Gold Standard
Further information: Gold StandardFrom about 1921, Britain had started a slow economic recovery from the war and the subsequent slump. But in April 1925, the Conservative Chancellor, Winston Churchill, on advice from the Bank of England, restored the Pound Sterling to the gold standard at its prewar exchange rate of $4.86 US dollars to one pound. This made the pound convertible to its value in gold, but at a level that made British exports more expensive on world markets. The economic recovery was immediately slowed. To offset the effects of the high exchange rate, the export industries tried to cut costs by lowering workers' wages.
The industrial areas spent the rest of the 1920s in recession, and these industries received little investment or modernisation. Throughout the 1920s, unemployment stayed at a steady one million.
Read more about this topic: Great Depression In The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the words gold standard, gold and/or standard:
“Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the labor interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”
—Administration in the State of Neva, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“You are as gold
as the half-ripe grain
that merges to gold again.
as white as the white rain....”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“This unlettered man’s speaking and writing are standard English. Some words and phrases deemed vulgarisms and Americanisms before, he has made standard American; such as “It will pay.” It suggests that the one great rule of composition—and if I were a professor of rhetoric I should insist on this—is, to speak the truth. This first, this second, this third; pebbles in your mouth or not. This demands earnestness and manhood chiefly.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)