However, in August, aft er months of procrastination and political uncertainty, the government offi cially rejected Sankey's fi nal majority report (which had won the support of seven out of thirteen commissioners). Pressures from economic experts at the Treasury to abandon state control of industry in order to safeguard public fi nances had a decisive weight in the rejection. Starting in July, the government sought to exploit the fear of poor fi scal balances "to paint the miners' demands as excessive and damaging" (Ives 2016, 232) to the national coff ers. Th ese rationales were the early antecedents of formal austerity; the refrains were picking up steam.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 411