ABSTRACT
“Business as usual,” tempered by prudent aid to distressed industries, proved inadequate in a war without parallel in its demands on the economies of the belligerents. Almost from the first hour of the war Britain was subjected to extraordinary strain, which eventually forced the adoption of a deliberate and consistent policy of State intervention based upon the conception of the whole nation as a single fighting unit. 1 The immensity, and the intensity, of the need was yet to be appreciated, especially by those who looked to the past for guidance, but the hard realities could not be eluded indefinitely. The transition was brought about, not by a clear realization and enunciation of general policy, but by patched-up adaptations and compromises, unco-ordinated and fitful, often directly contrary to proclaimed principles, or at least departing from and evading them.
