Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 37. (1984)
ORDE, Anne: France and the Genoa Conference of 1922
FRANCE AND THE GENOA CONFERENCE OF 1922*) By Anne Orde In the autumn of 1921 the idea of an international economic conference was in the air, especially in Britain. The country was experiencing one of the worst depressions in its history. Industrial production had fallen 18.6 per cent from the previous year, exports by 30.1 per cent; some 2.4 million workers or 22 per cent of those insured, were unemployed in the summer1)- The slump in exports directed attention to the European economy and its slowness in recovering from the war. The fall of the mark, after Germany had made a reparation payment of 1 milliard marks in August, followed by indications that she would not be able to meet the whole of the instalments due in January and February 1922, reinforced the view that existing policies were driving Europe and Britain to disaster. Depression and social discontent rendered Lloyd George’s coalition government vulnerable, and the prime minister himself was isolated. But Lloyd George still had the authority and capacity to take the initiative, and whilst there was little sign of improvement at home, external policy offered greater chances of restoring the government’s credit. The Irish settlement in December was a notable achievement, and the Washington conference on naval limitation promised to solve a troublesome problem. The next area for initiative proved to be Russia. The Anglo-Soviet trade agreement, signed in March 1921, had, it was true, not produced much trade as yet; but it had been generally accepted and Lloyd George was made the more optimistic about future prospects by his conviction that under the New Economic Policy Soviet Russia was “moving away from Communism”. He was not alone in this belief: much of the advice coming from representatives in Russia confirmed the impression, and the Soviet authorities were trying to enlist foreign capital and technical skills through a policy of leases and concessions for development2). An opportunity for encouraging the restoration *) My thanks are due to the British Academy and the University of Durham for grants which facilitated the research on which this article is based. ') Derek H. Aldcroft The Inter-War Economy: Britain 1919-1939 (London 1970) 32-37. For the British situation in general and the government’s position see Kenneth O. Morgan Consensus and Disunity: the Lloyd George Coalition Government 1918-1922 (Oxford 1979) Chapter 11. 2) For the whole of this paragraph see Stephen White Britain and the Bolshevik Revolution. A Study in the Politics of Diplomacy 1920-1924 (London 1979) 55-60; E. H. Carr A History of Soviet Russia. The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-1923 3 (London 1953) 350-357.
