The Causes And Consequences Of The General Strike In 1926

The Causes And Consequences Of The General Strike In 1926

For a brief period after the First World War, Britain faced an

economic boom. Workers were in a strong position and businesses were

optimistic, believing that world demand for British goods would

increase and trading would return to the success it had prior to the

war. However, in 1920, Britain experienced their worst economic slump

in history. This was caused by a poor performance in foreign markets

due to the lack of reinvestment, modernisation in British industry and

increased competition abroad, especially from the USA and Germany.

In response to this slump, the Government tried to stabilise the

British economy by reintroducing the Gold Standar. Unfortunately they

overestimated the value of currency by 10%, increasing the problems of

an already unstable British industry. The British mining industry

suffered an economic crisis in 1925. This was largely caused by the

fall in prices resulting from the import of free coal from Germany as

reparations in the aftermath of World War I. The loss of foreign

markets and the fall of world commodity prices and the decline in the

competitiveness of British coal in foreign markets due to the Gold

Standard led to poor relations between mine owners and mine workers.

When productivity fell in the mines due to lack of modernisation and

reinvestment, mine owners responded by proposing a reduction in wages

and an increase of hours.

Coal mining had always been a very dangerous job. In the three years

from 1922 to 1924, 597,194 miners were injured. Although coal mining

created huge profits, workers received very low wages, and the

conditi...

... middle of paper ...

...-operate and

to compromise after the dispute.

The end of World War One was the most important cause leading up to

the General Strike. All of the causes were important, however during

World War One a lot of people had new jobs that they hadn't had

before, and when the war was over a lot of these jobs were not needed

anymore and a lot of people lost jobs and lost money. Another main

cause of the General Strike were the reduction of the miner's wages,

wage reductions reduced the total morale of all the workers and caused

them to feel bitter towards the people they worked for. The

combination of the economic crisis, a crippled coal industry and a

poor government response led to the General Strike of 1926. British

industry at that time was poor and the government should have reacted

better to the needs of the workers.