Sir William said that during the last ten years the trade cycle had shown a striking disregard for the actions and attitudes of Governments. l. In 1931 and 1932 Great Britain, the l. United States, and Sweden were alike -|in depression. All three had changes of Government. The directions of change differed widely, yet all three recovered and prospered for several years, and now each, with its type of government unchanged, was entering a new depression. It would hardly be possible to find a stronger illustration of the apparent impotence of Governments in face of the trade cycle as long as they did not abolish the economic system altogether.
The trade cycle appeared to be a phenomenon so deeply rooted that Governments which wished to affect the swing of it must be prepared to take far more drastic measures than had yet been attempted in Great Britain, Sweden, or the United States. Till they were prepared for such measures it would be prudent for them not to take all the credit for recovery which might occur during their terms of office. If they did make such claim they could hardly avoid the blame for ensuing depression.
The ninety-four industries on which Sir William based his figures included all except public works and people engaged in national or local government service and those in the extremely minor industries which have no separate classification in Ministry of Labour figures.
The special circumstances of the depression of 1929 to 1936 for which he had to allow were (1) the structural dislocation of the coal, textile, and tinplates industries, caused probably by the aftermath of the war rather than by the war itself; (2) the difficulties of the export trade caused by the return to the gold standard and the sudden fillip given to those trades by the departure, from it; (3) the stimulus given to the building and other constructional industries by the reduction of interest on War Loan in 1982; and (4) the armament programme In the last depression every industry that was not mainly an exporting industry reached its depression before 1932. Large exporting industries fell off heavily in 1930 and in many cases began to recover before the departure from the gold standard, presumably because of the forced readjustment of the conditions of internation-
[al trade.
The lead in recovery was taken by textiles and the manufacture of metals, while the engineering and constructional trades showed a lag.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.