ABSTRACT
T HE policy which the Government adopted to meetthe autumn crisis of 1923 was far from winningunanimous approval. It showed too little care for the clamour of industrialists to gain much favour in that quarter; and its opponents regarded it as the dark child of Narcomfin, born in departmental exclusiveness, and nourished on financial parsimony. Small sympathy was shown in the official diagnosis for the view that the weakness of industry was the root of present difficulties. On the contrary, the monopoly of State industry on the market was singled out as the principal cause of the trouble. The medicine prescribed, designed to exert pressure on industrial organs to reduce industrial prices, could hardly fail to be unpalatable to the heads of trusts and syndicates; while ground for much complaining of undue favour to the peasant was afforded by the official efforts to raise agricultural prices from their existing low level, partly by altered price-policy in grain purchase and more liberal credits to grain-purchasing organs, and partly by a development of the export of grain. But no policy of sufficient vigour to overcome the sales crisis could have avoided hurt to some departmental interest; and the leaders of the Government pursued their policy in the confident hope that a direct attack on the problem from both sides in this way would gradually close the blades of the "scissors." If industrial prices were reduced while at the same time village purchasing power was increased, the sales crisis in industry would inevitably be abated.
