ABSTRACT
Development in all the south-eastern counties has in the past been to some extent bound up with the development of Greater London, or is likely to be bound up with it in future. In Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, and Buckinghamshire unemployment was consistently the level even of London and the South-east, and in some districts there was a definite shortage of workers. Hertfordshire is a typical example—possibly the most typical—of an area dependent on the prosperous mixed light industries which grew up in the South-east as a result of developments in the 'twenties and 'thirties. In 1923 the number of insured workers in the Luton exchange area was 23,000, of whom 69 per cent were engaged in four industries—hat manufacturing, general engineering, the motor, cycle, and aircraft group, and iron founding. The main industry of Southampton before the war was commercial shipping, with its allied services of ship repairing and dock and harbour service.
