In the postwar years, Britain obsessed over balance of payments crisis, the fact that she imported more goods and services than she exported. The government's response to this was a modicum of measures to increase exports such as allocating steel to companies that exported. The reason they did this was a supposed shortage of foreign currency. This was all done at a time when Britain needed substantial external investment to rebuild from war damage. There's a reason why this doesn't happen anymore, exchange rates are now floating which allows them to reach the proper rate to balance the combined current and capital accounts. Now back in the 1940s, the simple solution to the balance of payments problem would've been devaluing the pound, yet they didn't do this until 1949 and it apparantly wasn't enough as even in the early 50s, they still prioritized exporting companies for steel. My question is: why didn't they just devalue? It seems to me it would've saved a lot of pain in the postwar era.