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7 - The United Kingdom during World War I: business as usual?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2009

By
Stephen Broadberry  and
Peter Howlett
Edited by
Stephen Broadberry  and
Mark Harrison
Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
Professor, University of Warwick
Peter Howlett
Affiliation:
Lecturer, London School of Economics
Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
Mark Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

Throughout the war there were two phrases which must have been repeated hundreds of times … ‘Every private interest must be subordinated to the successful prosecution of the war’ and ‘There must be as little interference as possible with the normal channels of trade’ … The real problem was to determine the exact degree of interference with normal trade channels that was necessary for the successful prosecution of the war

(Lloyd, 1924: 259).

Introduction

World War I transformed the British economy in the short run and had a significant impact on growth and development in the long run. In August 1914 there was little appreciation of the sheer scale of the war effort that would be needed to defeat the Central Powers. Similarly, few could imagine the scale of the sacrifice that the country would be called upon to make, in terms of both the number of men lost on the battlefield and the drain on national finances. Some historians have questioned whether the experience can be called a ‘total war’, but from an economic perspective the term is not too misleading, even though the degree of mobilisation in World War II would turn out to be even greater (Chickering and Förster, 2000; Broadberry and Howlett, 2005). As the war lengthened in duration and the war effort expanded, the tension highlighted by Lloyd (1924) between the initial desire to continue with ‘business as usual’ and the need for co-ordinated state intervention came to the fore.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Economics of World War I , pp. 206 - 234
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

