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army, with troops continuing to serve overseas – occupying Germany, for example. These troops had to be moved, equipped and fed, increasing the demands on both the royal and merchant navies. Finances were another pressing challenge for the British Empire in the 1918–20 moment. The war's price tag was enormous, and war debt abysmal for Britain, the dominions and the Empire at large. 7 The economic situation deteriorated further in the post-war period, with rising unemployment in Britain and other
difficult task, and military demobilisation plans had been conceived with the aim, precisely, of heading off mass unemployment during the transition, an objective which quickly receded as a brief post-war boom gave way to serious recession. Finding employment for the returning men was, undeniably, a huge logistical challenge. Many did return to their pre-war positions, but many would find themselves unemployed. 50 For those who could not return to their pre-war jobs, because they were no longer in a fit mental or physical
linguistic lines during the war. 1918–20: rebirth of the Bonne Entente movement and debates on Quebec independence After the Armistice was signed in 1918, it took another six months for all troops to be demobilised and return home. 26 The Canadian economy had to adjust to the closing of many munitions factories, the demobilisation and therefore unemployment of thousands of soldiers, a volatile situation that led to the famous Winnipeg general strike of May and June 1919
volunteering, and also to its very real disincentives. Most obvious, perhaps, were the perceived financial sacrifices. In practice, most volunteers enjoyed a relatively comfortable lifestyle, but many assumed they would have been financially better off staying at home. At a time of low unemployment across Australia, Britain and the United States, most young people were assured of good jobs. Potential applicants feared that
companionship and camaraderie of their army battalion, they would be more likely to move. 31 The same year Major Henry Forrester submitted plans for a migration scheme to the Dominions Office. Anticipating concerns that large-scale emigration would take away the workforce needed for rebuilding in the United Kingdom, Forester argued that migration to the ‘under populated’ Dominions would address unemployment in Britain and the inevitable financial crisis as the United Kingdom repaid money borrowed for the war effort. At the
decline, despite relative prosperity, rising living standards and low unemployment. 9 A sociological study of 200 migrants arriving in Durban from the United Kingdom in 1967 found that they ‘often expressed a general disgust with the United Kingdom’. This was often connected to racism: ‘One said that a Pakistani family had come to live next door to them … Some … disliked the race policies of the United Kingdom … They said that social security was given to people who did not want to work, such as Pakistanis and West Indians and
vital part of the process – it was decided to shift his doctoral research project to Wales. The whole framework for Frankenberg’s project – right down to the title of ‘Unemployment and Family Structure’ – was shifted to Glyn Ceiriog in North Wales. 17 The anthropological methodology of participant observation was based on an extended period of residence in the
arranged for similar materials to be circulated by the High Commissions in the Caribbean including posters made by the Ministry of Labour warning of unemployment, cold weather, difficulty finding housing, unexpected expenses and even the duty on importing rum and cigarettes. 14 By the mid 1950s, more overt restriction on immigration were debated by the Churchill government. This was partly precipitated by the increase in migrants from the West Indies to Britain in the early 1950s as more affordable passages became available and
demands for state aid were rejected by the Commons Select Committee on Colonisation which sat from 1889 to 1891. 2 However, after 1900 the economies of the self-governing dominions, especially Canada, Australia and New Zealand, expanded dramatically while the United Kingdom continued to experience cyclical unemployment problems and social unrest. Dominion governments and British
-century ‘golden age’ and its associated system of Keynesian demand management and regulation of the international economy foundered. This resulted from the fact that the advanced capitalist world faced mounting problems of falling profitability and, albeit with some time lags, ‘severe reductions in the growth of output, of productivity, and of real wages, as well as sharply higher rates of unemployment and much more severe recessions’. These problems, and especially the acute and unusual one of stagflation (high prices combined