In 1933 there were still two and a half million people unemployed, so the Royal Commission investigated into unemployment. This led to the 1934 Unemployment Act and the Unemployment Assistance Board was set up, and the household means test was introduced. The means test was a method of administering unemployment benefit by determining a family’s income and assets wealth and depending on the size of the family, to see how much money they would receive if any. This method of testing was seen as undemocratic, as it denied people the chance of receiving benefits who needed them to maintain a basic standard of living. However, this was the best method the Government could employ at the current point in time due to the vastness of the problem. but this did not cause people to look to the new radical parties, but they instead continued to look to the existing parties. They wanted existing parties to change legislation to improve their situation by allowing people benefits according to a families income, not their current assets.
In 1935 the Government introduced the special areas act in order to help to try improve some of the worst affected areas by poverty, however this was only done in such small areas, it did not really affect many people. Also the National Government was re-elected at the 1935 General Election under Baldwin. The following year, Keynes published his ‘General Theory’ on how the economy should constructed, how this was rejected by the Government, who opted for the Conservative approach of letting it sort it’s self. That same year, after the appeasement of Germany and the Nazis, the every growing threat of Hitler was becoming too great, so the National Government began British rearmament, which put £1.5 billion back into our economy as a way of trying to improve it and too prepare for conflict that seemed inevitable. Historian D.N. Dilks wrote about appeasement that;
"The word in its normal meaning connotes the pacific settlement of disputes; in the meaning usually applied to the period of Chamberlain's premiership, it has come to indicate something sinister, the granting from fear or cowardice of unwarranted concessions in order to buy temporary peace at someone else's expense".8
The National Government also had to deal with the Abdication Crisis of 1936, by where King Edward wanted to marry a woman who was seen unfit to be married into the royal family due to suspicious links with Nazis and apparently for having several lovers, so the British Government gave the King no choice but to abdicate if chose 2 marry Miss Simpson. Now this could be taken as undemocratic as the King’s freewill should allow him to marry who he chooses, how this was in the act of the countries best interest, as it was suspected Miss. Simpson may try to pass on valuable secrets of Britain.
All these decisions taken by the National Government helped strengthen British Democracy, and the people’s support of their Government, even though they had not actually elected them. The biggest threat to Britain’s democracy was the rise of extremist parties due to the influence of what was happening with the increase of fascism in Germany with the Nazis and Hitler, fascism in Italy with Mussolini, and the beginning of communism in Russia. People had seen how these extremes had helped the respecting countries, and some believed it would work here as well.
After Oswald Mosley’s failure to gain any seats for his New Party at the 1931 General Election, he founded the British Union of Fascists (B.U.F.) wad formed on the 1st of October 1932, with quite some support, especially from the press, in particular the Daily Mail. By mid 1940’s, support for the B.U.F. had grown to 50,000, and it seemed as though the fascist movement was on its way. The same year, at a B.U.F. political rally at Olympia, Moseley was giving a speech to 10,000 people. However, as 2,000 of the tickets were given away, it allowed opposition to the Blackshirts, such as the communists, other left wing parties and Jewish organisations, to infiltrate the speech, and disrupt it using violence with weapons, injuring many Blackshirt supporters. Sir Leonard Lyle, a former Tory MP, wrote in the press on June 13;
"I think it is only fair to place on record the fact that in no case did I see or hear any violence on the part of the Blackshirts; on the other hand, police were assaulted and at least one mounted officer was unhorsed by organised gangs of Reds ... and people like myself, who had come, in many cases with our wives to listen, were impeded and insulted in every case by violent Red agitators. I do not happen to be a supporter of Sir Oswald Mosley but I went to hear him. I was not allowed to do so, owing to the violence and wrecking methods adopted by the people who are now defended by the Conservative members of the National Government”.6
This proves that the National Government did nothing to condemn, nor prosecute these offenders, and at the time, prevented to provide enough police to cover the event. As the National Government was opposed to this extremism, and maybe even feared it, it received no sympathy from the majority of newspapers, as they were mostly Conservative, so this gained them no support, and the loss of Lord Rothermere’s support did not help their cause any further, and strengthened the position of the National Governments democracy.
