The depression years in Wales and England, 1930-1939
- Created by: loupardoe
- Created on: 22-10-16 10:25
Fullscreen
Why did the Depression happen?
problems with traditional industry
- before WW1, Britain's prosperity had depended on the sale of heavy industrial goods such as coal and steel
- these older traditional industries entered a period of decline
- rising costs in production
- obsolete methods
- a failure to invest in new technology and machinery
- fall in demand for British goods
- increased competition from abroad
- more expensive British goods could not compete with cheaper imports
- Britain's traditional pre-war export markets were no longer prepared to buy British
- they bought US steel, German coal and Indian cotton instead
- brought an end to the golden age of welsh and british heavy industry
- when the worldwide economic depression arrived in the early 1930's, Britain's old industries could not cope
the wall street crash
- the principal cause of the Depression was the Wall Street Crash of 1929
- the collapse of the US stock market caused a financial crisis in which some major banks in the USA ceased trading and many businesses were plunged into bankruptcy
- led to rising unemployment
- added to the economic problems
- led to a reduction in spending
- as unemployment rose, sales declined further
- the way to end a depression is to get people to buy things
- the US government did not know how to do this
- the US president, Herbert Hoover became alarmed
- he called in America's huge loans to other countries
- put up customs barriers- imposed high tariffs to stop imports of foreign goods
- Hoover's policy spread the depression across the rest of the world
- 'when america sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold'
impact on the British economy and employment
- Britain, Europe and many of the world's industrial powers had come to depend on US loans and trade
- when America's economu crashed, so did theirs
- the world slump in production and trade lasted longer and was deeper than many governments had imagined
- slump turned into a depression because it affected both employers and employees
- some businesses crashed while others struggled to survive
- production slumped because orders declined
- led to many companies laying off workers
- redundancies and dismissals contributed to the Depression
- as unemployment rose, the decline in orders fell even more sharply
- the crisis of 1929 had a significant impact on the British economy
- the collapse of the post war economic boom in 1921
- increased competition from abroad
- disaster of the general strike in 1926
- decline in the mining and steel industries
- all these crippled the British economy
- the crisis of 1929 made an already bad situation worse
impact on British politics
- many politicians were convinced that the economy would right itself
- felt that economic recovery was better left to businessmen rather than politicians
- all would be well was their response
- a minority of politicians did not know how best to solve the crisis
- Sir Oswald Mosley (labour) called for massive government spending to create jobs and for high tariffs on foreign imports to protect British industry
- economist Keynes and the leader of the opposition Liberals, David Lloyd George, tried to persuade…
Comments
No comments have yet been made