Committee on Commercial and Industrial Policy

The Committee on Commercial and Industrial Policy was chaired by Lord Balfour of Burleigh from 1916 to 1918. Balfour instructed its members to "cast aside any abstract fiscal dogmas".^[1]

Background

The Paris Economic Conference of the Allied Powers resolved to damage the Central Powers economically.^[2] The Prime Minister H. H. Asquith appointed the committee in July 1916 in order to implement the Paris Resolutions.^[3]

The committee included W. A. S. Hewins (Conservative), Lord Faringdon (Conservative), Alfred Mond (Liberal), Lord Rhondda (Liberal), J. A. Pease (Liberal), George Wardle (Labour), and Richard Hazleton (Irish Nationalist).^[4]

Reports

The committee's interim report on certain essential industries argued for a Special Industries Board to scrutinise industrial development and promote the manufacture of strategically essential products. This Board should offer state support for efficient businesses but "failing efficient and adequate output, the Government should itself undertake the manufacture of such articles as may be essential for national safety".^[5]

The committee's final report dealt with the future of British industry both in commercial competitiveness and capacity for war:

It is in our opinion a matter of vital importance that, alike in the old-established industries and in the new branches of manufacture which have arisen during the war, both employer and employed should make every effort to attain the largest possible volume of production, by the increased efficiency of industrial organisation and processes, by more intensive working, and by the adoption of the best and most economical methods of distribution.
[And] it is only by the attainment of this maximum production and efficiency that we can hope to secure a speedy recovery of the industrial and financial position of the United Kingdom and assure its economic stability and progress.^[6]

Notes

1. ^ Paul Barton Johnson, Land Fit For Heroes. The Planning of British Reconstruction. 1916-1919 (London: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 26-27.
2. ^ John Turner, British Politics and the Great War. Coalition and Conflict. 1915-1918 (London: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 341.
3. ^ Turner, p. 341.
4. ^ Turner, p. 341.
5. ^ Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (London: Eyre & Methuen, 1972), pp. 116-117.
6. ^ Barnett, p. 117.

References

• Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (London: Eyre & Methuen, 1972).
• Paul Barton Johnson, Land Fit For Heroes. The Planning of British Reconstruction. 1916-1919 (London: The University of Chicago Press, 1968).
• John Turner, British Politics and the Great War. Coalition and Conflict. 1915-1918 (London: Yale University Press, 1992).

Further reading

• Peter Cline, ‘Winding Down the War Economy: British plans for peacetime recovery, 1916-19’, in Kathleen Burk (ed.), War and the State. Transformation of British Government. 1914-19 (Lodon: HarperCollins, 1992), pp. 157-181.