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References

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Barro, R. J. (1981), ‘Output Effects of Government Purchases’, Journal of Political Economy 89: 1086–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beveridge, W. H. (1928), British Food Control, London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bogart, E. L. (1920), Direct and Indirect Costs of the Great World War (2nd edition), New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bowley, A. L. (1930), Some Economic Consequences of the Great War, London: Thornton Butterworth.Google Scholar
Broadberry, S. N. (1990), ‘The Emergence of Mass Unemployment: Explaining Macroeconomic Trends during the Trans-World War I Period’, Economic History Review 43: 271–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S. N.(1998), ‘How did the United States and Germany Overtake Britain? A Sectoral Analysis of Comparative Productivity Levels, 1870–1990’, Journal of Economic History 58: 375–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S. N. and Howlett, P. (1998), ‘The United Kingdom: “Victory at All Costs”’, in Harrison, M. (ed.), The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 43–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Capie, F. and Wood, G.(2002), ‘Price Controls in War and Peace: A Marshallian Conclusion’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy 49: 39–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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French, D. (1982), British Economic and Strategic Planning, 1905–1915, London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
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Hardach, G. (1977), The First World War, 1914–1918, Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hatch, F. H. (1919), The Iron and Steel Industry of the United Kingdom under War Conditions: A Record of the Work of the Iron and Steel Production Department of the Ministry of Munitions, London: Harrison and Sons.Google Scholar
Henderson, H. D. (1922), The Cotton Control Board, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hurstfield, J. (1953), The Control of Raw Materials, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Kirby, M. W. (1977), The British Coalmining Industry, 1870–1946: A Political and Economic History, London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkaldy, A. W. (1921), British Finance during and after the War, London: Isaac Pitman and Sons.Google Scholar
Lloyd, E. M. H. (1924), Experiments in State Control, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mallet, B. and George, C. O. (1929), British Budgets, Second Series, 1913/14 to 1920/21, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Matthews, R. C. O., Feinstein, C. H., and Odling-Smee, J. C. (1982), British Economic Growth, 1856–1973, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milward, A. S. (1984), The Economic Effects of the Two World Wars on Britain (2nd edition), London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, B. R. (1988), British Historical Statistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, E. V. (1952), Studies in British Financial Policy, 1914–25, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Mowery, D. (1986), ‘Industrial Research’, in Elbaum, B. and Lazonick, W. (eds.), The Decline of the British Economy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 189–222.Google Scholar
Olson, M. Jr. (1963), The Economics of the Wartime Shortage: A History of British Food Supplies in the Napoleonic War and in World Wars I and II, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Peacock, A. T. and Wiseman, J. (1967), The Growth of Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom (2nd edition), London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Peden, G. C. (1985), British Economic and Social Policy: Lloyd George to Margaret Thatcher, Oxford: Philip Allan.Google Scholar
Pollard, S. (1992), The Development of the British Economy (4th edition): 1914–1990, London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Redmayne, R. A. S. (1923), The British Coal-mining Industry during the War, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Robson, R. (1957), The Cotton Industry in Britain, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Rowntree, S. (1902), Poverty: A Study of Town Life (2nd edition), London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Salter, J. A. (1921) Allied Shipping Control: An Experiment in International Administration, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Sheppard, D. K. (1971), The Growth and Role of UK Financial Institutions, 1880–1962, London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Singleton, J. (1994), ‘The Cotton Industry and the British War Effort, 1914–1918’, Economic History Review 47: 601–18.Google Scholar
Stamp, J. (1932), Taxation during the War, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Supple, B. E. (1987), The History of the British Coal Industry, vol. IV: 1913–1946: The Political Economy of Decline, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Trebilcock, C. (1975), ‘War and the Failure of Industrial Mobilisation: 1899 and 1914’, in Winter, J. M. (ed.), War and Economic Development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 139–64.Google Scholar
Whetham, E. H. (1978), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. VIII: 1914–39, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfe, H. (1923), Labour Supply and Regulation, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Wormell, J. (2000), The Management of the National Debt of the United Kingdom, 1900–32, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wrigley, C. (1982), ‘The Ministry of Munitions: An Innovatory Department’, in Burk, K. (ed.), The War and the State: The Transformation of British Government, 1914–1919, London: George Allen and Unwin, pp. 32–56.Google Scholar
Wrigley, C.(2000), ‘The War and the International Economy’, in Wrigley, C. (ed.), The First World War and the International Economy, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, pp. 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zweiniger-Bargielowska, I. (2000), Austerity in Britain. Rationing, Controls, and Consumption, 1939–1955, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chancellor of the Exchequer (1945), Statistical Material Presented during the Washington Negotiations, Cmd. 6707, London: HMSO.
Ministry of Munitions (1923) [1976], History of the Ministry of Munitions, Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester.
Statistical Abstract of the United Kingdom (various dates), London: HMSO.
War Office, (1922) [1999], Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War, 1914–1920, London: Naval and Military Press.
Ahmed, S. (1986), ‘Temporary and Permanent Government Spending in an Open Economy: Some Evidence for the United Kingdom’, Journal of Monetary Economics 17: 197–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balderston, T. (1989), ‘War Finance and Inflation in Britain and Germany, 1914–1918’, Economic History Review 42: 222–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnett, L. N. (1985), British Food Policy during the First World War, Boston: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Barro, R. J. (1974), ‘Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?’, Journal of Political Economy 82: 1095–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barro, R. J. (1981), ‘Output Effects of Government Purchases’, Journal of Political Economy 89: 1086–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beveridge, W. H. (1928), British Food Control, London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bogart, E. L. (1920), Direct and Indirect Costs of the Great World War (2nd edition), New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bowley, A. L. (1930), Some Economic Consequences of the Great War, London: Thornton Butterworth.Google Scholar
