ABSTRACT
The number of workers insured rose between 1923 and 1937 by 2 per cent, as against 22 per cent in Great Britain. Wales was the only one of the Ministry of Labour's nine Divisions in Great Britain in which the number of insured workers actually in employment was smaller in 1937 than in 1923. The general deterioration of economic conditions all over Great Britain during the 'thirties stopped the tide of emigration from North and Central Wales as a whole. The North Wales Survey area had in 1938 a population of rather more than half a million, concentrated largely in the East and North. The eastern valleys of Monmouthshire, on the outer edge of the mining valleys, had in 1936 a greater variety of industries than the valleys of the central block. The other general consideration is that Wales is primarily a national, not an economic, unit, and that economic policies should be framed in the light of this fact.
