By 1920 growing unemployment in the linen industries and engineering sector were creating tension within the "Protestant bloc". Large numbers of well organised ex-servicemen were still out of work and a cause of concern to the local middle class. It was the local middle class who alleged that "peaceful penetration" of Belfast industry during the war by thousands of Catholics created the unemployment problem, especially that of the ex-servicemen. It would be the local middle class who succeeded in giving the conflict its sectarian twist.