大学英语 英美概况13单元 答案 Unit 13

Unit Thirteen

Britain in the Twentieth Century

By the end of the 19th century the European situation had seriously deteriorated. The international struggle for colonies had degenerated into and international arms race, and as the result, two world wars arose in the 20th century and the British Empire declined in the years after the wars.

Conditions in Britain before the First World War

Liberal Reform

At the general election of 1906 the liberals, as champions of free trade, won a clear majority and their leader Campbell-Bannerman organized a capable cabinet that included radicals and liberal imperialists. Under him and after his death, under Asquith, came the reforms: a school medical service; a system of old-age pensions; slum; eight-hour work day; and trade boards and Labour Exchange.

Lloyd’s Budget of 1909 was rejected by lords, because the Lords could veto any legislation of which they disapproved. Lloyd was determined to curb the power of the Lords. The Parliament Bill of 1911 would deprive the Lords of their veto and any control of finance. At last, the Lords surrendered, and the Commons became virtually the sole legislative body.

Further reform such as the National Insurance Bill was passed, to give relief to the sick and unemployed people.

Crisis at Home

The working class movement reached new height with a wave of strikes between 1911 and 1914. The 3 strikes: the great strike of railway men; the coal-miner strike; the strike of the transport workers

In 1914 a “triple alliance” of transport workers, miners and railway men was formed to strengthen labour solidarity.

There was also trouble in Ireland. Ireland was on the verge of civil war.

Unrest Abroad

The capitalist countries needed more foreign markets, raw materials and strategic positions. But the world had already been partitioned among the old colonial countries. The struggle between repartition and anti-repartition became fierce. The international struggle for colonies degenerated into an international arms race, and the great powers of Europe were split into two rival camps: the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. And the Dual Alliance of France and Russia, and later, Britain joined it forming the Triple Entente.

Britain in the First World War

The Outbreak of World War I

It broke out in July 1914. When Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo in Bosnia on June 28, Austria was given the pretext she needed for declaring war on Serbia.

Britain in the War

After the German troops invaded Belgium on August 4, Britain declared war on Germany. German surrendered in November 1918, and the side of Entente won the victory.

In January 1919, the peace treaty was signed at Versailles, according to which Britain got more colonies from

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the Germans in Africa and the Pacific.

The war was an imperialist war because it was brought about by profound antagonism between the two blocs of capitalist states for the repartition of the world. The war was a world war. Aftermath of the War

Though the British and their allies won the victory, she was also a loser.

1. Britain lost her sea power. The Washington Naval Conference limited the number of British, American and Japanese battleships to the ratio of 5:5:3.

2. A debt of 1000 million dollars she borrowed from the US during the war made her become a debtor nation instead of a creditor.

3. The city of London lost its prestige as the world’s leading banker, replaced by New York. 4. Britain’s foreign trade declined to about half of the pre-war total.

5. After the war, colonial national independent movement was on the upsurge in the British Empire.

Between the Two Wars

Depression in the Twenties

In 1920 the feverish post-war boom had sunk into slump.

In 1929 another serious economic crisis began to attack the capitalist world. By 1931 Europe was on the verge of financial collapse.

Britain was driven out off the gold standard, that is, the devaluation of the pound sterling.

A Policy of Appeasement

In 1937, Neville Chamberlain succeeded Baldwin as Prime Minister and his acquiescence in aggression was to become appeasement policy.

In September 1938, Chamberlain signed the notorious Munich Agreement with Hitler.

Britain in the Second World War

The Second World War broke out in September 1939. In May 1940 Churchill replaced chamberlain organising a coalition government. The whole nation was mobilised for military service and industries were shifted to war production.

Germany was forced to surrender in May 1945and the Second World War was over.

