London bankers read a government yielding to socialist pressure on bread subsidies as alarming

Evidence

Political pressures that opposed welfare cuts were especially troubling: “the head of an English bank had told me,” Capel- Cure reported, “the adverse point which made a special impression on fi nancial circles in the city of London was that the Italian government had been forced to yield to the clamour of the socialists in their attempt to take off the subsidy now given on bread” (April 12, 1920, T 1/12551/4). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1721

Categorization

• XREF: Directly expresses the book’s core thesis that austerity was a class weapon — British financial circles monitoring a foreign government’s deference to working-class demands.