ABSTRACT
The Conservative Party was, from 1931 onwards, in an enviable position. Under Baldwin's leadership it had defeated the trade union movement in 1926 and annihilated the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1931. The last political inconveniences having been eliminated, the Conservative-controlled National Government was thus, from the autumn of 1932 onwards, in uninterrupted command of the nation's affairs until the spring of 1940. Subject always to the criticism that it was distinguished by a stony indifference to human suffering, the National Government's domestic policy from 1931 to 1939 was often less orthodox than the record of Conservatism in the 1920's might have suggested. Britain's slow recovery during the thirties took place without, for example, a co-ordinated effort to deal with the basic problem of the declining older industries. Policy towards the export trade well illustrates the confusion of the Government's actions and its achievement of only partial success.
