ABSTRACT
As pointed out in previous chapters, all major factors contributing to the depression can be traced back to the United States of America: the handling of war debts, the sterilisation of gold, a deflationary monetary policy after an expansionist period, protectionism and the overproduction of wheat. All these factors were due to long term developments, but they were accentuated by the sudden crash of the stock market in October 1929 which undermined the world credit system and thus was the proximate cause of the depression. Before turning to the impact of the depression on other countries we must first analyse its origin in America. All other countries imported the depression. But, of course, they also had their indigenous problems which were magnified by it.
