ABSTRACT
A more positive but more debatable argument is that the inter-war period saw the rapid growth of 'new industries', such as vehicle production, chemicals and electrical engineering and that these together constituted a 'development block' which was such as to lift the economy on to a new growth path. Motor vehicles and the production of electrical goods also did well compared with the pre-war period. From the mid-1970s, the experience of most manufacturing industries and construction was very different. Important though the shifts in fuel supply and use have been, a change of greater importance to manufacturing industry has been the trend towards greater capital intensity in production. The grain farmers' seventy years of depression had ended, and their new prosperity was underpinned by the Agriculture Act of 1947, which maintained the price-support system. The structure of service industry growth reinforced the problems of the old industrial regions.
