No more advances on wholesale stocks." The order was issued "Retrench.

Take your losses, unload your stocks." This men were slow to do, and while all agreed upon the soundness of the policy, each waited for the other to begin.
Through the month of April anxiety, fear and discontent began to haunt the minds of business men.

In the labour world the High Command was quick to sense the approach of a crisis and began to make preparations for the coming storm.

The whole industrial and commercial world gradually crystallised into its two opposing classes.

A subsidised press began earnestly to demand lower cost in productions retrenchment in expenditure, a cut in labour costs, a general and united effort to meet the inevitable burden of deflation.
On the other hand, an inspired press began to raise an outcry against the increasing cost of living, to point out the effect of the house famine upon the income of the working man, and to sound a warning as to the danger and folly of any sudden reduction in the wage scale.
Increased activity in the ranks of organised labour began to be apparent.