ABSTRACT
The problems of the pre-war decade in Great Britain, 1905–1914, were not born with the century, nor were they the Frankenstein-like creation of any political party. Implicit in a world-wide industrial revolution, spelled out by the rise of formidable rivals, the conditions of economic progress upon which rested the “classical” British civilization of the Victorian age seemed likely to disappear with Nineveh and Tyre. Many viewed the economic horizon with alarm. It seemed that the sunset was nearer than the sunrise, that senility pressed uncomfortably close upon maturity. There was no absolute decline in British trade and prosperity, indeed both were increasing; but many professed to read the handwriting on the wall by pointing to the inexorable fact that the rate of growth of British trade and industry had slackened, as contrasted with the acceleration so evident in other countries, particularly in Germany and in the United States.
