11 - Relief or remedy? The development of public works policy, 1920–1932

Summary

COUNTER-CYCLICAL PUBLIC WORKS, EMERGENCY RELIEF AND THE UNEMPLOYMENT GRANTS COMMITTEE

Official attitudes towards public works as an appropriate response to interwar unemployment were strongly influenced by the intellectual and administrative precepts of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. By the late nineteenth century the most generally accepted method of alleviating the distress of the unemployed outside of the Poor Law was by the provision of emergency relief works by local authorities. The work provided was usually labour intensive, required few skills and, by way of a deterrent, attracted wages at less than the normal market rate for unskilled labour. It was aimed primarily at combining the largest increase in employment with the smallest possible capital outlay, engaging the least efficient workmen on tasks of doubtful utility. The principal drawback of such projects, apart from being demoralizing, wasteful, expensive and singularly inappropriate as a means of equipping men for future work, was that they were devoid of any concept of stabilizing employment, merely waiting as they did upon the outbreak of acute unemployment.

Towards the end of the Edwardian period, however, a shift occurred away from this fatalistic emphasis upon less eligibility towards the idea of manipulating by advancement or retardation existing plans for capital expenditure for the benefit of the unemployed with recognized skills.