The lust of Europe for territorial aggrandizement becomes every day more pronounced. From a struggle for self-defense this has become a war of conquest. Germany has appropriated Belgium, Russia fights for the Bosporus and Constantinople, Italy has almost taken Albania—with the approval of Austria, as we have discovered. The westernmost edge of the Balkan Peninsula has fallen; tomorrow the easternmost extremity will fall, together with Constantinople. Will the European Powers then spare us?... What the United States of America did for the preservation of their independence against foreign conquest we Balkan peoples must do unless we would see our doom sealed.

"The Dangers of a Neutral Policy" is the theme of Mir, the organ of the Bulgarian Nationalist Party of Sofia, which on May 29 said: "If Bulgaria remains neutral to the end of the war, she runs the risk of being condemned to live forever within the narrow limits she has today, hemmed in on every side. The duty of the Balkan States is to act in a war which will solve all pending political and national problems."

Serbia's jealousy of Italy, despite that nation's late adhesion to the Allies, was voiced on May 25 by Politika, a Nationalist daily of Belgrade, which accuses Italy of trying to profit at Serbia's expense. The Entente Powers must pay for Italian aid, this paper says; and Italy may be "satisfied with Savoy, Corsica, Malta, Tunis, Algiers, Asia Minor, or Egypt."



The Ottoman Empire being under martial law, comment by the Turkish papers regarding military and political events is restricted by the Government. But Enver Pasha, the all-powerful young Turk leader, and his colleague for the Interior, Talaat Bey, early in May gave an interview printed in the Vienna Neue Freie Presse. Enver Pasha predicts the collapse of the Allied campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where the French and British hold a small corner against overwhelming odds. "The bringing thither of provisions is extremely difficult," he says, and "even the drinking water for the troops must be brought from the ships." Both he and Talaat Bey report the morale of the Turkish troops to be excellent, "as many of the older officers have been replaced by energetic young men."

Greece is in suspense. The Kairoi, an independent daily of Athens, said on June 22 that, while Greece does not forget her debt to the three protective powers, France, England, and Russia, she must nevertheless weigh the promise of Germany to give full protection to Greek interests in the event of her continued neutrality. "Just how Germany keeps her promises," this paper says, is "shown by Cavalla, the Macedonian city allotted to Greece after the second Balkan war at the express instance of the Kaiser;" and it notes that the Entente Powers are now eager to cede this territory to Bulgaria. The Embros, an independent daily of Athens, prophesied on June 22:

We can afford to follow events with growing solicitude and remain neutral as long as we may. Whether or not we maintain this neutrality to the end our action can change neither the fortunes of Greece nor the position of other Powers. It is to be presumed that the power driving this giant conflict to the conclusion has more remote motives and that to all appearance, the war will end without any of the participants suffering a crushing defeat.

While Russian aspirations are generally considered to be in harmony with those of the Balkan kingdoms, the following extracts from Russian papers representing varying shades of Muscovite opinion show now an unfavorable or critical attitude. Thus the foremost organ of the Panslavist Party, the Russian weekly Slavianski Izvestija, April No. 8, disapproved the Bulgarian plea to give Thrace and Adrianople through Russian influence. Of the Macedonian question this paper said:

Bulgarians expect that Russia will get for them Macedonia Thrace, and Dobrudja, to reward their honest labors. Alas, they must learn that not every day, but every hour, Macedonia is receding from their grasp. For Russia the Macedonian question hardly exists. If Macedonia finds it hard to be under heroic and benevolent Serbia, what would become of her on the day when she should fall into the hands of Bulgaria? And should we Russians, in order to assure Macedonia such a future, grieve now our dear ally Serbia?

The semi-official Novoye Vremya of Petrograd commented on May 27, on the statement of the Bulgarian Premier Radoslavoff published in Vienna, that Bulgaria cannot engage to intervene without a formal treaty, a policy, it believes, that says but one thing, namely: "You Russians tricked us Bulgarians once; you shall not trick us again." This attitude of Bulgaria shows, the Novoye Vremya thinks, "how thick-headed and insensate its people are." The Birjevaja Viedomosti, a standpat Russian daily of Petrograd, on May 23 warned Serbia that, whereas the war began in her behalf and on her account rivers of blood are flowing, her complaints of the allotment of Dalmatia to Italy should not "assert principles which have nothing to do with actualities." The same newspaper says of the whole Balkan situation:

The German policy of von Buelow, having failed in Rome, is courting failure in Bucharest. In fact, all the German promises to Rumania seem to go no further than sharpening the Rumanian appetite for Russian Bessarabia, while holding out as a last bait the cession of a small parcel of Bukowina—supposing the Hungarians never consent to yielding Transylvania to Rumania.

On the other hand, Germany promises Bulgaria the Turkish province of Thrace and Serbian and Greek Macedonia; but these compensations have as much value as the cessions of Corsica and Nice and Tunis in the early days of the war.

But Germany cannot give to Bulgaria Serbian Macedonia so long as the Austrian armies are not masters of the whole of Serbia; she cannot give her Thrace because Turkey objects to such cession, and Turkey is her ally; and, finally, she cannot urge Greece too closely to cede Cavalla to Bulgaria, because such a pressure may bring a contrary result, i.e. make Greece to declare herself openly an ally of the Entente. Therefore both Bulgaria and Rumania must perforce side with the great European Alliance. Had Italy remained neutral matters would be different, but as it is now Bulgars and Rumanians, and the Balkan peoples in general, have to fight with us, unless they want the diplomacy of the Entente to disappoint utterly the ever-growing appetite of these small nationalities....

It will be noted that all the opinions quoted concerning the Balkans relate to the division of territory as the price of neutrality or intervention.



