The downturn in naval orders starting 1922 with the Washington Treaty sent shockwaves through the armaments industry, starting with the collapse of the Coventry Ordnance Works in 1925, but eventually toppling industrial giants like Beardmore and Palmer’s. How the industry reacted and adapted to this change is still understudied. The extracts presented represent one of the most novel, but also shocking, attempts to do so in the 1920s and 1930s: by fixing prices for Admiralty contracts through the formation of a cartel. By examining two cases from the years preceding rearmament, it shows both the costs and benefits of such a scheme to the British state. 

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