Structural Changes in the 1920s

Abstract

Recently there has been debate about the significance of the changes which have been taking place since the 1914–18 War in the structure of British industry, and which have affected both the relative importance of the various trades and their regional distribution. It is claimed that the old staple industries are in some measure giving place to a number of newer manufactures, and that there is a marked tendency for this country to become concerned mainly with finishing processes rather than as in the nineteenth century with all the stages of manufacture, particularly in the metal group. It may not be out of place, therefore, to look back into the immediate past to see if, in the light of this theory, the origins of any such transformation can be discerned; for it is necessary at the outset to satisfy oneself that the depression in the staple industries, accompanied as it is by great activity in others, is not merely the result of the disproportionate increase in the productive capacity of the former which occurred during the War. The question is, in fact, whether there are grounds for supposing that the present period is really one of transformation and not merely of readjustment. A fruitful method of inquiry into this problem is to examine the recent trend of events in particular industrial areas, and the history of the West Midland District, which may be regarded as including not only Birmingham and the manufacturing towns of Warwickshire, bur also the whole of the Black Country, provides some very valuable indications of the existence of new industrial tendencies.

First published in The Nation and Athenaeum (26 February 1927) under the title of ‘Industrial Changes in the Midlands’.