Another way to translate it would be “the cost of British labour was reduced, pushing down the artificially high unemployment rate,” but the best way would probably be both of the above at the same time, and some other more complicated stuff I don’t know or understand. My point isn’t this was actually a really good thing, but it’s not as straightforward as you’re making it out to be.

> That seems to translate to "workers were getting paid less and their savings were devalued" to me. Am I mistaken?

Sure, that's one way to look at it. But then you have to ask yourself why countries deliberately try to devalue their currencies and why other countries get mad when that happens.