Dr. Conybeare's Recantation

By SIR WALTER RALEIGH

To the Editor of the [London] Times:

Sir,—During a recent visit to America I saw Dr. Conybeare's letter in a paper called the Vital Issue. All who know Dr. Conybeare know him to be honest and frank, and to be very deeply distressed by the sufferings and cruelties of the war. After my return, I wrote to him, pointing out that his letter is being widely circulated in America, and that the material points in his accusation of Sir Edward Grey and Mr. Asquith have been answered. I enclose Dr. Conybeare's reply, for which he desires the fullest publicity.

Yours faithfully,

WALTER RALEIGH.

The Hangings, Ferry Hinksey, near Oxford, July 1, 1915.

* * * * *

Banbury-road, Oxford, June 30.

Dear Sir Walter Raleigh,—During the past week I have been studying afresh the published records of the diplomatic transactions of last July, and on my return to Oxford I find your kind letter, and therefore take the liberty of addressing this to yourself. My new study has forced upon me the conviction that in my letter to a friend residing in America, which, against my wishes and injunctions, was published there, apart from the deplorable tone of my allusions to Sir E. Grey and Mr. Asquith, I was quite wrong in imputing the motives which I did, especially to the former. It does appear to me, as I read these dispatches over again, that Sir Edward throughout had in view the peace of Europe, and that I ought to have set down to the awful contingencies with which he was faced many passages which I was guilty of grossly misinterpreting. I was too ready to forget that in the years of the Balkan wars it was after all he alone who, by his patient and conciliatory treatment of the situation, held in check the antagonistic forces which last July he was ultimately unable to control. I was too ready to ascribe to want of good will on his part results which harsh necessity entailed on him; and I deeply regret that I mistook his aims and, in my endeavour to be fair to the enemy, was grossly unjust to him. I am only anxious to undo, if it be still possible, some of the harm which my hasty judgment and intemperate language has caused.

If you think it would do any good to print this, I beg you to send it to The Times and Morning Post, whose remarks led me to go back once more to the documentary sources. Second thoughts are best, and if I had only kept my American letter till the morning for revision, I should first have struck out all the vituperation and all the imputation of motives, and have ended by never sending it at all.

I remain yours very sincerely,

FRED. C. CONYBEARE.



The Case of Muenter

Attack on Mr. Morgan's Life and the Setting of Fire-Bombs on Ships

That a group of bankers in New York City, headed by J.P. Morgan & Company, was negotiating with the British Treasury authorities for the flotation in the United States of $100,000,000 of the new British war loan was announced in the newspapers on July 3, 1915. Mr. Morgan's firm had handled contracts to furnish war munitions to the Allies, amounting to $500,000,000, and this had been widely published. On the morning of July 3 J.P. Morgan was attacked and wounded with a revolver at his country estate on East Island, near Glen Cove, Long Island, by Erich Muenter, alias Frank Holt. Holt was an Instructor in German at Cornell University; Muenter was a Harvard instructor for whom the police had been seeking since the spring of 1906 on a charge of murdering his wife. After his suicide in jail on July 6, Professor C.N. Gould, of the University of Chicago, and Professor Hugo Muensterberg, of Harvard, among others, identified Holt and Muenter as the same person.

Muenter's insane attack on Mr. Morgan, because he had failed to "use his influence to prevent the exportation of arms and ammunition," followed the wrecking of the United States Senate reception room in the Capitol at Washington on July 2 by the explosion of an infernal machine set by Muenter. On July 6 a trunk owned by Muenter containing twenty pounds of explosives was found in New York. During his stay in jail Muenter wrote to his wife that two ships were to sink at sea on July 7, if his calculations went right, naming the Philadelphia and the Saxonia. The ships were duly warned by wireless, but no bombs were found aboard them, nor were any confederates of Muenter discovered. On July 7 the steamship Minnehaha reported by wireless a "fire caused by explosion" under control.

Incendiary bombs had been discovered aboard four freight steamships sailing from New York for Havre in April and May. On July 12 Secretary of the Navy Daniels, acting on advices received from The New Orleans Picayune, directed the naval radio station at Arlington, Virginia, to flash a warning to all ships at sea to be on the lookout for bombs supposed to have been placed on board certain vessels, and warning particularly the steamers Howth Head and Baron Napier that information had come to the Navy Department that explosive bombs might have been placed on those two vessels. All ships were requested to try to communicate with the Howth Head and the Baron Napier. On July 11 a written threat to assassinate J.P. Morgan, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, the British Ambassador, and destroy by bombs British ships clearing from American ports, thus carrying out some of the plans of Erich Muenter, was reported in a letter signed "Pearce," who styled himself a partner and intimate associate of Muenter. This letter was received by The New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Two more "Pearce" letters were received on July 13 by an afternoon newspaper of New Orleans and by its Chief of Police, saying that Erich Muenter had taught the writer the use of explosives. On the same day the Samland of the Atlantic Transport Line and the Strathlay, chartered by the Fabre Line, survived attempts to destroy them by fire bombs, and on July 15 "Pearce" threatened in another letter to destroy the Rochambeau. A bomb thought to be intended for the Orduna in a car loaded with coal consigned to the Cunard Line was discovered at Morrisville, N.J., on July 18. The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Public-Ledger and the Brooklyn Eagle received on July 16, 19 and 20, respectively, letters from "Pearce" declaring that henceforth persons leaving America on British ships would do so at their peril, and harking back to the German Embassy's warning before the Lusitania was torpedoed. On July 26 an SOS call was received at the Fire Island station, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and by the coast guard ship Mohawk, but the distressed ship's appeal for help was broken off before her name or position could be given. "Pearce's" letter to The Brooklyn Eagle reads as follows:

"Sir: You people of Brooklyn have already had one experience with the work of our men, and so, perhaps, it will be unnecessary to say more than a few words of warning. The Kirkoswald affair is still fresh in your memory; therefore, we will not waste words discussing this matter. The purpose of this communication is to warn the American citizens living in your vicinity to keep clear of British vessels sailing from Brooklyn, New York, New Orleans, Savannah, Newport News, and Montreal. Our men are now operating from each of these ports, and Americans will do well to heed this warning ere it is too late.

