The Depressed Years: The Case Of Colonial Nigeria (1929-1940)

The economic distress which swept Europe in 1929 was brought consequently to West Africa in general and Nigeria in particular. Its effect on the Western industrialized countries was great, but its effect on the African producer was even greater. The Great Depression, as it was called, caused a drastic fall in the prices of the export products and resulted in the change of the British attitude towards their colonies. This transfer from laissez-faire attitude to government financial intervention originated in 1926 when the Empire Marketing Board was established to give assistance to the Colonial Secretary for Dominion Affairs and was affected by the Keynesian revolution. The present paper attempts to examine the effects of the Depression on colonial Nigeria and the measures adopted by both the British and the colonial governments to overcome it. During the Great Depression, trade with Britain had greatly affected the African colonies. In a circular despatched to officers of the dependencies in September 1931, the Colonial Office asked them to support Britain