11. The Great Depression Part 2
The Great Depression of the 1930s revealed to the world as never before the interdependency of the world’s economies upon each other. In the United Kingdom, the epicenter of the largest empire in the history of the world, the depression was initially hard felt, largely due to the loss of trade between the UK and the Americas. As in the United States, the British government initiated programs for the assistance of the particularly hard hit. Unemployment compensation – which came to be called the dole – in the United Kingdom was established and continually tweaked by His Majesty’s government. One of the tweaks was a requirement known as the Means Test, established in 1931 in order to control the amount of money paid as unemployment within the British Isles.
Means tests for unemployment led to protests within the UK, which in turn led to riots. The rise of two major political parties in Europe, Fascism in Italy and Spain and Nazism in Germany, became a concern to the British government, and to a lesser extent the United States. Fear of communism also emerged, exacerbated by the debilitating effects of the global depression. Both the United States and Great Britain embarked on major shipbuilding programs, hoping not only to modernize their aging naval fleets, but also to stimulate shipbuilding, coal, rail, steel, and other industries. By the late 1930s the United States had over fifteen capital ships under construction, the United Kingdom more than two dozen. Still, the depression dragged on.