"The Imperial German Government derives no satisfaction or profit from the killing of neutral Americans, and we are instructed to go to great lengths in order to give timely warnings to all Americans who contemplate voyages to Europe within the next two months. The explosive operations will supplement the submarine operations, which have proved inadequate to prevent the enemy from importing munitions from America.

"We earnestly advise Americans who find it imperative to travel to Europe to sail only on vessels flying the American flag. Such steamers as those of the American Line, for instance, will be perfectly immune from either submarine or explosive operation. The Imperial German Government will, if requested, offer no objection to the American Government pressing into service the interned German vessels if the American vessels are found to be unable to accommodate the traffic to Europe. By publishing this warning American lives may be spared.

"The circumstances under which this communication is written make it impossible for us to affix our proper signatures; therefore, we trust that you will accept for a signature our pen name.

"PEARCE."



Devotion to the Kaiser

The annual general conference of the clergy of the North German Lutheran Churches met in Berlin during the week of June 24, 1915, and sent the following "telegram of devotion" to the Kaiser:

"Your Imperial and Royal Majesty will most graciously deign to accept this most humble blessing and the assurance of true German devotion from the preachers of the North German Evangelical Conference assembled in conference. We raise our eyes with respect and love to your Majesty, the powerful and purposeful leader of the German nation. We are filled with the consciousness that the sources of German power are unconquerable, not only because of the complete union of the German princes and peoples, but because of the unexampled spirit of sacrifice which animates rich and poor alike, and, before all else, because we are a praying nation.

"However great the pressure of our enemies may be on our victorious armies, the army of those who are praying at home will wrestle all the more earnestly in prayer, praying before God's throne for victory."



Scientists and the Military

Movement in Great Britain and the United States to Consult Civilian Experts

Early in June, H.G. Wells, the "novelist of science," wrote to the London Times a letter urging the necessity of mobilizing Great Britain's scientific and inventive forces for the war. On June 22 The London Times printed a second letter from Mr. Wells proposing the establishment of a bureau for inventors—"a small department collateral rather than subordinate to the War Office and Admiralty." At the annual meeting in London of the British Science Guild on July 1, eminent scientists and chemists, Sir William Mather, Sir William Ramsay, Sir Boverton Redwood, Sir Philip Magnus, Professor Petry, Sir Ronald Ross, Sir Archibald Geikie and Sir Alexander Pedler, condemned the attitude adopted by the British Government toward science in connection with the war, and demanded that in future greater use should be made of the opportunities afforded by scientific knowledge in the prosecution of the struggle. A letter conveying this opinion was sent by these scientists to Prime Minister Asquith. On July 18 it was announced in London that a number of eminent scientists and inventors had been appointed to assist Admiral Lord Fisher, as Chairman of the Invention Board, to co-ordinate and encourage scientific work in relation to the requirements of the British navy. Lord Bryce was said to be instrumental in this undertaking.

In the United States a similar movement was in progress. THE NEW YORK TIMES published on May 30 an interview with Thomas A. Edison declaring that in its preparations for war the American Government should "maintain a great research laboratory, jointly under military and naval and civilian control." In this could be developed the "continually increasing possibilities of great guns, the minutiae of new explosives, all the technique of military and naval progression, without any vast expense." If any foreign power should seriously consider an attack upon this country "a hundred men of special training quickly would be at work here upon new means of repelling the invaders," Mr. Edison said; "I would be at it, myself."

Secretary of the Navy Daniels thereupon wrote to Mr. Edison a congratulatory letter, saying: "I think your ideas and mine coincide if an interview with you recently published in THE NEW YORK TIMES was correct." He added:

One of the imperative needs of the navy, in my judgment, is machinery and facilities for utilizing the natural inventive genius of Americans to meet the new conditions of warfare as shown abroad, and it is my intention if a practical way can be worked out, as I think it can be, to establish at the earliest moment a department of invention and development, to which all ideas and suggestions, either from the service or from civilian inventors, can be referred for determination as to whether they contain practical suggestions for us to take up and perfect....

What I want to ask is if you would be willing, as a service to your country, to act as an adviser to this board, to take such things as seem to you to be of value, but which we are not, at present, equipped to investigate, and to use your own magnificent facilities in such investigation if you feel it worth while.

The consequence was Mr. Edison's appointment to head an advisory board of civilian inventors and engineers for a Bureau of Invention and Development created in the Navy Department. After a conference with Mr. Edison Secretary Daniels on July 19 wrote to eight leading scientific societies asking each of them to select two members to serve on the Naval Advisory Committee, and as a first fruit of the movement it was announced on July 23 that at the request of Mr. Edison, the American Society of Aeronautic Engineers had been formed with Henry A. Wise Wood as President and Orville Wright, Glenn H. Curtiss, W. Starling Burgess, Peter Cooper Hewitt, Elmer A. Sperry and John Hays Hammond, Jr., as Vice-presidents.



Hudson Maxim on Explosives

THE NEW YORK TIMES on July 11 printed an interview with Hudson Maxim, the inventor of explosives, in which Mr. Maxim said:

Modern war is a warfare of explosives. The highly developed methods of defense, designed especially against explosives, are practically proof against everything but them.

Attacking forces must disemburrow the defending forces; they must be blasted out of the ground. This warfare amounts, literally, to that. It is as if boys hunted woodchucks with dynamite.

Each of the hard-won successes of the war has been a victory for well-placed high explosives. In the last fight around Przemysl the Germans fired in one hour, from field guns, 200,000 shells carrying high explosives.

Reports indicate that the result of this was literally unprecedented. It actually changed the topography of the country. Valleys were dug and hills razed.

Recently Lloyd George used an expressive phrase. "The trenches," he said, "were sprayed with exploding shells."

Such "spraying" only could be possible through the use of an incredible number of explosive projectiles.

