ABSTRACT
The industries in which the West Riding's share in the total national employment is greatest are wool, iron and steel smelting and rolling, and tools, implements, and cutlery. The West Riding is one of the ring of areas in the Midlands and North of England which were neither prosperous nor outstandingly depressed in the years before the war. The population of West Yorkshire shortly before the war was about a million and a half, and the insured population in 1936 was 680,000. The war has made no fundamental change in the economic structure of West Yorkshire, though it has caused a temporary disturbance which may in some cases have important permanent results. Employment was maintained in spite of a big increase in mechanization; in 1941 62 per cent of the coal output of West Yorkshire was cut by machine and 49 per cent mechanically conveyed below ground.