Due to internal and financial problems, membership in 1935 fell to just 5,000 for the B.U.F., whilst Communist membership began to rise at the same time. The National Government was also re-elected at that time winning 432 seats, and Baldwin became Prime Minister. In 1936 the B.U.F. changes it’s tactics with the Cable Street March that took place on Sunday October 4, 1936 in Cable Street in the East End of London. It ended up a clash between the police, overseeing a lawful march by the British Union of Fascists, on one side and anti-fascists including local Jewish, socialist, and communist groups on the other. The majority of all groups into the area for the purpose of causing a riot. In spite of the East End at that time having a large Jewish population, and the anti-Semitic nature of the B.U.F., the government refused to ban the march. The anti-fascist groups tried to create roadblocks in an attempt to prevent the march from taking place. Although the police made an effort to clear the road to allow the march to proceed, after a number of skirmishing battles between the police and anti-fascist demonstrators, the march did not take place, and the B.U.F. marchers were dispersed towards Hyde Park instead. This seems as a ploy by the National Government to get the two extreme parties of the spectrum to fight amongst themselves, in order to concentrate their attention on each other, rather than the Government, allowing them to keep their democratic power in tact, by diminishing the power of the extremist parties and reducing the threat of a loss of democracy.
In 1936 came one of important acts made by the National Government. The Public Order Act passed banned the wearing of any political uniforms, which included the familiar armbands of the extremists, and it also gave police extra powers to disband marches and meeting as they saw fit to do so. However, Mosley’s new tactics had got membership up to 15,000, but this was still not enough to gain any real power. By the time of the 1939 General Election, the B.U.F only had 22,000 members, which is far off the needed support to win power, but they still stood 80 candidates up for the election, of which none were successful. People did not wish to support the B.U.F. due to what was happening with Hitler and the Nazis, and that the National Government was dealing with the problems it faced well enough.
The communist party, at the time of the General Election, had 18,000 members, however it also had a newspaper with a daily circulation of 80,000, but this still did not strengthen their position as they were still in need of a lot more support if they were to gain power, the same as the B.U.F. were. The communist party did not have a significant leader as the B.U.F. did to spear head their campaign. Also, they had been trying to affiliate with the Labour party since 1935 which caused their attention to be diverted, however, Labour still refused to join them. The communist party did not have a good name for themselves, after the British did not agree with what happened with communism over in Russia back in the 1917, it was hard for people to support it here over the fear of what the consequences could be.
To conclude, the National Government maintained its Democracy due to several reasons. Firstly, the poverty that had hit Britain was not as bad as that in places such as Russia and Germany, so it did not stimulate the extremism like it did in those countries. As Britain’s poverty was spread only over certain areas, not complete widespread as in the countries previously mentioned, so the areas not as badly affected could then influence over the rest of the country. The people of this country were the main reason that Britain kept democracy and did not resort to extremist parties. In the face of adversity, the British people all united with pride to support their Government to find a solution to their problems, instead of resorting to extremism. Also, they way the National Government dealt with problems in order to benefit the country kept their support behind them. Also, there was no real strong opposition, as the National Government managed to curtail the extremist parties, to prevent them from gaining any real strong power and support, allowing them to stay strong, and their democracy to remain.
Word Count = 2,108
Bibliography:
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Smart, Nick, The National Government, 1931-40, 1999, Macmillan Press Ltd.
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Murphy, Derry, Britain 1914-2000, 2000, Collins Educational
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Lowe, Norman, Mastering Modern British History, 1998, Macmillan Press Ltd.
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Pearce, Robert, Britain, Society, Economy and Industrial Relations 1900-59, 2002, Hodder & Stoughton
- Cambridge Dictionary, http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=20618&dict=CALD
- http://www.nationeuropa.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/page3.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_National_Government
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D.N. Dilks, Appeasement Revisited, Journal of Contemporary History, 1972.