America's plants for the production of explosives, cartridges, shrapnel, and rifles have so increased their capacity that we have today ten times the capacity which we had at the time of the war's outbreak, and, for certain things, the increase has been even greater. By the middle of next winter our capacity will be thirtyfold what it was at the beginning of the war.

Thus the fighting among other nations has done much toward preparing us for war, and, therefore, much toward insuring international peace for us, but even our tremendous contribution to the supplies of the Allies amounts to only about 2 per cent. of what they are consuming, and the war has not been running a year.

This indicates that if we should suddenly be involved in warfare with a great power we should be whipped unless we devised means for the increase of our productivity of war supplies, especially explosives and all ammunition materials, by a hundredfold.

The consumption of war material has been unprecedented, and this indicates what may be expected in future wars. In trench fighting, for example, it is estimated that four times as many rifles as men are required. The fighting man must have two because one quickly gets hot and becomes unusable; he must have a third so that he may still have two if one is hit by the return fire or otherwise rendered inefficient; he must have the fourth so that at least one of his weapons may be in the arms hospital undergoing repairs if necessary, and be ready for him in case one of his others is demolished. This development of modern warfare means that a million modern soldiers need four million modern rifles.

This indicates the enormous necessities which would devolve upon this country in case we were forced into a war. During the past week I have received a cable from an old friend in England who has been selling war munitions to the Allies. He asked me how quickly I could get a million rifles made in the United States. The best bids I have been able to obtain have guaranteed a first delivery at the end of one year and final deliveries at the end of three years.

One of the chief developments in the matter of explosives has been the fact that the United States has found it possible to teach Europe much during this war in regard to smokeless powder. Several years ago the du Pont Powder Company developed a smokeless rifle powder which permits the firing of more than 20,000 rounds from an ordinary army rifle without destroying its accuracy.

When the du Ponts developed their new rifle powder the best European powder destroyed the rifling and accuracy of the gun at about 3,000 rounds. This American invention, therefore, has increased the life of military rifles by sevenfold. Say that an equipment of military rifles cost at the rate of, say, $20 each, and we will find that this means a saving of, roughly, $100,000,000 in the equipment of a million men with one rifle each, and, as they need four rifles each, it means a saving of $400,000,000.

American smokeless powder for cannon also has its advantages. It erodes the guns much less than any European powder except, possibly, that of the Germans. They have a pure nitro-cellulose powder somewhat similar in quality to that of the United States, but ours has an advantage in being multi-perforated, whereby a higher velocity is insured at a lower pressure with, in consequence, a lessened erosive effect upon the guns.

In the early nineties I made the discovery that tri-nitro-cellulose, when combined with pyro-nitro-cellulose, could be much more readily gelatinated and made an excellent smokeless powder, while powder made from pure nitro-cellulose would warp and crack all to pieces in drying. The present German powder is made from such a compound of tri-nitro-cellulose and soluble nitro-cellulose.

Nevertheless, this compound is a makeshift as compared with the nitro-cellulose used by this Government. Ours is a far better explosive, and is less erosive on the guns, because the gases which it generates are not so hot. We have the best smokeless powder in the world, and, after this war is over, our powder will be universally used.



Thor!

By BEATRICE BARRY

I am the God of War—yea, God of Battle am I, And the evil men speak about me has moved me to fierce reply. Does not the surgeon's knife Torture—to save a life? So, for the life of nations, men learn to fight and die— Even die!

Craven through love or fear do the weak of the earth await me Tensely, with bated breath—yea, teaching their sons to hate me. Lured by my rolling drum, Nevertheless they come Proudly, their youth and manhood offering up to sate me!

You who would grudge me aught but harvest of woe and shame— Answer me, you who hate me, cursing my very name— When was a serf made free, Save and alone through me? When was a tyrant vanquished, save through my purging flame?

After an age of peace do your sons wax soft, their weakness Shown in a love of ease, of sensuousness, and sleekness; Then, lest a nation die, Loud rings my battle-cry! Lo, they forsake snug warmth for desolate cold and bleakness!

I am the God of War—yea, God of Battle am I, And the bolts of my savage anger I hurl from a threatening sky. Speak of me as you will, Swift though I be to kill, I have made men of weaklings—I teach men how to die— Even I!



"I am the Gravest Danger"

By George Bernard Shaw

In a cablegram to THE NEW YORK TIMES, dated July 17, 1915, it is reported that an article by George Bernard Shaw in The New Statesman begins with a review of Professor Gilbert Murray's book, "The Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey," and ends with the following characteristic reference to himself:

"Like other Socialists, I have been too much preoccupied with the atrocities of peace and the problems they raise to pay due attention to the atrocities of war, but I have not been unconscious of the European question and I have made a few shots at solutions from time to time. None of these have been received with the smallest approval, but at least I may be permitted to point out that they have all come out right.

"I steadily ridiculed anti-armament agitation, and urged that our armaments should be doubled, trebled, quadrupled, as they might have been without costing the country one farthing that we were not wasting in the most mischievous manner.

"I said that the only policy which would secure the peace of Europe was a policy of using powerful armament to guarantee France against Germany and Germany against Russia, aiming finally at a great peace insurance league of the whole northwest of Europe with the United States of America in defense of Western democratic civilization against the menace of the East and possible crusades from primitive black Christians in Africa.

"When the war broke out I said some more things which were frantically contradicted and which have all turned out to be precisely true. I set the example of sharp criticism of the Government and the War Office, which was denounced as treasonable and which now proves to be the only way of saving our army from annihilation, the Government having meanwhile collapsed and vanished, as every ordinarily self-possessed person foresaw that it must.

"One fact seems established by this beyond doubt; to wit, that I am the gravest public danger that confronts England, because I have the strange power of turning the nation passionately away from the truth by the simple act of uttering it. The necessity for contradicting me, for charging heroically in the opposite direction to that pointed out by me, is part of the delirium of war fever.

