After the American War of Independence, the state finance was dire the national debt had risen to £242 million in 1784. Pitt had to think about how to cut expenditures, whilst raising taxes to meet the deficit; this was however unpopular due to losing the war. Also pitt was keen to create a new more efficient system of collecting tax. This was to be the key to his success as Prime Minister and his financial policies revealed his genius. His taxation policies were generally successful, as the amount of tax reaching the treasury had improved dramatically, even doubled.
Britain's national debt doubled during the course of the war and the cost of extended empire cause a dramatic increase in the cost of living. Conflicts arose between the Americans about expanding further past the Ohio Valley and Britain but England did not step in. Some English leaders thought the colonists were inferior and gave them the lowly jobs during the war; they also resented the Americans for their increasing wealth with a rapidly increasing population. Once Britain decided to "intervene more actively in American affairs" disagreement and trouble aroused; the Americans were used to their freedom and were not ready to be dictated by a ruler (97). Due to constant attacks by the Indians and the cost of keeping America under British rule, King George III
6) Hoovervilles were named after Herbert Hoover because he was the president at the time of the great depression. The American people felt like he was to blame for the terrible economy because he raised taxes when he promised that he wouldn't as well as creating the Smoot Hawley tariff which eventually cut America off from foreign trade, tightening the grasp that the depression already had on the U.S. The negative view that the American people had of Hoover was not fair because he put forth more effort than any other president before him to pull America out of a
Balfour’s position as Conservative prime minister after Salisbury’s death in 1902 did not help the Conservative cause. Although he was highly intelligent, Balfour lacked political skills. He was not as sensitive to public opinion as Salisbury, proved indecisive on tariffs and seriously miscalculated the reaction of the working class on key issues. Balfour had piloted the 1902 Education Act through parliament and so incurred the hostility of the nonconformists. He failed to foresee the anger that both the Chinese labour issue and his refusal to reverse Taff Vale would cause amongst British working men.
These boycotts caused the English merchants to lose money and so they turned against King George for provoking the boycotts. Also, King George did not abide by the Magna Carta by taxing the British
Not only did this increase the tension and suspicion between the two countries, but it also caused problems at home, and contributed greatly to the undermining of Bulow’s chancellorship, forcing him to step down in the summer of 1909. This further increased the instability of the government in the Reichstag. Source 1 also makes reference to the Kaisers “reckless quest for colonies”, which highlights the aggressive natures of weltpolitik and economical imperial expansion. However, the expansion of the German empire during this period was actually bloodless, and
They included Jews, anti-Nazi Germans, and the Slavic people. As in 1933, the documents show how the US State Department continued with its restrictive policy on foreigners. This is because the stock market had crashed, there was rising unemployment and everybody felt that the country lacked resources to continue accommodating new immigrants (Abzug 145). Despite this, natives of some American states reflected the growing attitude of anti-Semitism at that time. According to him, as recorded in the New York Times, American anti-Semitism although it had not reached the level of the Nazi Germany, pollsters estimated that they were being unfavorable to them (Abzug 25).
This rapidly increased the population and the government knew that this would cause radical ideas to spread faster amongst the people, therefore threatening the government. This fear of both the French and the Industrial Revolution caused the government to become very repressive in the years 1815 to 1820, forcing Liverpool to introduce policies like Habeas Corpus and the Six Acts which discouraged the people from the idea of revolution. The third reason why Liverpool’s government followed reactionary policies is because of the economic depression after the war. The government was in severe depression after borrowing a lot of money during the war with Napoleon. Therefore, they abolished income tax and introduced indirect tax which took tax directly from items like bread or clothes.
How far do these sources support the view that Labour’s victory in the 1945 General Election was due to the unpopularity of the Conservative Party? Source 1 supports the view of the Conservatives unpopularity, with Reginald Maudling describing how there was ‘a desire for change’ amongst the people of Britain in 1945 and that the Conservative Party had ‘not much to offer those who wished to see change’. This explains that the Conservatives were out of touch with the general mood of the British people. The source goes on to explain how people ‘distinguished between Churchill the War Leader and the Conservative Party as a peacetime Government’. Likewise in source 2, Attlee emphasises how ‘people wanted a positive new policy’ implemented by the next government, ‘not an attempt to go back to the old’.
There were many political reasons which influenced the increase of state control over society, for example the shell scandal. The nature of this total war left Britain unprepared, as it was nothing like expected, which left them ill-equipped in terms of ammunition supplies. The “shell scandal” of 1915 emerged due to a newspaper article suggesting that British troops had a lack of shells and so were unable to make headway. This called for greater control of labour and industrial war production rather than relying on private enterprise and the market economy to determine production, as this was clearly not working. This scandal also led to Asquith setting up a coalition government with the