In his memorandum on “Unemployment,” Baldwin’s home secretary, Sir William Joynson- Hicks, made clear that the only way for the Conservative government to escape “vilifi cation” at the general elections for “its insuffi cient unemployment policies” was a “comprehensive” stimulus through large publicly funded loans to extend the productive power of the dominions and “road construction on a fairly large scale” (HMSO 1929, 294– 300) that could compete with the ambitious proposals of the Labour and Liberal parties.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 1695