"Sir Edward Grey, on the other hand, is spoken well of by all men, but he, too, is the victim of a mysterious fate. He is, as Professor Murray has repeatedly testified, the most truthful of men, yet he never opens his mouth without deceiving us. He is the most loyal of simple, manly souls, yet he is accused of betraying every country and every diplomatist who trusted him. He is the kindest of men, and yet he has implicated us in the tortures of Denshawai and brought upon us the slaughters of Armageddon.

"Clearly, there are two men in England who must be sent into permanent retirement. Depend on it, there is something fundamentally wrong with them. It is a pity, for they are stuffed with the rarest of virtues—though I say it, who should not. One of them is Sir Edward Grey and the other is G.B.S."



THE EUROPEAN WAR AS SEEN BY CARTOONISTS

[American Cartoon]



[German Cartoon]



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[English Cartoon]



[French Cartoon]



[German Cartoon]



[American Cartoon]



[Italian Cartoon]



The Belligerents' Munitions

Growing Problems of Germany and Her Opponents in Supplying Arms

The threatened strike in the Krupp works at Essen, Germany, simultaneously with the strike of the Welsh coal miners and the walkout in the Remington Arms Factory in the United States, would tend to show that labor in the belligerent and neutral countries is seeking advantages under the strain of the enormous output of munitions to feed the war. Only in France, whose people are making supreme sacrifices, and in Russia, whose factories are not yet organized for the nation, does industrial peace prevail. In England the Munitions bill, with its proposals for compulsory arbitration and for limiting profits unweakened, was passed on July 1st. The bill retained, also, the power for the Government to proclaim the extension of its strike-stopping authority to other trades than the munitions trades.

An account of the conditions relating to labor in the various countries, beginning with the speech, in part, of Lloyd George, introducing the Munitions bill in the House of Commons on June 20, appears below.

A Volunteer Army of Workers

By Lloyd George, British Minister of Munitions

Addressing the House of Commons on June 20, 1915, Mr. Lloyd George said, in part:

What I want to impress not merely upon the House but on the country is that the duration of the war, the toll of life and limb levied by the war, the amount of exhaustion caused by the war, the economic and financial effect—and in order to understand the whole depth and meaning of the problem with which we are confronted I would state the ultimate victory or defeat in this war—depend on the supply of munitions which the rival countries can produce to equip their armies in the field. That is the cardinal fact of the military situation in this war. (Cheers.)

I heard the other day on very good authority—and this will give the House an idea of the tremendous preparations made by the enemy for this war and of the expansion which has taken place even since the war—that the Central European Powers are turning out 250,000 shells per day. That is very nearly eight million shells per month. The problem of victory for us is how to equal, how to surpass, that tremendous production. (Hear, hear.)

The Central European Powers have probably attained something like the limits of their possible output. We have only just crossed the threshold of our possibilities. In France I had the privilege of meeting M. Thomas, the Under Secretary for War, a man to whose great organizing capacity a good deal of the success of the French provisions of war is attributable, and I am very reassured not merely as to what France is doing and what France can do but as to what we can do when I take into account what France has already accomplished.

Let us see the position France is in. Her most important industrial provinces were in the hands of the enemy. Seventy per cent. of her steel production was in the hands of the enemy. She had mobilized an enormous army and therefore had withdrawn a very considerable proportion of her population from industry. She is not at best as great an industrial country as we are. She is much of an agricultural and pastoral country. It is true that we have certain disadvantages compared with France, and they are important. She has not the same gigantic Navy to draw upon the engineering establishments of the country. That makes a very great difference. She has more complete command over her labor. That makes an enormous difference, not merely in the mobility of labor and the readiness with which she can transfer that labor from one center to another, but in the discipline which obtains in the workshops. She has another advantage with her arsenals, which at the outbreak of war corresponded to the magnitude of her Army—a huge Army. We had a small Army to provide for. She, in addition to that, had undoubtedly a very great trade with other countries in the production of munitions of war. These are the advantages and disadvantages. Still, knowing these things and taking them all into account, the surplus of our engineering resources available for the materials of war is undoubtedly greater than that of France, and if we produce these things within the next few months as much as they are likely to produce the Allies would not merely equal the production of the Central Powers, but they would have an overwhelming superiority over the enemy in the material essential to victory. That is the first great fact I would like to get into the minds of all those who can render assistance to the country.

Germany has achieved a temporary preponderance of material. She has done it in two ways. She accumulated great stores before the war. She has mobilized the whole of her industries after the war, having no doubt taken steps before the war to be ready for the mobilization of the workshops immediately after war was declared. Her preponderance in two or three directions is very notable. I mention this because it is essential they should be understood in inviting the assistance of the community to enable us to compete with this formidable enemy. The superiority of the Germans in material was most marked in their heavy guns, their high explosive shells, their rifles, and perhaps most of all their machine-guns. These have turned out to be about the most formidable weapons in the war. They have almost superseded the rifle and rendered it unnecessary.

The machinery for rifles and machine-guns takes eight and nine months to construct before you begin to turn a single rifle or machine-gun. The Germans have undoubtedly anticipated the character of the war in the way no other Power has done. They realized it was going to be a great trench war. They had procured an adequate supply of machinery applicable to those conditions. The professional man was essentially a very conservative one—(hear, hear)—and there are competent soldiers who even today assume that his phase is purely a temporary one, that it would not last long, and we shall be back on the old lines.

I have no doubt much time was lost owing to that opposition. The Germans never harbored that delusion, and were fully prepared to batter down the deepest trenches of the enemy with the heavy guns and high explosives, and to defend their own trenches with machine-guns. That is the story of the war for ten months. We assumed that victory was rather due as a tribute from fate, and our problem now is to organize victory, and not take it for granted. (Cheers.) To do that the whole engineering and chemical resources of this country—of the whole Empire—must be mobilized. When that is done France and ourselves alone, without Italy or Russia, can overtop the whole Teutonic output.

