ABSTRACT
In the summer of 1931 the depression deepened into a great financial crisis, a crisis from whose disruptive effects the whole world is still suffering and is likely long to suffer. To understand this event and its consequences it is necessary to devote some attention to the peculiar economic circumstances of Great Britain. Great Britain is the storm-centre of this phase of the depression. At the outbreak of the post-war, Great Britain, in common with all the other belligerent countries, abandoned the Gold Standard. The trade union percentage of unemployed in Great Britain only exceeded the lowest point of post-war unemployment twice during the fifty years. The inflexibility of the wage-level, the drain on the Government finances of the colossal expenditure on unemployment relief, the incessant propaganda for cheap money. Englishmen travelling on the Continent in those years speedily became aware that, from the European point of view, these were the conspicuous features of the economic position of Great Britain.
