|
The Great Depression in the United Kingdom, also known as ''the Great Slump'', was a period of national economic downturn in the 1930s, which had its origins in the global Great Depression. It was Britain's largest and most profound economic depression of the 20th century. The Great Depression originated in the United States in late 1929 and quickly spread to the world. Britain had never experienced the boom that had characterized the U.S., Germany, Canada and Australia in the 1920s, so its effect appeared less severe.〔H. W. Richardson, "The Economic Significance of the Depression in Britain," ''Journal of Contemporary History'' (1970) 4#4 pp. 3-19 (in JSTOR )〕 Britain's world trade fell by half (1929–33), the output of heavy industry fell by a third, employment profits plunged in nearly all sectors. At the depth in summer 1932, registered unemployed numbered 3.5 million, and many more had only part-time employment. Particularly hardest hit by economic problems were the industrial and mining areas in the north of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Unemployment reached 70% in some areas at the start of the 1930s (with more than 3 million out of work nationally) and many families depended entirely on payments from local government known as the dole. Politically the Conservative Party dominated the era and the Labour Party was seriously hurt. == Background == (詳細はeconomic output fell by 25% between 1918 and 1921 and did not recover until the end of the Great Depression,〔Cole, Harold L. and Lee E. Ohanian, "The Great U.K. Depression: a Puzzle and a Possible Resolution" in Kehoe, Prescott (2007)〕 arguing that the United Kingdom suffered a twenty-year great depression beginning in 1918. Relative to the rest of the world, economic output declined mildly in the UK between 1929 and 1934. The Great Depression began in Britain, not only due to the depression occurring across the ocean, but with the failure of Austrian Credit Anstalt Bank. These accounts were frozen due to the inability for foreign countries to pay their debts back to the bank. Foreign exchange controls were implemented at this time to prevent war. A major cause of financial instability, which preceded and accompanied the Great Depression, was the debt that many European countries had accumulated to pay for their involvement in the First World War. This debt destabilised many European economies as they tried to rebuild during the 1920s. Britain had largely avoided this trap by financing their war effort largely through sales of foreign assets. Britain had a net loss of £300 million of foreign investments, less than two years' investment on a pre-1914 average.〔A. J. P. Taylor, ''English History: 1914-1945'' (1965), p. 123.〕 The largest material loss during the war was in the British Merchant Navy, which lost 40 percent of its merchant fleet to the U-boat attacks (but this was replaced soon after the war). Along with loss of assets through enemy action, such divestiture reduced British investments abroad by around 20% by 1918.〔Taylor, ''English History'', p. 122.〕 The resulting loss of foreign exchange earnings left the British economy more dependent upon exports, and more vulnerable to any downturn in world markets. But the war had permanently eroded Britain's trading position in world markets through disruptions to trade and losses of shipping. Overseas customers for British produce had been lost, especially for traditional exports such as textiles, steel and coal. Heavy industries which formed the bedrock of Britain's export trade (such as coalmining, shipbuilding and steel) were heavily concentrated in certain areas of Britain, such as northern England, South Wales, Northern Ireland and central Scotland, while the newer industries were heavily concentrated in southern and central England. British industrial output during the 1920s ran at about 80-100%, and exports at about 80% of their pre-war levels,〔Constantine, Stephen. (1980) ''Unemployment in Britain Between the Wars'', Longman, ISBN 0-582-35232-0〕 so there was little chance of Britain being able to amass enough capital to restore her overseas investment position. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Great Depression in the United Kingdom」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|