This was because there was a commonly held belief that the deprived were responsible for there poor living conditions, as they did not work hard enough – like the upper-class did, some would argue. Yet, the Liberals did pass reforms between 1906 and 1914 in order to tackle this problem. For example, the Old Age Pension Act of 1908 and Education (Provision of Meals) Act of 1906. Two social surveys were published during this time, that not only shocked the British public but changed popular opinion on the causes of poverty. They helped pave the way for a whole range of Government-led welfare reforms.
By 1946, unemployment was reduced to 2.5% and this was in spite of huge post war problems such as shortages of raw materials and massive war debts. One way in which the government kept almost full employment was through nationalisation where the government took control of certain industries such as iron and steel production. Under this managed economy the government could use tax to keep an industry afloat even if it faced economic difficulties. This is a controversial topic as it was unclear how significant nationalisation was in creating jobs. Above all the Marshall plan was created as an initiative to provide massive loans for post war reconstruction and both the unemployment benefit and the massive rebuilding programme helped relieve idleness.
This informed liberals that the ‘welfare’ that the poor law provided, was not working. It could be said that this led to the introduction of reform acts in order to tackle the poverty felt by the young and the old. The Old Age Pensions Act was introduced in 1908 and provided the over 70’s with income to tackle their poverty. It was far more dignified than the provisions provided to the elderly prior to this as, unlike the poor law, it provided no shame to the people. One of the Acts passed to aid children was the Administrative Provision Act which appealed to the idea of National efficiency.
Collectivisation was introduced by Mao in 1958, in 1958 production rate of food was at 200 million tonnes, but by 1960 the production rate had fallen to 143.5 million. Within 2 years one of Mao’s own policies had caused a fall in production rate of 56.5 million. Despite the figures Mao insisted that many peasants were growing more food than necessary and keeping some for themselves, Mao accused the peasants of being ‘inherently capitalist’ and that they were against being a part of a communist state. The policy of collectivisation contributed hugely to the scale of the famine; the peasants resented the change as they didn’t have enough land to farm their crops, on top of this the authorities believed that they needed to be ‘strictly controlled and directed’. This attitude towards the peasants amplified the issues of collectivisation and caused scale of the famine to worsen.
The American economy was in a strong state before the war broke out. Due to its neutrality, the USA continued trade with Europe despite the war. In 1913 the value of American trade was about $2 billion, but by 1916 it had risen to almost $6 billion. By late 1916, Great Allied trade was initially financed by the sale of some of the extensive assets that the British held in the USA, but by 1915 Great Britain relied heavily on loans raised in New York. New York rather than London became the world’s financial capital.
How successful were the Liberal Reforms? 1. Intro – SEAF Start Date – Explain that in 1906 attitudes to poverty and social reform were largely still those of self-help and laissez-faire. However, attitudes were changing - largely due to surveys of Booth and Rowntree. End Date – The Liberals had no great plan to introduce reforms when they won the 1906 election, but between 1906 and 1914 introduced a series of social reforms.
Because of the large amounts of profit they were making, they ended up buying more land and equipment on credit. However, when the war ended, the economy was disastrous once again, with farmers having to default onto this credit as a result of a lower amount of profit they were making. To fix these economic problems, Harding implemented a number of economic policies. The Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, passed the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act was passed, which allowed Harding to raise any tariff by 50%. The act also emplaced the Tariff of 1922.
The Old Poor Law of 1834 was reformed because it could not cope due to the large numbers of people claiming poor relief. This was due to population rise, commercialisation of farming which left people with no jobs, decline of agricultural crafts, harvest failures, food shortages due to war, higher food prices and change in attitude to claiming social welfare as there was no stigma attached to being poor anymore. This led to different measures such as the introduction of the Speenhamland system of 1795. Having investigated the reasons for the reformation of the Poor Law, we will now focus on the reasons that led to the reform. There were six main reasons that led to the old Poor Law Reform to easily pass which were: a willing government, Tories were a minority, Climate change, objectors were not listened to, and a Report based on evidence collected by the commission of enquiry.
John majors government came into office after the downfall of Margret Thatcher, which ultimately created divisions within the party. Not only did the party suffer from the internal conflict but also faced the problems of the recession after the ‘Lawson boom’. In order to stabilise the economy he joined the ERM getting a good deal but ultimately resulting in ‘black Wednesday’ causing Major to raise interest rates to 15%. This was political suicide and he soon lost the support of the press we had once relied so much on to get re-elected in 1992. The housing market also plummeted leading to negative equity, which the majority of the working class could not afford resulting in the repossession of their houses combined with the drastic increase in unemployment Britain was in a mess.
Voter participation was plummeting due to the new poll taxes and literacy tests that were keeping the poor out of the voting booth. The progressive movement was an attempt to control the government through reform and provide protection to all classes’ welfare. Reform was not limited to the middle and lower classes; there were some upper class such as Alexander Cassatt, who was in charge of the Pennsylvania Railroad, that were supporters of regulation and political