Fall of the British Empire

Britain lost leading position in finance and had to rely on America for her economic help. The peoples of its colonies had been awakened by the war and large scale independent movement began after the war. When the British Empire was disintegrated there appeared the British Commonwealth consisting of most of her former colonies. The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 49 countries. Any member country has right to withdraw from it according to its own will. Postwar Years

At the general election of 1945 Winston Churchill was heavily defeated. The electorate returned a Labour government. The people had suffered the Blitz, evacuation, rationing and the total technological warfare. They wanted to put the war behind them and as Churchill had symbolized the war effort that meant he too was now past history. The people hoped that Labor Party would be able to sort out the problems of the war-torn country.

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The foundation of the welfare state was laid during these years, providing free medical care for every one and financial help for the old, the sick and the unemployed. The Bank of England, coal mines, railways and steelworks were nationalized. But these were hard years and rationing was as severe as it had been during the war.

In the 1950s

The post-war years were not peaceful. In 1950 Britain joined the war of aggression against North Korea. When Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian President, nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, British and French forces invaded Egypt. This action was widely condemned at home and abroad and brought about the fall of Anthony Eden. In 1957 Britain’s first hydrogen bomb was tested.

When George VI died in 1952, Princess Elizabeth was crowned.

By the mid-1950s things were definitely looking up: unemployment was low; wages were far higher than they had been before the war through prices had risen very little; more and more people were buying cars and going on holidays. By the 1960s Britain was one of the world’s leading industrial as well as nuclear powers. In the 1960s

The 1960s were the Swinging Sixties, the permissive age. Pop music, as it was now called, underwent a revolution when the Beatles became world famous and turned their hometown of Liverpool into a place of pilgrimage. As a result of a relaxation of attitudes, there was a sexual revolution. In the 1970s

In January, 1973, Britain finally became a full member of the European Economic Community. An oil embargo and a miners’ strike provoked a State of Emergency in the winter of 1973 and brought down Edward heath’s Conservative Government in 1974. The optimism of the 1960s disappeared. Rising oil prices pushed up the cost of living, unemployment was rising and an Irish Republic Army bombing campaign brought home the seriousness of the situation in Northern Ireland. Oil was discovered in the North Sea, but the revenues from the oil did not create an economic miracle. Thatcher’s administration

The election of 1979 returned the Conservative Party to power and Margaret Thatcher became the first woman prime minister in Britain. Fro many the 1980s was a decade of increased prosperity. Mrs. Thatcher firmly believed in self-reliance and what has come to be known as privatization. Her policies are popularly referred to as Thatcherism. It included the return to private ownership of state-owned industries, the use of monetarist policies to control inflation, the weakening of trade unions, the strengthening of the role of market forces in the economy, and an emphasis on law and order. Several cases of privatization took place in Britain in the 1980s, including British Telecom and British Gas.

In 1982, the Falkland Islands War broke out. The Falkland Islands, group of islands totaling 4 700 square miles in the South Atlantic, have been a crown colony since 1892. Possession is disputed with Argentina. In 1982 the Argentineans seized these islands but Britain fought successfully to regain them. Although the British victory was immensely expensive, Mrs. Thatcher’s personal popularity was dramatically revived. In the general election of 1983 she won another victory for the Conservatives, the most decisive for 40 years. In the late 1980s the economy was growing rapidly, unemployment was declining, and the Conservatives held a solid majority in the House of Commons.

Although twice re-elected, Mrs. Thatcher was finally removed in November, 1990, not by the electorate, but by her own party. This was because of her opposition to European Union and her imposition of an extremely unpopular flat rate “poll tax” in place of property taxes to pay for local government services. She was succeeded by the comparatively little known John Major.

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Adjustment of Britain’s Policy

To adapt herself to such a changed situation, Britain kept adjusting her policies.

Britain’s defense policy was based on the NATO. Britain is almost the most active supporter of the Organization’s strategy of defense.

Britain’s economic policy was still based on foreign trade, but the partnership was shifted from her old customers in the Commonwealth to new ones in the European Community.

The county as a whole was not crushed by despair but continuously advanced. Meanwhile the country also experienced many changes concerning social life. However, Britain is still one of the major capitalist countries.

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