However, until that autumn the government's commitment to the “Land Fit for Heroes” prerogative remained intact. Treasury cavils were rejected on the grounds that the government could not aff ord to break its pledges on housing. Not until 1921, with the collapse of the postwar boom and the weakening of labor's power, were the political conditions ripe for the government to surrender to the Treasury's demands for economy. 53 In March 1921 the government transferred Christopher Addison from the Ministry of Health to the anomalous post of minister without portfolio. Aft er he resigned, Addison wrote a fi erce pamphlet, Th e Betrayal of the Slums (1922), to denounce the government's austerity moves.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1694