and all that - or it may lead to so heavy a fall in the value of money as to make savings unattractive and, therefore, the provision of fresh capital resources for industry and production correspondingly difficult.

One of the main charges against the Government is that to deal with an External Crisis, Which, on their own claim, was caused by short run speculative factors from economic sources, they have made investment cuts which will have a lasting effect on national productivity and our ability to compete in the markets of the world.

My right hon. Friend yesterday set out clearly the fundamental clash between industrial expansion and national solvency - how, for 15 years every boom had led to External Crisis, each crisis worse than the last, every period of deflation led to a temporary easement, each easement more insecure than the last.

Indeed, in spite of big occasions such as the Budget, the biggest attendance that I can recall since 1987 has not been for a debate on an External Crisis, on events in other countries, or on the economic crisis, but it was when the House was discussing the discipline to be handed out to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown).