DEPRESSION
There are similarities and differences in the strategies that the four nations use to predict a solution the depression. As a result of the depression two kinds of government emerged. In the United States and Great Britain it continued to be a liberal democracy and in Germany and Japan an authoritarian government prevailed. Great Britain, once the industrial leader had approximately two million unemployed people, with prices falling and a national deficit of one hundred and seventy million pounds plus a thirty-five million pounds in payment to the United states for support in World war I. Prime Minister Ramsey MacDonald and his government, a group called the "National Coalition Government of Conservatives, Labourites and Liberals", stated several ideas which together would cause a solution to the falling financial and industrial markets. Great Britain first off closed their market from others, forcing the people to purchase their products rather than ones from other countries. Great Britain thought that if they could the costs of productions were reduced then more people would be willing to buy more and subsequently restart the markets purchasing cycle. Prime Minister Macdonald stated this in his speech on February 12, 1931, "To
combat hard times, British leaders were forced to keep wages down (this made exports cheaper but precipitated the General strike of 1926) and to raise interest rates (this restored value to the British pound, but choked off borrowing)." MacDonald suggested public works for temporary relief for unemployment. This was just a start, as the goal was to return the labour back into its normal industry. Other options, which were thought of, as a problem, which if solved, would alleviate some of the problem brought on by the depression were to clean up the slums of the cities. If people were off the streets and their quality of life increased the burden of the depression would be lightened. "The problem to be tackle is the provision of public works of a temporary character, the opening up of the land to the people of the country, giving them rights upon the soil and, finally, giving to industry vigilance, activity and adventure to enable it to carry on its production and back up this production by marketing." The prospect of new industrial cities and new industries would be encouraging for the nation as the problems of overcrowded slums, unemployment and cheap prices would likely take a turn around form the negative down-spin of the past few years. In the United States, similar problems existed, President Franklin Roosevelt initiated a program in which he stated: "...all the energies of government and business must be directed to increasing the national income, to putting more people into private jobs, to giving security and a feeling of security to all walks of life. " Unemployment was a major concern, as unemployment rates reached as high as 24.9%, the need for finding jobs for its people was abundantly clear. The United States takes a stand against the problems for which it believes was the cause of all this suffering. The poverty level was astonishingly high; the United States undertook a three million-dollar slum-clearing project, by helping to provide new work over existing work. President Roosevelt firmly incorporated a new public works program. The goal of this was to provide to short term work to many and to improve the quality of the states and its cities. One of the reasons blamed for the depression was overproduction. President Roosevelt described in his speech the p
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Approximate Word count = 1543
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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