ABSTRACT
Britain had been a major trading nation and an important exporter of manufactured goods long before the Industrial Revolution. Countries and governments became less willing to accept the pattern of economic life which international market circumstances dictated. Governments increasingly sought to protect and promote development through tariffs and other barriers to trade and there was less willingness to accept the painful adjustments which the international system occasionally demanded. The First World War brought about a profound change in Britain’s international position. In Europe the crisis helped to bring the Nazis to power in Germany in 1933 and there was widespread financial crisis. The 1930s is an exceptional period in modern British history in the sense that British economic policy came to be dominated by internal rather than external considerations. The National government which succeeded Labour in 1931 combined orthodoxy with innovation and there were important changes in Britain’s external economic relationships.
