Falling commodity prices and their consequence, trade contraction and restriction, paralysed the whole economic system of the world in1930 and 1931, and brought about the Greatest Economic Crisis the world has ever seen.
At the same time, they are driving inexorably, steadily and with ever-increasing speed into the Greatest Economic Crisis this country has ever had to face.
This Bill makes no contribution to the solution of the Greatest Economic Crisis which has ever threatened us.
In view of the fact that this Act was put on the Statute Book during the Greatest Economic Crisis ever experienced in capitalist production, as far back as 1929, does not the Joint Under-Secretary of State think that it is now high time that taxation was being placed on the shoulders of those who can pay?
What I am grateful for most is that the Chancellor will not follow the actions of the Minister of Aviation in fiscal matters and plunge us once more into the Greatest Economic Crisis which we have had since 1945, to use the words of the Minister himself when he was Chancellor.
When the nation is in the Greatest Economic Crisis since the war, and when, above all, everyone is looking for a lead from the Government and the House, they would be astonished that we are having to spend the greater part of the day on legislation which most people think is vexatious, unwise and unfair to English people.
Faced with the Greatest Economic Crisis for 50 years, with a disastrous total of 3⅓ million registered unemployed, with a spreading industrial wasteland of silent factories and workshops, with record bankruptcies and liquidations, the Queen's Speech contained no proposals even remotely relevant to the clamant needs of the country, its industry and people.
Wales is facing the Greatest Economic Crisis since the 1930s.
So we are undoubtedly faced with the Greatest Economic Crisis since the Great Depression.
Of course, he had little room for manoeuvre, but I suspect that he, and indeed the Prime Minister, would have hoped that a Budget strategically to address the questions facing this country in the Greatest Economic Crisis in living memory might have lasted longer than the weekend before it was totally ripped to shreds and deconstructed, growth forecasts spending objectives and all.