The plan on which we have proceeded until recently I explained to the House in April. We recognized that the arsenals then in existence were quite inadequate to supply the new Army or even the old Army, giving the necessary material and taking into account the rate at which ammunition was being expended. We had, therefore, to organize new sources of supply, and the War Office was of opinion that the best method of attaining that object was to work through existing firms, so as to have expert control and direction over companies and workshops, which up to that time had no experience in turning out shells and guns and ammunition of all sorts. There was a great deal to be said for that. There was, first of all, a difficulty unless something of that kind was done of mobilizing all the resources at the disposal of the State. The total Army Estimates were L28,000,000 in the year of peace. They suddenly became L700,000,000. All that represents not merely twenty or twenty-five times as much money; it means twenty or twenty-five times as much work. It means more than that, because it has to be done under pressure. The sort of business which takes years to build up, develop, strengthen, and improve has suddenly to be done in about five, six, seven, or eight months. The War Office came to the conclusion that the best way of doing that was to utilize the skill of existing firms which were capable of doing this work. The War Office staff are hard-working, capable men, but there are not enough. There is one consideration which cannot be left out of account, and that is that men who are quite equal to running long-established businesses run on old-established lines, may not always be adequate to the task of organizing and administering a business thirty times its size on novel and original lines.

To be quite candid, the organizing firms—the armament firms—were also inadequate to the gigantic task cast upon them of not merely organizing their own work but of developing the resources of the country outside. They could not command the stock, and sub-contracting has undoubtedly been a failure. Sub-contracting has produced something like 10,000 shells a month. We have only been at it a few days, and we have already placed with responsible firms orders for 150,000 shells a month. In a very short time I am confident it will be a quarter of a million or 300,000. (Cheers.) It is a process of inviting business men to organize themselves and to assist us to develop the resources of their district.

We have secured a very large number of business men; many business men are engaged in organizing and directing their own business, business which is just as essential to the State in a period of war as even the organization of this office; but still there are the services of many able business men which are available, and we propose to utilize them to the full, first, in the Central Office to organize it; secondly, in the localities to organize the resources there; and, thirdly, we propose to have a great Central Advisory Committee of business men to aid us to come to the right conclusions in dealing with the business community.

I should like just to point out two or three of the difficulties, in order to show the steps which are taken to overcome them. The first difficulty, of course, is that of materials. There is, as I pointed out, material of which you have abundance in this country, but there are others which you have got to husband very carefully, and there is other material on which you have got to spend a considerable sum of money in order to be able to develop it at a later stage. With regard to this question, I think that it might be necessary ultimately for us to take complete control of the Metal Market, so that available material should not be wasted on non-essential work. (Hear, hear.) To a certain extent we have done that.

I should like to say a word with regard to raw material for explosives. We are building new factories so that the expansion of explosives shall keep pace with that of shells, and in this respect, again, I should like to dwell upon the importance of keeping up our coal supplies in this country. It is the basis of all our high-explosives, and if there were a shortage for any reason the consequences would be very calamitous.

Sometimes we do not get the best in these yards through the slackness of a minority and sometimes through regulations, useful, perhaps essential, in times of peace for the protection of men against undue pressure and strain, but which in times of war have the effect of restricting output. If these are withdrawn no doubt it increases the strain on the men, and in a long course of years they could not stand it. But in times of war everybody is working at full strain, and therefore it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of suspending restrictions which have the effect of diminishing the output of war material.

The fourth point is that the danger of having stoppages of work by means of strikes and lock-outs ought to be removed during the time of the war. (Hear, hear.) I should have liked to have seen strikes and lock-outs during the war made impossible in any trade, and I do not despair of getting the assent of those who object to compulsory arbitration under normal conditions to a temporary application of that principle during the period of the war.

The next step is one in which the Trade Unions are concerned. There was a very frank discussion between the leaders of the Trade Unions and myself, and I was bound to point out that if there were an inadequate supply of labor for the purpose of turning out munitions of war which are necessary for the safety of the country compulsion would be inevitable.

They put forward as an alternative that the Government should give them the chance of supplying that number of men. They said, "Give us seven days, and if in seven days we cannot get the men we will admit that our case is considerably weakened." They asked us to place the whole machinery of Government at their disposal, because they had not the organization to enlist the number. We have arranged terms upon which the men are to be enlisted, and tomorrow morning the seven days begin. Advertisements will appear in all the papers, an office has been organized, and the Trade Union representatives are sitting there in council directing the recruiting operations. I am not sure, but I believe my honorable friend Mr. Brace is the Adjutant-General. Tomorrow we hope to be able to make a start. We have 180 town halls in different parts of the country placed entirely at our disposal as recruiting offices. We invite the assistance of everybody to try to secure as many volunteers as they possibly can—men who are not engaged upon Government work now, skilled men—to enroll themselves in the Trade Union army for the purpose of going anywhere where the Government invited them to go to assist in turning out different munitions of war. If there are any honorable friends of mine who are opposed to compulsion, the most effective service they can render to voluntarism is to make this army a success. (Cheers.) If we succeed by these means—and the Board of Trade, the Munitions Department, and the War Office are placing all their services at the disposal of this new recruiting office—if within seven days we secure the labor, then the need for industrial compulsion will to that extent have been taken away.

CALL TO BRITISH WORKERS

In a special cable dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES, dated June 24, appeared the following:

"England expects every workman to do his duty," is the new rendering of Nelson's Trafalgar signal which is being flagged throughout the country today. Lloyd George has issued an appeal to organized labor to come forward within the next seven days in a last supreme effort on behalf of the voluntary system, and if it fails nothing remains but compulsion.

