Postwar Italy imported scarce goods only where finance permitted, risking monetary collapse

Evidence

More than just coal, wool and meat were also missing. As a Treasury fi le of 1919 revealed, “there are many other commodities, equally important to the economic life of the country, which are not imported at the present time, merely on account of lack of fi nance” (T 1/12343/10710/19). A continuation along the vicious spiral of high indebtedness— which discouraged creditors and worsened monetary instability— could even result, many feared, in a fullblown monetary breakdown in which the lira lost all purchasing power. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1339

Categorization

• CANDY: A vivid, self-contained data point: commodities like coal, wool, and meat went unimported not from scarcity but simply from lack of finance.