Great Britain's Response To The Great Depression
Most everyone has their own problems, and their own ways to overcome them. For example, when students get a bad grade on a test, some will study harder next time, while others may try to cheat in order to be successful. Out of many decisions made, only a few will emerge to be successful in overcoming the issue. Just like when Great Britain was faced with the challenge of recovering from the Great Depression and they made the choice to leave the gold standard. The gold standard was a monetary system in which a country's currency, the British pound in this case, was backed by gold. Britain’s decision to leave to Gold Standard gave them the tools they needed to recovery successfully. Although Britain tried many times to recover from the Great
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The Great Depression began with the Stock Market Crash in 1929, and many European countries fell into an economic dilemma, including Great Britain. The British government’s initial reaction was to lower tariffs on imported goods, but to their surprise, not only did the lower tariffs fail to help, but they proceeded to severely damage many aspects of the British economy (The Great Depression." British). Product demand in the UK was demolished, leading to an enormous increase in the amount of people who were unemployed. The unemployment rate doubled, leaving 2.5 million British people unemployed by 1931 (Britain). These huge unemployment rates caused British exports to fall. Britain depended on imports for two-thirds of its food supply, and to keep up with the imports, Britain strived to preserve it’s export sales (The Great Depression.” Macro). Now, with exports plunging, Britain pushed to keep manufacturing expenses and wages low. This put majority of the public in a tight economic situation, leaving them to deal with another issue, inflation. So they kept cutting, and public spending was the next to go. This led to an increase in taxes, no more public projects, and overall contributed to more and more people becoming unemployed. After seeing what was accomplished by these actions, mass unemployment, it is safe to say that lowered tariffs and public spending cuts did not help Britain to recover from the Great
The Great Depression began with the Stock Market Crash in 1929, and many European countries fell into an economic dilemma, including Great Britain. The British government’s initial reaction was to lower tariffs on imported goods, but to their surprise, not only did the lower tariffs fail to help, but they proceeded to severely damage many aspects of the British economy (The Great Depression." British). Product demand in the UK was demolished, leading to an enormous increase in the amount of people who were unemployed. The unemployment rate doubled, leaving 2.5 million British people unemployed by 1931 (Britain). These huge unemployment rates caused British exports to fall. Britain depended on imports for two-thirds of its food supply, and to keep up with the imports, Britain strived to preserve it’s export sales (The Great Depression.” Macro). Now, with exports plunging, Britain pushed to keep manufacturing expenses and wages low. This put majority of the public in a tight economic situation, leaving them to deal with another issue, inflation. So they kept cutting, and public spending was the next to go. This led to an increase in taxes, no more public projects, and overall contributed to more and more people becoming unemployed. After seeing what was accomplished by these actions, mass unemployment, it is safe to say that lowered tariffs and public spending cuts did not help Britain to recover from the Great