Britain's Economy 1906-14

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  • Britain Economy 1906-1914
    • What was it like at the start?
      • Greatest trading nation - empire covered 1/4 of the globe
      • 1906 - GB + I had 43 million pop
      • Employment increasing for m/w in retailing, transport, banking and edu
      • Industrial and commercial supremacy being challenged
      • Not adapting fast enough to changing eco climate
    • Staples
      • 1913- eco focused on sraple industries that was basis of the 1st IR
      • Textiles (Leeds,Bradford, Lancashire)
        • Coal Mining (S-Wales, Yorkshire,NE
          • Shipbuilding (Liverpool, Glasgow, Belfast)
      • 60% of exports came from textiles, steel, coal + shipbuilding
      • B first country to have an IR= lead way in ind in 19th C
        • Didn't allow for more room to grow and deal with foreign competition
          • 1913- G and A eroding position
        • Allowed B to be at the front of industry and dhow dominance
      • POSITIVE EVIDENCE
        • B emerged as key SB nation 1870+ and retained it till WW2
        • Cotton trade maintained strong export trade (cotton goods = 1/4 B's exports pre 1914)
        • Coal Industry profitable up to 1914 (100 mill tonnes of coal 1870 - 287 mill 1913)
    • New Industries
      • New Ind was based on new technologies
      • Most prominent were electronic engineering, chemicals + motor vehicle production
      • They were expanding faster than the economy as a whole (3.8%) - annual growth rate (2%)
      • Labour force involved in maj inds 1907:
        • Textiles 25%
        • Electrical engineering 1.3%
    • Agriculture
      • Most B land was in large estates, let out to tenant farmers
        • These paid rent+gained profit by selling produce
          • They in turn employ agr labourers
      • Estate owners were often in charge of one of several farms and made profit from the sales of its products
      • When agr prices were lower with cheap food imports (1870s) landlords lowered rents asfarmers gained less from selling their products
      • Agr depressions in late 19th C+foreign competition = wheat growing to other areas like dairy farming, beef cattle
        • Seen to be more profitable than crops that ae vulnerable to foerign comp
    • Trade and Invisible Earnings
      • 1914- 30% of goods and services produced in B were sold abroad
        • Still had 25% of the world's trade+dominated the world's shipping
      • Invisible exports (exports of services e.g banking, lending money etc) were vital to the economy
        • earnings from invisible exports helped ensure that B maintained a healthy balance of payments even though the value of imports were rising eand exports declining
      • B was world's leader in banking, investment+insurance (London commercial centre of the world)
        • Reliabilityof the Bank of England encouraged countries to invest in B enterprises
          • Foreign companies and businesses took out British insurance policies with Britain's merchant banks+insurance houses
      • By 1913, 32% of B's total national wealth was in investments overseas
        • 40% of investments went to the B empire, USA and South America
  • Most B land was in large estates, let out to tenant farmers
    • These paid rent+gained profit by selling produce
      • They in turn employ agr labourers

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