ABSTRACT

In 1936, the British and French economies appeared as mirror images of one another. Great Britain manages to make a more or less complete recovery from the great depression, while France teetered on the verge of national bankruptcy. Policymakers in London and Paris follow a policy of appeasement to preserve peace by yielding to Hitler's demands in the hope that satisfies Germany which plays a constructive role in international politics. In France Leon Blum hopes that the Tripartite agreement paves the way for a return to free trade, and to end his government unilaterally reduced tariffs and abolished a number of import quotas. A British trade union controls the training of skilled workers and until 1936, they held down the numbers of laborers in order to keep wages high. Nearly a third of France's imports including its vital coal supplies came from Britain and its empire, and more than a third of French trade was carried on British merchant ships.