Broadberry, S. N. (1990), ‘The Emergence of Mass Unemployment: Explaining Macroeconomic Trends during the Trans-World War I Period’, Economic History Review 43: 271–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S. N.(1998), ‘How did the United States and Germany Overtake Britain? A Sectoral Analysis of Comparative Productivity Levels, 1870–1990’, Journal of Economic History 58: 375–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S. N. and Howlett, P. (1998), ‘The United Kingdom: “Victory at All Costs”’, in Harrison, M. (ed.), The Economics of World War II: Six Great Powers in International Comparison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 43–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S. N. and Howlett, P.(2005), ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears: British Mobilisation for World War II’, in Chickering, R. and Förster, S. (eds.), A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction, 1939–1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Burk, K. (1985), Britain, America and the Sinews of Power, 1914–1918, Boston: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Burn, D. L. (1940), The Economic History of Steelmaking, 1867–1939: A Study in Competition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burnham, T. H. and Hoskins, G. O. (1943), Iron and Steel in Britain, 1870–1930: A Comparative Study of the Causes which Limited the Economic Development of the British Iron and Steel Industry between the Years 1870 and 1930, London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Capie, F. and Webber, A. (1985), A Monetary History of the United Kingdom, 1870–1982, vol. I: Data, Sources, Methods, London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Capie, F. and Wood, G. (1994), ‘Money in the Economy’, in Floud, R. and McCloskey, D. (eds.), The Economic History of Britain since 1700, vol. III: 1939–1992, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 217–46.Google Scholar
Capie, F. and Wood, G.(2002), ‘Price Controls in War and Peace: A Marshallian Conclusion’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy 49: 39–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chickering, R. and Förster, S. (2000) (eds.), Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914–1918, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewey, P. (1988), ‘The New Economic Warfare and Economic Mobilization’, in Turner, J. (ed.), Britain and the First World War, London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Dowie, J. A. (1975), ‘1919–20 is in Need of Attention’, Economic History Review 28: 429–50.Google Scholar
Fayle, C. E. (1927), The War and the Shipping Industry, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Feinstein, C. H. (1972), National Income, Expenditure and Output of the United Kingdom, 1855–1965, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Feinstein, C. H.(1988), ‘Sources and Methods of Estimation for Domestic Reproducible Fixed Assets, Stocks and Works in Progress, Overseas Assets and Land’, in Feinstein, C. H. and Pollard, S. (eds.), Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom, 1750–1920, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 259–471.Google Scholar
Ferguson, N. (2000), ‘How (Not) to Pay for the War: Traditional Finance and “Total” War’, in Chickering, R. and Förster, S. (eds.), Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 1914–1918, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 409–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, D. (1982), British Economic and Strategic Planning, 1905–1915, London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Goodhart, A. E. (1986), ‘Comment on “The Summer of 1914” ’, in Capie, F. and Wood, G. (eds.), Financial Crises and the World Banking System, London: Macmillan, pp. 117–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardach, G. (1977), The First World War, 1914–1918, Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hatch, F. H. (1919), The Iron and Steel Industry of the United Kingdom under War Conditions: A Record of the Work of the Iron and Steel Production Department of the Ministry of Munitions, London: Harrison and Sons.Google Scholar
Henderson, H. D. (1922), The Cotton Control Board, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hurstfield, J. (1953), The Control of Raw Materials, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Kirby, M. W. (1977), The British Coalmining Industry, 1870–1946: A Political and Economic History, London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkaldy, A. W. (1921), British Finance during and after the War, London: Isaac Pitman and Sons.Google Scholar
Lloyd, E. M. H. (1924), Experiments in State Control, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mallet, B. and George, C. O. (1929), British Budgets, Second Series, 1913/14 to 1920/21, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Matthews, R. C. O., Feinstein, C. H., and Odling-Smee, J. C. (1982), British Economic Growth, 1856–1973, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milward, A. S. (1984), The Economic Effects of the Two World Wars on Britain (2nd edition), London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, B. R. (1988), British Historical Statistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, E. V. (1952), Studies in British Financial Policy, 1914–25, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Mowery, D. (1986), ‘Industrial Research’, in Elbaum, B. and Lazonick, W. (eds.), The Decline of the British Economy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 189–222.Google Scholar
Olson, M. Jr. (1963), The Economics of the Wartime Shortage: A History of British Food Supplies in the Napoleonic War and in World Wars I and II, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Peacock, A. T. and Wiseman, J. (1967), The Growth of Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom (2nd edition), London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Peden, G. C. (1985), British Economic and Social Policy: Lloyd George to Margaret Thatcher, Oxford: Philip Allan.Google Scholar
Pollard, S. (1992), The Development of the British Economy (4th edition): 1914–1990, London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Redmayne, R. A. S. (1923), The British Coal-mining Industry during the War, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Robson, R. (1957), The Cotton Industry in Britain, London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Rowntree, S. (1902), Poverty: A Study of Town Life (2nd edition), London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Salter, J. A. (1921) Allied Shipping Control: An Experiment in International Administration, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Sheppard, D. K. (1971), The Growth and Role of UK Financial Institutions, 1880–1962, London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Singleton, J. (1994), ‘The Cotton Industry and the British War Effort, 1914–1918’, Economic History Review 47: 601–18.Google Scholar
Stamp, J. (1932), Taxation during the War, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Supple, B. E. (1987), The History of the British Coal Industry, vol. IV: 1913–1946: The Political Economy of Decline, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Trebilcock, C. (1975), ‘War and the Failure of Industrial Mobilisation: 1899 and 1914’, in Winter, J. M. (ed.), War and Economic Development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 139–64.Google Scholar
Whetham, E. H. (1978), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. VIII: 1914–39, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfe, H. (1923), Labour Supply and Regulation, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Wormell, J. (2000), The Management of the National Debt of the United Kingdom, 1900–32, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wrigley, C. (1982), ‘The Ministry of Munitions: An Innovatory Department’, in Burk, K. (ed.), The War and the State: The Transformation of British Government, 1914–1919, London: George Allen and Unwin, pp. 32–56.Google Scholar
Wrigley, C.(2000), ‘The War and the International Economy’, in Wrigley, C. (ed.), The First World War and the International Economy, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, pp. 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zweiniger-Bargielowska, I. (2000), Austerity in Britain. Rationing, Controls, and Consumption, 1939–1955, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

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