Debate on National Efficiency

• The work of Booth and Rowntree, coupled with the physical health of the army, fuelled a debate about national efficiency. This debate cut across party lines and even created the possibility of a new political party.  
• Some supporters of National Efficiency focused on the needs of the military. Others linked economic recovery with social reform, including Sidney Webb, who argued that a minimum standard of living was essential to national efficiency. This gave social reform a political respectability.  
• Men such as Herbert Asquith and Richard Haldane, who had been part of the campaign for national efficiency, became members of the cabinet in 1906, with Asquith becoming PM in 1908.  
• It can be said that the debate on national efficiency influenced arguments on social policy in 2 ways: 

  • It focused the attention on the importance of Britain’s human resources as being fundamental to national power in the economic field as well as a military one.  
  • It encouraged policymakers to look more closely at social and economic policies that were being implemented by Britain’s competitors and to calculate which were the most effective and could be implemented in Britain.