Fear Over National Insurance Flashcards
Ku1
Over the 3 years of the Boer war (1889-1902) when Britain were struggling the military tried to recruit more soldiers. Volunteers did rush up to join but around 25% were rejected due to being unfit for service. In industrial areas like Manchester less than 15 % were accepted..
Ku2
by 1910 Britain had lost its position as the predominant industrial power and was facing serious competition from new industrial nations like Germany, however, by 1913, Germany had overtaken Britan. I
Analysis
As a result, It can be argued that fear over national security helped encourage the liberal reforms as the Boer war statists caused great concern in Britain and led to many supporting reforms out of patriotism. If Britian, were to remain a powerful military force, then the health of children and peasants had to be improved so that future military could remain healthy which could be seen in some reforms such as free school meals and medical checks.
Analysis plus
However, it can be said that the costliest of reforms was old age pension which did not help to maintain a healthy fighting stock. Nor did it help to produce an efficient workforce, which highlights that they were not a primary motivation for the reforms.
Evaluation
In evaluation, fear over national security wasn’t as important as the reports of booth and Rowntree. it can be pointed out that concerns over Britain’s place in the world did encourage reforms to be made but it did not lead to improvements on the brit’s lifestyle. This suggests fear over national security and efficiency just identified issues rather than finding solutions. However, Booth and Rowntree showed that these concerns could be addressed as booth discovered the poverty line identifying how much money people had to make to be seen as in poverty.
