 Hello. Welcome to the third lecture, England Between the War. England after World War I, the Great War, saw itself as a nation in need of change. It looked at the way things had been going, and the result of the First War taught them some serious lessons about themselves and their society. And many British politicians and many British people in general began calling for change. We'll look at England Between the Wars in this lecture between 1918 and 1938. During this period, England actually saw some economic increases. The cost of labor went up, and so the standard of living increased. And largely this was due to the fact that a lot of men had gone off during the war and many of them did not return. Also, the currency went up, and so you could buy more. There was more inflation because of leaving the gold standard during the war. And unemployment did increase, especially after the war years, and it was almost a double the pre-war rate. During this period, the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, formed a coalition government. And after the war, they were built on restructuring the country. They wanted to expand the military. They didn't want to get caught short again. And he also wanted homes fit for heroes, so he did this building program to build more homes. This resulted in more government costs. He also had to deal at the same time with Irish Nassfieldism that they had put off during the war years. The so-called coupon election because members of parliament who were elected had letters of support, these so-called coupons in December of 1918. And also, they wanted representation of the People's Act of 1918 to better represent the English voters. So, property women over 30 were allowed to vote, and all men were given the right to vote. You see this shift in power in England's ruling in parliament from liberal to more conservative to labor parties. And so Ramsey MacDonald is elected a few times, but also look at how many times Stanley Baldwin is in power. And you see there are pictures over the right at the top, Bonner Law, then Stanley Baldwin, then Ramsey MacDonald. And then it goes back to MacDonald again, and then it goes back to Baldwin again. And finally, you have right before the war, the Second World War, Neville Chamberlain. So you do see a shift in power in parliament. Some of the issues that working people faced, the labor issues, in 1919 there was a national industrial conference which did propose a 40-hour work week, and this was actually less than it was before the war. So people were still working long hours, and they had proposed job assistance for those who were unemployed, but it was not a popular move. In 1921, the miners went on strike, and you hear some of this in the film that you've seen, Love on the Dole, that the miners had been going on strike, and there were some problems. They wanted a six-hour day, and they called for a nationalization government ownership of the mines. The government had controlled the mines during the war, but then it went back into private hands. And they also were hoping for support, the miners were hoping for support from transportation and railway workers. However, this failed to militarize and the so-called Black Friday when the strike was set to begin, and so people wondered why well, because miners were actually paid pretty well, even though they were the ones who wanted to go on strike. They actually were some of the best paid workers in England at the time, and so they didn't get the support that they had hoped for. For 10 days from May the 3rd to the 13th of 1926, there was a general strike, and here other trade unions agreed to support the workers. The trade unions, Congress, agreed to support the workers over some wage cuts that they were facing. However, the employers were bringing in German competition. There was also a return to the gold standard. So in both of these, it hurt the workers, wages were cut, hours were increased, so you had to work more and you got less. And the miners' Federation of Great Britain, their slogan was not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day. And this resulted in Red Friday on a strike. The government paid owners a nine-month subsidy, so they're paying the mine owners a subsidy for nine months. And in 1926, the Samuel Commission, this was a parliamentary committee, said that miners should accept wage cuts. And then there was a general strike, and the government reacted to this. King George V said, you know, you should try living on their wages before you judge them. So the king was actually kind of sympathetic for them. And in 1927, you had the Trade Disputes Act. Parliament passed a law making striking with other strikers illegal, these sympathetic strikes were considered illegal. Let's move on to Ireland and some of the problems that were going on over nationalization. I mentioned last time the 1916 Easter Rising, and there were rebellions, and it was repressed quickly and brutally. In 1918, there was a general election, Sinn Fein, the Irish Nationalist Party, won 73 of Ireland's 105 seats. So the British reaction and the British repression led to increased nationalism in Ireland. In 1919, 1921, there was the Irish War for Independence. The Dolly, which was their parliament, was proclaimed the government of Ireland. And Great Britain, England sent the Black and Tan, so-called Black and Tan Army, to support the Royal Irish Constabulary. And they were low throughout much of the south of Ireland. Ireland is divided. You have the Protestant countries in the north, and you have Catholic countries in the south. And the north tends to favor more unity with Great Britain. A lot of them are British subjects, whereas the Irish in the south see themselves as being Irish. And so you do have the passage of the Government of Ireland Act, which does divide Ireland along these boundaries. And in 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty ended the war. There was a civil war, however, internally, with the Irish National Army and the IRA on opposite sides of supporting the treaty. As far as British nationalism was concerned, there was a movement away from regionalism, an increased transportation or improved transportation, at least. There was improved communications, improved disposable income. So more people had more money to spend. They were looking for weekends away, and so they needed the transportation. They wanted the news service. They wanted newspapers. They wanted comics. They wanted more leisure and recreation as a result. And so you have the mythos of this pre-war rural good old days. So Richard Wright, in his article on the intelligentsia and the state, looks at the development of a pro-British nationalism that fed into this.