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‘Waiting for a Miracle to Happen’?: The Economic and Social Policies of the National Governments 1931–1940

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The Politics of Crisis

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Abstract

So wrote J. B. Priestley, the novelist and playwright, after touring England in the autumn of 1933, adding:

I know that doles have been given out, Means Tests applied, training places opened, socks and shirts and old books distributed … the sort of charity you might extend to a drunken old ruffian begging at the back door. I meant something constructive and creative. If the Germans had been threatening these towns instead of Want, Hopelessness, Misery, something would have been done quickly enough.1

Was Jarrow still in England or not? Had we exiled Lancashire and the North East coast? Were we no longer on speaking terms with cotton weavers and miners and platers and riveters? Why had nothing been done about these decaying towns and their workless people? Was everybody waiting for a miracle to happen?

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leeds, UK

    Geoffrey K. Fry (Professor of British Government and Administration)

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© 2001 Geoffrey K. Fry

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Fry, G.K. (2001). ‘Waiting for a Miracle to Happen’?: The Economic and Social Policies of the National Governments 1931–1940. In: The Politics of Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230628113_3

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