ABSTRACT
Changes in the structure of industry have not perhaps been as much before the public eye as those in agriculture; they were nevertheless widespread and in some respects more fundamental. There were first of all changes in the relative importance of individual industries, in their share of the aggregate employment and the G.N.P. That the shrinkage of agricultural employment had for its counterpart a corresponding increase in non-agricultural employments, is, of course, a statistical tautology. Almost equally tautological are the implications of what we already know about old and declining industries and new and rising ones. It will, however, be worth noting how continuous were the resulting changes in employment. In the United Kingdom and in Germany during the war workers were transferred by the million to industries directly engaged in munitions production, mostly those classified in the British census as metal-working, chemical, and electrical. 1 Contrary to all expectations, the pre-war balance of employments was not restored after demobilization, but continued to be heavily weighted in favour of the industries stimulated by the war. This was partly because modern weapons continued to be made on a large scale after the war, and partly because the industries engaged on munitions happened to be those which had grown fast in the inter-war period and were destined to grow fastest after the war.
