Whether the acts had a significant effect on unemployment has been debated, but one lasting legacy was the funding of the extension and refurbishment of what became the London Underground Northern line.
[2] The political parties proposed differing solutions in their election campaigns of the 1920s, but governments of all flavours faced pressure from outside sources.
The Bank of England, in concert with the City of London, industrialists and the Treasury, were adamant that prices needed to be driven down to reverse inflation, and that this required lower taxation and less public spending.
[3] The government were caught between the Treasury, who believed their policies would provide a long-term fix for the economy, and the need to be doing something for the unemployed in the short term, even if that went against the requirement to reduce public spending.
[4] The solution proposed by David Lloyd George's Coalition government was enshrined in the Trade Facilities Act 1921 (11 & 12 Geo.
[7] They could authorise schemes up to a total of £25 million, and in order to placate the Colonial Office, applications could also be made for projects abroad, as well as those at home.
When these proposals were presented to the cabinet, they prevaricated, postponing any decision, but eventually agreed to double the amount of money that could be guaranteed under the Trade Facilities Act to £50 million, and to extend the period during which applications could be made by one year.
[13] By the time the bill was drafted, it had become a container for legislation covering five areas, to be called the Trade Facilities and Loans Guarantee Act 1922 (13 Geo.
Lieutenant-Commander Kenworthy, the Member of Parliament for Central Hull raised objections to such a collection, on the basis that there was no option to support one part of the bill but not another.
As a result of the large numbers of unemployed workers over the winter of 1922-23, Bonar Law asked the Board of Trade to propose new solutions.
Amery, the First Lord of the Admiralty, proposed raising this sum to £5 million per year, but the Treasury resisted, on the basis that unemployment was not as bad as it seemed, birth rates were dropping, there was a shortage of domestic servants, and much of the provision of the Trade Facilities and Loans Guarantee Act 1922 remained unclaimed.
5. c. 8) was passed, it included the provision of £1 million to partially fund loan interest for projects in the colonies which would stimulate the demand for British goods and so ease unemployment in Britain.
Mr McNeill, speaking to the House of Commons in February 1926, stated that it was difficult to estimate the precise number of people who were now employed as a result of the provisions of the various Trade Facilities Acts, but that it probably exceeded 100,000.
He needed £5 million to construct tunnels to join the Hampstead Tube at Camden Town to the City and South London Railway at Euston, to build an extension northwards from Golders Green to Edgware, to enlarge the tunnels between Euston and Clapham, and to purchase 250 new cars to equip the extended railway, which subsequently became the Northern line in 1937.
Arthur Comyns Carr, speaking in early 1924 about the extension to Edgware, said that he expected the Treasury to have to pay out on the guarantees in due course, as such projects rarely if ever paid their way.
[34] Days later, Sir Robert Horne said that some £14 million had been guaranteed for improvements to the tube railways, and that these projects would not have begun without the promise of cheaper loans, as a result of the Acts.