Parliament Addresses the Great Depression in Britain (1934)

Great Britain’s response to the depression was dictated by classical economic theory: when tax revenues drop, government spending should drop as well. Thus, throughout the 1930s, Great Britain matched declines in government revenue with cuts in spending, and did little to intervene in the economy on behalf of the unemployed. This approach seemed to be borne out by the relatively speedy recovery of the British economy. This recovery was, however, uneven. Government policies contributed to the growth of new industries in the south. In the industrial north, in contrast, long-term decline only deepened. In 1934, under mounting public pressure, Parliament commissioned a study of the depressed regions of the country. This excerpt from the resulting report summarizes some of the key findings.

25. The Special Areas1 are in their present unfortunate position owing to the decline of the main industries, coal mining, ship building and iron and steel, which attracted such large numbers of workers to them during the nineteenth century under more prosperous conditions. It seems unlikely that these industries will again employ the numbers engaged in them even up to ten years ago. During the period of prosperity large communities with full equipment of railways, roads, houses, schools, and other municipal and social services were created. Many millions of pounds were spent in building up these services. A large proportion of the inhabitants have been associated with the Areas for several generations; they are bound to the Areas by ties of home and family and religion, by local patriotism and, especially in Wales, by a fervent national spirit and, sometimes, a distinctive language. It is natural, therefore, that wherever one goes in these Areas one should be met by the demand that something should be done to attract fresh industries to the Area. This is the general request, and I regard it as at once the most important and the most difficult of my duties to try to satisfy it. I have given more time and personal attention to this side of my work than to any other, but it must be frankly admitted that up to the present the results have been negligible. Many of the negotiations I have initiated with this end in view were necessarily confidential, and it would only prejudice the present slender chances of success if I were to give a full account of them. The following paragraphs will, however, indicate the main lines on which I have been working.

26. In the first place I approached a number of the larger and more prosperous firms in the country in the hope that I might persuade them to open new branches of their industry in one or other of the Special Areas. Without exception they were sympathetic to my representations, but except in one case they had good reasons which made it impossible for them to accede to my request. . . .

29. Some hundreds of new factories have been established in recent years in the Midlands and South, but very few in the Special Areas. Why is this so? The main reasons appear to fall in the following categories: —

255. . . . Probably the most serious human problem of the Special Areas is that presented by unemployment among young men between 18 and 21. . . .

256. Many of these young persons have done practically no work; they have been brought up in a home where the father has been continuously out of work, and they have little or no conception that a man’s ordinary occupation should be such as will provide the means of subsistence for himself and for his family. They have seen their own families and their friends kept for years by the State, and they have come to accept this as a normal condition of life. It is hardly surprising in the circumstances that young persons with this background and upbringing should be ready victims of all manner of demoralizing influences. In short, these young persons present in my view the most tragic aspect of the problem of the Special Areas and one fraught with great danger to the State.

From “First and Second Reports of the Commissioner for the Special Areas [England and Wales],” in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, rev. and enlarged ed., ed. W. C. Langsam (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1951), pp. 303-304, 306.