Trends

Abstract

Several chapters in Part Two indicated that, as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, the British economy, in spite of continued expansion, was running into some difficulties. Many of these stemmed from the tendency, in the development of the later nineteenth century, to concentrate industrial production on industries the demand for whose products was no longer growing as fast as formerly it had. Partly the trouble was also caused by the emergence of powerful industrial competitors overseas benefiting from a willingness and ability to throw resources into newer industries with more rapidly expanding markets, but threatening British producers in the older industries by cheaper production as well.