Федеральное агентство по образованию

Государственное образовательное учреждение

Высшего профессионального образования

"Волгоградский государственный технический университет"

Камышинский технологический институт (филиал)

Волгоградского государственного технического университета

Кафедра английского языка

Реферативная работа

По дисциплине: "Английский язык"

На тему:

The Economy of Great Britain

Выполнил: студент гр. КЭЛ-051(с)

Ермаков М.М.

Проверила:

Бурдоленко Л.М.

Камышин 2005

PLAN

 

British industry as a element of economy.

The Economy of Great Britain

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Vocabulary

British industry as a element of economy

People in countries outside the British Isles often call the inhabitants ' of the United Kingdom English. This is incorrect, for there are at least four main nationalities, the English, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish. These four nationalities each have their own language and culture.

The population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is almost fifty-six million. A little more than seven million people live in the London area. Britain is mainly an industrial country, and most of the people live in large towns. The lands which produce nothing, especially the hilly country in Northern Scotland, have almost no population.

Great Britain is highly industrialized, this was the country in which the earliest developments of modern industry took place.

London, the capital, is one of many important industrial centers. Lots of things such as clothes, food, planes and cars are made in and around London.

Birmingham is the biggest town in an important industrial area near the centre of England. Machines, cars and lorries are made in this area. TV sets and radios are also produced there.

Manchester in the north-west of England is the centre of the cotton textile industry, one of Britain's most important producers of computers and electronic equipment.

Coal-mining is important in South Wales, but many of the mines5 there have been closed. There is much unemployment in South Wales today. A smaller industrial area is situated in North Wales, where steel6 and chemicals are produced.

Ship-building is an important industry in the United Kingdom. The main ship-building centers are London, Glasgow in Scotland, Belfast in Northern Ireland and some others.

Sheep can be seen in many parts of England and Scotland, and there are a lot of cattle-farms and farms where milk, butter and cheese are produced. But only half of the food the country needs is produced by British agriculture.

Wheat is grown in the east of England. Vegetables are grown in all parts of England, especially in the south. Potatoes are grown everywhere on the British Isles.

Some kinds of fruit, especially apples, can grow in the south where the temperature is higher and there are more hours of sunshine than in the northern regions.

The Economy of Great Britain

Little more than a century ago, Britain was 'the workshop of the world'. It had as many merchant ships as the rest of the world put together and it led the world in most manufacturing industries. This did not last long. By 1885 one analysis reported, "We have come to occupy a position In which we are no longer progressing, but even falling bock... . We find other nations able to compete with us to such an extent as we have never before experienced. " Early in the twentieth century Britain was overtaken economically by the United States and Germany. After two world. wars and the rapid loss of its empire, Britain found it increasingly difficult to maintain its position even in Europe.

Britain struggled to find a balance between government intervention in the economy and an almost completely free-market economy such as existed in the United States. Neither system seemed to fit Britain's needs. The former seemed compromised between two different objectives: planned economic prosperity and the means of ensuring full employment, while the latter promised greater economic prosperity at the cost of poverty and unemployment for the less able in society. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives doubted the need to find a system that suited Britain's needs, but neither seemed able to break from the consensus based on Keynesian economics.

People seemed complacent about Britain's decline, reluctant to make the painful adjustments that might be necessary to reverse it. Prosperity Increased during the late 1950s and in the 1960s, diverting attention from Britain's decline relative to its main competitors. In 1973" the Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath warned, "The alternative to expansion is not, as some occasionally seem to suppose, an England of quiet market towns linked only by steam trains puffing slowly and peacefully through green meadows. The alternative is slums, dangerous roads, old factories, cramped schools, stunted lives. " But in the years of world-wide recession, 1974-79, Britain seemed unable to improve its performance.

By the mid 1970s both Labour and Conservative economists were beginning to recognise the need to move away from Keynesian economics, based upon stimulating demand by Injecting money into the economy. ............