How Did The Great Depression Affect The Economy In The 19th Century

In the mid-nineteenth century, Britain were experiencing an economic boom due to technological advances and industrial devlopments. At this time the economy was growing, on average, by 3% each year and the performance of the three major industrial giants was improving. However, this period of prosperity came to an end in 1873 as the British economy began to slow down. This is known as the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a worldwide price and economic recession which lasted from 1873 to 1896 in Britain. Many different industries were negatively affected by the depression, as well as British agriculture. Agriculture suffered due to technological advances such as refridgeration. Methods of refridgeration developed in the late 19th

At this time the USA had an enormous amount of natural resources and a growing labour force due to increasing immigration. For example, from 1870-1913 the USA's industrial output was 4.7% whereas Britain's was only 2.1%. This statistic suggests that Britain was economically declining in the years 1886-1914 as their dominance of the economy was dissloving. Germany and the USA were also becoming economically strong due to the fact they had introduced tariffs on their imported goods whereas Britian had not. A tariff is a tax or duty to be paid on a particular class of imports or exports. The reason why Britain hadn't introduced tariffs was because of their strong belief in laissez-faire which opposed government interferance such as regulations, priviliges, tariffs and subsidies. Tariffs majorly helped Germany and the USA move ahead of Britian economically as they increased the price of imported goods and services; bringing more money into their economies. This shows that Britian did decline economically in the years 1886-1914 due their considerable foreign competition and economic doctrine of laissez-faire depriving them of potential