Competition, Collusion, and Confusion: The State and the Reorganization of the British Cotton Industry, 1931-1939

British industrial policy in the 1930s has generated considerablehistorical controversy. This article furthers the debate byusing the cotton industry as a case study. The biggest constrainton active government policies toward cotton was not institutionalinertia or "industrial diplomacy," as some historians claim,but the sheer practical difficulty of intervening in such acomplex industry. Cotton also poses problems for historianswho see British industrial policy in the 1930s as largely aboutrestraining competition. The government feared that restrictionwould make matters worse in the cotton industry and was thereforehesitant about backing schemes designed to limit competition.Its dilemma was how best to maintain private-sector confidence.