Europe in an Age of Dictatorship, 1919–39565ever, experienced 30 percent jobless rates; the Dutch
lived with unemployment averaging 31.7 percent for
seven years (1932–38).
The Great Depression tested the Western world’s
belief in liberal-democratic government and capitalist
economics. Many countries abandoned democracy in
favor of authoritarian leadership; many surviving
democracies (such as France and the United States)
found that they must provide their citizens with signifi-
cantly higher levels of welfare benefits. All countries
(including Britain, France, and the United States) aban-
doned some classic precepts of market capitalism, such
as free trade; many adopted the eighteenth-century
economics of autarchy (self-sufficiency).
Britain illustrates the severity of the crisis. The Na-
tional Insurance Act of 1911 gave Britain the largest
unemployment insurance program in Europe, but it
covered fewer than two-thirds of British workers and
provided only fifteen weeks of benefits. (German unem-
ployment legislation, by comparison, covered less than
half of the labor force.) When unemployment in old in-
dustrial centers reached horrendous proportions, as it
did in the Welsh coal-mining town of Merthyr Tydfil
(62 percent in 1934) and the English shipbuilding town
of Jarrow (68 percent in 1934), such insurance was in-
sufficient. A National Coalition government of all major
parties (1931–35) adopted drastic measures. They aban-
doned the gold standard, devalued the pound by nearly
30 percent, adopted protective tariffs (including a new
Corn Law in 1932), cut the wages of government em-
ployees (such as teachers and soldiers), and reduced un-
employment benefits.
This produced a volatile situation in Britain. Riots
in London, Liverpool, and Glasgow greeted the an-
nounced economies in 1931. Part of the royal navy mu-
tinied. The crime rate soared. (The burglary rate for
stores and shops in 1938 was 556 percent of the rate in
1900.) The unemployed marched on Parliament—one
protest was known as the Jarrow Marches because
much of that town marched to London in 1936 when
unemployment there hit 96 percent, closing virtually
every store in the town. British democracy survived, but
not without enduring the birth of fascist and racist
movements such as Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union
of Fascists.
The French Third Republic came even closer to col-
lapsing. French unemployment quintupled in 1932 and
passed 1.3 million in early 1933. The government, long
considered unstable, became a series of short-lived cabi-
nets: four different cabinets in 1930, three in 1931, five
in 1932, four in 1933, and four in 1934. As one wit ob-
served, tourists went to London to see the changing of
the guard and to Paris to see the changing of the gov-
ernment. The Stavisky affair of 1933–34 showed that
the French government was as corrupt as it was ineffec-
tual. This scandal began when Alexandre Stavisky, a
Ukrainian-born swindler, confessed to selling fraudulent
bonds with the assistance of prominent politicians.Percentage of labor force unemployed
Year United States Britain Germany Netherlands
193 07.8 14.6 15.3 9.7
1931 16.3 21.5 23.3 18.1
1932 24.9 22.5 30.1 29.5
1933 25.1 21.3 26.3 31.0
1934 20.2 17.7 14.9 32.1
1935 18.4 16.4 11.6 36.3
1936 14.5 14.3 8.3 36.3
1937 12. 011.3 4.6 29.2
1938 18.8 13.3 2.1 27.2
1939 16.7 11.7 n.a. 21.8
Source: Annuaire statistique de la Société des Nations, 1939–1940(Geneva: League of Nations, 1940), pp. 70–71.
n.a. not availableTABLE 28.3Unemployment During the Great Depression, 1930–39