Disappointment and depression

The men who had fought in such terrible conditions during the war had been promised a land "fit for heroes". But this promise could not easily be kept, even by the popular new Labour Party.

Alongside the social effects of the war were far-reaching economic ones. The cost of the war had led to an enormous increase in taxation, from 6 per cent of income in 1914 to 25 per cent in 1918. The demands of the war had also led to a doubling in the size of the civil service, and greater government control of national life. It was inevitable that there should be increasing disagreement between workers and the government. Just before the war in 1914 there had been an outbreak of strikes. Immediately after the war there were further serious strikes, and in 1919 and 1921 soldiers were used to break these strikes, and force men back to work.

In 1926 discontent led to a general strike by all workers. The reasons for the strike were complicated, but the immediate cause was a coalminers' strike. An earlier miners' strike in 1921 had been defeated and the men had returned to work bitterly disappointed with the mine owners' terms. In 1925 mine owners cut miners' wages and another miners' strike seemed inevitable. Fearing that this would seriously damage the economy, the government made plans to make sure of continued coal supplies. Both sides, the government and the Trades Union Congress (representing the miners in this case), found themselves unwillingly driven into opposing positions, which made a general strike inevitable. It was not what the TUC had wanted, and it proved deeply damaging to everyone involved.

The general strike ended after nine days, partly because members of the middle classes worked to keep services like transport, gas and electricity going. But it also ended because of uncertainty among the trade union leaders. Most feared the dangers both to their workers and the country of "going too far". The miners struggled on alone and then gave up the strike. Many workers, especially the miners, believed that the police, whose job was to keep the law, were actually fighting against them. Whether or not this was true, many people remembered the general strike with great bitterness. These memories influenced their opinion of employers, government and the police for half a century.

It is possible to argue that Britain missed an opportunity to reform the economic structure of the country after the war. But instead of careful planning, businessmen were allowed to make quick profits, particularly in the cotton mills, the shipyards and engineering industries. But perhaps there was little the government could do to control the situation, as it was not in control of economic forces. All over Europe and America a serious economic crisis, known as "the depression", was taking place. It affected Britain most severely from 1930 to 1933, when over three million workers were unemployed.

In Germany the depression was even more severe, and it destroyed Britain's second most important market from before the war. John Maynard Keynes's warning - that if Germany did not recover then neither would its European trading partners -became horribly true. Far worse, the economic collapse of Germany led to the rise of Adolf Hitler.

Because the worst effects of the depression in Britain were limited to certain areas, the government did not take the situation seriously enough. The areas most affected by the depression were those which had created Britain's industrial revolution, including Clydeside, Belfast, the industrial north of England and southeast Wales. The working class in these areas still lived in poor conditions. Men and women could not expect to live as long as people in richer areas, and more babies died in the first year of life. There was little hope for these people because almost no one was willing to invest the large amounts of money needed to get industry working again. The Labour Party was no better at dealing with the situation than the Conservatives.

It is surprising that Britain avoided a serious political crisis in the 1920s. The unfairness of the situation was so obvious to working-class people, who had neither political nor economic power. Two-thirds of the wealth of the nation was in the hands of only 400,000 people, less than 1 per cent of the population. In other European countries economic crisis and social unrest had led to great changes. In Russia there had been the Bolshevik revolution. Powerful new Nazi and Fascist governments were taking over in Germany, Italy, Austria and Spain, while France also faced political crisis. Britain's reasonably calm political life was proof of an astonishing level of popular agreement about the basis of government which did not seem to exist in many parts of Europe.

In the 1930s the British economy started to recover, especially in the Midlands and the south. This could be seen in the enormous number of small houses which were being built along main roads far into the countryside.

This new kind of development depended on Britain's growing motor industry, which was based in the Midlands. In the nineteenth century, towns had been changed by the building of new homes near the railway. Now the country around the towns changed as many new houses were built along main roads suitable for motoring. Middle-class people moved out even further to quieter new suburbs, each of which was likely to have its own shops and a cinema. Unplanned suburbs grew especially quickly around London, where the underground railway system, the "tube", had spread out into the country. It seemed as if everyone's dream was to live in suburbia.

Economic recovery resulted partly from the danger of another war. By 1935 it was clear that Germany, under its new leader Adolf Hitler, was preparing to regain its position in Europe, by force if necessary. Britain had done nothing to increase its fighting strength since 1918 because public opinion in Britain had been against war. The government suddenly had to rebuild its armed forces, and this meant investing a large amount of money in heavy industry. By 1937 British industry was producing weapons, aircraft and equipment for war, with the help of money from the United States.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1714