Unemployment Movements

The demand for coal went down dramatically in the late 1920s. In the 1930s the situation became far worse and many more collieries closed. Coal was not the only industry which was in difficulties in the 1920s and 1930s. In north west Wales, the greatest industry in the C19th was the slate industry

There was also great difficulty in the steel industry in Wales. There was strong foreign competition. it came mainly from France, Germany and America. The steel industry of South Wales, particularly, was not in a good position to deal with this competition. This statement is literally true! The iron industries of Wales had grown up around Merthyr and other towns at the top end of the South Wales valleys. They had been very prosperous in the 19th century because there was so much demand for iron - especially for building railways - and later steel. it did not matter that getting the finished iron down to the coast for export was expensive. At least the iron stone or iron ore was available locally. Later in the century high-grade iron ore had to be imported.

When competition increased, and when the works got old and out-of-date, and transport costs increased, they could not compete. Almost all the steel works had to move down to the coast to survive. This meant that the original big iron works of the 19th century closed. The great Merthyr works closed -  Cyfarthfa in 1921, most of Dowlais in 1930. Thousands of workers in the valleys were unemployed as a result.

In the 1920s and 1930s a lot of basic Welsh industry came crashing down. Welsh wealth in the second half of the C19th had been based on coal. Just after the First World War all seemed well. Over a quarter of a million men worked in Welsh collieries. However, overseas competition, general lack of demand over the whole industrial world, lack of investment and difficult conditions for mining coal in South Wales, resulted in a slump.

Between 1920 and 1921 coal exports from Britain slumped by two-thirds. Collieries started to close on a big scale.

In 1904 South Wales produced over 30% of the world’s coal exports. By 1929 it produced 3%. Coal had largely been replaced by oil in the world’s ships.