The evidence of Mr. Glyn showed that the Crisis of October, 1847, was very like that of 1825; the notes in the hands of the public at that time amounted to 4,000,000l more than the circulation required.

Still, he said this—that we had created a Crisis in October, and he thought that I had admitted or stated that we created the crisis.

But I quite recognise that it is a hardship on hon. Gentlemen because there happens to be a Crisis in October that they should be deprived of their ordinary and natural opportunity for discussing matters interesting to them and their constituents in February.

Our financial position is a lot healthier than it was when the present Government took over in the Crisis of October, 1951, but it is not yet sufficiently stable or elastic to enable us to do more this year.

My right hon. Friend replied that a combination of surplus steel production and plummeting prices had led the 135 European Coal and Steel Community to declare a state of manifest Crisis in October 1980 and introduce mandatory production quotas to permit a necessary recovery in steel prices, which had been forced down to totally uneconomic levels.

Our monetarist stance was too lax even before the October Crisis.

If we are facing a Crisis in October, the winter is going to be bloody.