ABSTRACT
World War I marked the end of the old Britain, the beginning of the new. The war brought terrible loss and suffering, but also a greater degree of democracy, reforms in education and housing, and a generally more egalitarian society. It is difficult to estimate the precise role of World War I in Britain's post-1920 level of unemployment. The war also hastened trends unfavourable to Britain which had been developing for some time earlier, and contributed to the failure of exports to recover fully after 1918. In the crisis years of 1931-2 Britain came off the gold standard, and in common with other countries devalued the currency and resorted to more complete measures of protection against imports. Economic historians have spent many years and much ink in debating the turning point at which Britain's pace of growth began to falter and decline.
