How Far Did The Government Take Control Of Key Industries Between 1939 And 1941

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During the years between 1939 and 1945 the UK was at war and so needed to be constantly supplied with raw materials. To achieve this the government had to take control of key industries. One success the government had was that they passed many laws source 1 states that “in May 1940, the Emergency Powers Act gave the government power to conscript workers into essential industries”. These essential industries such as coal, transport, munitions and farming had to be as efficient as possible if the UK was to win the war. The government also introduced the essential works order in March 1941, Source 1 states that “under this women between 20 and 30 became liable for conscription into war work”. As a result of these laws the government had a huge …show more content…

Coal production kept going down which was due to the shortage of workers. This shows that the government have a very bad impact on the coal mining industry which was vital to the country as it relied on it for everything from heating homes to fuelling trains. Although the government had a positive impact by way of increasing the number of women in work from 5.094 million in 1939 to 7.253 million in 1943 which is according to source 8. The government was not fair in that women were paid less than men which is bound to cause unrest. This was both a positive and a negative for the government as it cost the country less hire the women but this unequal pay inevitably would cause strikes which would cost the UK dearly. Sources 9 and 10 agree that strikes were still common although they were illegal. Source 9 says that “16,000 women and some men went on strike for over a week about unequal pay rates”. The government did eventually settle the dispute but that did very little to stop strikes as it only added incentives for people to strike. Source 9 says “a record 2,194 stoppages with 3,700,000 days lost in 1944.” This shows that although government impact was relatively positive they did have negative impacts …show more content…

Source 1 states that “women between 20 and 30 became liable for conscription into war work, for example munitions factories”. This was a huge positive impact for the government as workers who were not working for industries not vital to the war effort, now were. Source 8 says that in 1939 1,092,000 lbs (pounds) were produced where as in 1945 only 597,000 lbs of cotton thread were produced. These workers who were producing these were conscripted into munitions. This is evident as source 8 states that in 1939 538 artillery guns were produced where as in 1942 43,000 were produced. This was a positive for the government as it got more workers to work in key industries but a negative for the workers themselves as they had little choice over where they worked thus causing the workers’ have no

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