The appeal is being put before them by advertisements in newspapers, by speeches from labor leaders, and by meetings throughout the country. A new workmen's army is being recruited just as Kitchener's army was, and only seven days are given to gather together what may be termed a mobile army of industry. It is estimated that a quarter of a million men well equipped for the purposes required are available outside the ranks of those already engaged in the manufacture of munitions. Nearly two hundred industrial recruiting offices throughout the country opened at six o'clock last night, and, judging by reports already to hand, the voluntary system seems again likely to justify itself.

"To British Workmen: Your skill is needed," runs one advertisement. "There are thousands of skilled men who are burning to do something for King and country. By becoming a war munitions volunteer each of them can do his bit for his homeland. Get into a factory and supply the firing line."

Posters and small bills with both an artistic and literary "punch" are being prepared and sent out for distribution. Newspapers with special working class clientele are making direct appeals to their readers.

TEN THOUSAND MEN A DAY

Mr. H.E. Morgan, of the War Munitions Ministry, said in an interview printed by The London Daily Chronicle on July 1:

The War Munition Volunteers have amply justified their formation. During the last two days the enrolments throughout the country have averaged ten thousand skilled and fully qualified mechanics, who are exactly the type of worker we want. So far as the men are concerned, the voluntary principle in industrial labor has triumphed.

We have already transferred a large number of skilled mechanics from non-war work to munition making, and daily the number grows. London compares excellently with other places as regards the number of volunteers, but naturally most of the men are coming from the great engineering centres in the North and Midlands.

A REGISTER OF 90,000

In a London dispatch of the Associated Press, dated July 16, this report appeared:

After upward of a fortnight's work in the six hundred bureaus which were opened when the Minister of Munitions, David Lloyd George, gave labor the opportunity voluntarily to enroll as munitions operatives, closed today with a total registration of ninety thousand men. Registration hereafter will be carried out through the labor exchanges.

More men are needed, but the chief difficulty now is to place them on war work with a minimum of red tape. H.G. Morgan, assistant director of the Munitions Department, said today that this problem was causing some unrest among the workers, but that the transfers would take time, for the Government was anxious not to disturb industry more than necessary.

"The problem almost amounts to a rearrangement of the whole skilled labor of the country," said Mr. Morgan. "This, of course, will take considerable time."

THE CAMPAIGN CONTINUED

A cable dispatch from London to THE NEW YORK TIMES said on July 15:

The Daily Chronicle says that a campaign to urge munition workers to even greater efforts is to open today with a meeting at Grantham, and next week meetings will be held at Luton, Gloucester, Stafford, Preston, and other centres. In the course of the next few weeks hundreds of meetings will take place in all parts of the Kingdom.

The campaign has been organized by the Munitions Parliamentary Committee, the secretaries of which have received the following letter from Munitions Minister Lloyd George:

"I am glad to hear that members of the House are responding so enthusiastically to my pressing appeal to them to undertake a campaign in the country to impress upon employers and workers in munitions shops the urgent and even vital necessity for a grand and immediate increase in the output of munitions of war."

Professor Mantoux has been asked by the French Munitions Minister to keep in touch with the campaign and to report from time to time as to the results achieved. It is felt that what affects England affects France, and later a similar campaign may be inaugurated in that country.

Sixty members of Parliament have promised to speak at the meetings.

COAL STRIKE IN WALES

Most of the coal for Great Britain's navy comes from South Wales, and the supply was reduced by the enlistment of sixty thousand Welsh miners in the army. The labor crisis was first threatened three months ago, when the miners gave notice that they would terminate the existing agreements on July 1, and, in lieu of these, they proposed a national program, giving an all-around increase in wages. The owners objected to the consideration of the new terms during the war and asked the miners to accept the existing agreements plus a war bonus. After a series of conferences the union officials agreed to recommend a compromise, which was arranged through the Board of Trade. The miners, however, voted yesterday against this, and the Government was obliged to take action.

On July 16 the Associated Press cabled from London:

The Executive Committee of the South Wales Miners' Federation, most of the members of which are opposed to the strike, came to London today and conferred with Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade, who, it is understood, made new proposals for a settlement of the trouble, which will be considered at a meeting in the morning.

There is no indication of any weakening on the part of the men. Even the men in one district who last night decided to resume work reversed their decision, and not a pick was moving today.

However, the impression still prevails that a few days will see an end of the walkout. It is not believed that the introduction of the Munitions of War act can force the men to return to work, for it is impossible to bring 150,000 men before the courts to impose fines for contravening the act.

In fact, the resort to this measure is believed rather to have made the situation worse, and the men's demands now include its withdrawal so far as coal mining is concerned.

An Associated Press dispatch from Cardiff, Wales, on July 20 reported:

Subject to ratification by the miners themselves through delegates who will assemble tomorrow, representatives of the Government and of the coal mine owners on the one hand, and the Executive Committee of the South Wales Miners' Federation on the other, agreed today to terms that, it is thought, will end the coal miners' strike, which, since last Thursday, has tied up the South Wales coal fields and menaced the fuel supply of the navy.

The terms arrived at grant a substantial increase in wages and involve concessions to the strikers which are considered by their Executive Committee as tantamount to an admission of the miners' claims on nearly all the outstanding points. Tonight the delegates were visiting their districts, canvassing the sentiment there preparatory to tomorrow's vote.

If tomorrow's meeting should bring a settlement of the strike the thanks of the country will go chiefly to David Lloyd George, the Munitions Minister, for it was his arrival here last night that paved the way for breaking the deadlock between the miners and the mine owners.

If the vote tomorrow is favorable to ending the strike, two hundred thousand men will return to work immediately and agree to abide by the terms of the settlement until six months after the termination of the war.

AMMUNITION IN FRANCE

M. Millerand, French Minister of War, after the Senate had approved, on June 29, the bill appropriating $1,200,000,000 for war expenses of the third quarter of the year, reported as quoted by the Associated Press:

From August 1 to April 1 France has increased her military production sixfold. The curve for munitions has never ceased to mount, nor that representing the manufacture of our 75s. I can give satisfying assurances also regarding the heavy artillery and small arms. From the 1st of January to the 15th of May the other essentials of the war have been equally encouraging. We are determined to pursue our enemies, whatever arms they may employ.

