KQ1 - The coming of the depression

Cards (17)

  • British industry

    • Developed around coalfields in the North
    • Depended on steam power
    • Produced raw materials or heavy goods
    • Depended on exports
    • Only profitable when sold to worldwide markets
  • From early 1920's
    Britain faced more and more competition abroad
  • Finding new markets to buy British goods proved difficult
  • Policies of successive British governments
    Made the situation worse
  • Free Trade policy

    Allowed foreign goods into Britain for free while British goods had to pay import duties to foreign governments
  • Worst hit was shipbuilding: no new ships were needed to transport goods
  • During 1920's USA

    Introduced new methods of mass production
  • Britain was slow to move to quicker and more efficient methods of production
  • Main cause of depression

    Collapse of US stock market caused a financial crisis, rising unemployment, and reduction in spending
  • US president Herbet Hoover

    Called in USA's loans to other countries and imposed high tariffs to stop imports of foreign goods, spreading the depression across the world
  • Britain was the first industrial nation
  • Heavy industries

    • Benefitted from lack of competition
    • Profited from selling all over the world
    • Other countries copied Britain
    • Developed new methods of production
    • Competed with British markets
  • Major economic rivals: USA, Japan, Germany
  • Experiencing problems BEFORE Wall St. Crash
  • USA could produce coal for 65p per tonne when Britain sold it for £1.56 per tonne
  • 1929 to 1931 exports from Britain fell by half
  • Britain's balance of trade effected: 1931 trade deficit of £114 million