Yves Guyot, the economist and late Minister of Public Works in France, said to THE NEW YORK TIMES correspondent on July 3:

France can hold her own against Germany. She herself makes all the shells that play such havoc in the enemy's ranks, and she will keep on making all she needs.

The munitions problem in France is not so acute as in England. In France as soon as the war started we began turning out the shells as fast as our factories could work. So, in a short time, they were going full blast. We have been able to supply our army with ample ammunition and to have shells enough to shake up the enemy whenever we put on spurts.

It is vitally important that England has come to the realization of the need of equipping her own army with adequate ammunition. Up to now the English Army has been sadly handicapped, but with the energetic Lloyd George in command the munitions output in the near future is certain to bring a sudden change in the status of England in the war.

We in France being in such immediate contact with the horrors of war had a stern sense of the necessity of fully equipping our army forced upon us at the very beginning of the conflict. The only thing we have lacked has been steel, and we have been getting some of that from our old friend, the United States. France has steel plants, and they do a tremendous amount of work, but altogether they do not turn out enough for our ammunition works. So we had to turn elsewhere for some of this product, and it was America that came to our aid.

We have got the steel with which to make shells. Our workmen are well organized and the whole spirit prevailing among them is to help France to win the bloodiest war of her history.

The London Daily Chronicle in an interview with Albert Thomas, French Minister of Munitions, quoted him as follows on July 8:

It is our duty to organize victory. To this we are bending all our energies. The war may be long; difficulties may reach us of which we had no prevision at the start; but we shall keep on until the end.

We know how great are the resources of Britain. We know what immense efforts she has put forth, which have been a surprise not only to us but to the enemy as well, and we have every reason for believing and knowing that these immense resources will continue to be used in the service of the Allies.

Understand me, I do not say that our common task is an easy one, nor do I say that we are on the eve of a speedy victory; but what I do say is that be the struggle long or short, we are both ready to double, to treble, to quadruple, and, if necessary, to increase tenfold the output of munitions of war.

We have pooled our resources, and I, for one, have no doubt, that these resources are great enough to stand any strain which we may be called upon to put upon them; nor have I any fear of an ultimate triumph. All the great moral forces of the world are on our side. The Allies are fighting for the freeing of Europe from the domination of militarism; and that is fighting into which every democrat can throw himself heart and soul. Defeat in such a cause is unthinkable.

RUSSIAN INDUSTRIALISTS RALLY

The Petrograd correspondent of the London Morning Post reported on June 11th the annual assembly of leading members of the world of commerce and industry, as follows:

Speakers urged a general rally round the Rulers of the States, and proposals were made that they should express collectively to the Ministers the readiness of the whole industrial and mercantile class represented at that congress to place themselves at the disposal of the State for the purpose of making better provision for the war. The example of England in instituting a Ministry of Munitions should serve as a guide to Russia. A deputation, it was urged, should be appointed to lay at the feet of the Emperor the heartfelt desire of all to devote themselves to the sole purpose of obtaining victory over Germanism and to expound the ideas of their class for the best means of employing their resources. England had turned all its manufacturing resources into factories of munitions of war, and Russia must do the same.

Some speakers referred to the lack of capital for the proper exploitation of the resources of the country, saying that this would be especially felt after the war was over. The Congress, however, declined to look beyond the all-important need of the moment, namely, to direct the entire resources of the country to the achievement of victory over Germanism.

The final sitting was attended by the President of the Duma, M. Rodzjanko, whose speech was listened to with profound feeling. The Congress passed with acclamation various patriotic resolutions, its main decision being to establish immediately a Central Committee for the provision of munitions of war. It is expected that by this means Russia will be able to accomplish what England is believed to be achieving in the same direction. Every factory and workshop throughout the country is to be organized for the supply of everything needed by the armies in the field.

SPEEDING GERMAN WORKMEN

A "Neutral" correspondent of The London Daily Chronicle, just returned from Germany, was thus quoted in a cable dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES on June 28:

It is in towns, particularly industrial towns, where one sees how entirely the German nation is organized for war. Into these towns an enormous number of men have been drafted from the country to work in factories, which are humming day and night with activity to keep up the supply of all things necessary for the fighting line.

In general, the relations between capital and labor there have experienced notable amelioration. Indeed, the impression one gains in traveling about Germany is one of absolute settled industrial peace, but I know this has only been secured because all parties know that the first signs of dissatisfaction would be treated "with the utmost rigor of the law."

At some of the largest factories men are often at work fifteen, twenty, and even thirty hours on a stretch, with only short intervals for rest. Though it is said that there are ample stocks of all kinds of ammunition, there is noted daily and nightly a feverish haste in the factories where it is made.

The Government has not officially taken over the factories, but it is well known that all factory owners who want Government work can get it, and, as this is almost the only profitable use to which factories can just now be put, there is no lack of candidates for recognition as army contractors.

Whenever a Government contract is given out there is a clause in the contract which fixes rates of wages for every grade of workmen so that any questions of increases that the men might raise are out of the hands of the employer, and he points to the fact that both he and the workmen are in the hands of the State. Strikes are therefore unknown, a further deterrent being the knowledge that any man who does not do his utmost without murmuring will quickly be embodied in some regiment destined for one of the hottest places at the front.

In factories where Government work is being done wages are high, and even in the few cases where wages of certain unskilled workers have fallen, the men are allowed to work practically until they drop and so make up by more hours what they have lost by the lowered rates.

There is keen competition to obtain work in the factories working for the State, as the men engaged in these know almost certainly that for some time at least they will not be sent to the front, which seems to be the chief dread underlying all other thoughts and feelings.

For work done on Sunday wages are 50 per cent. higher than the usual rate. The men are encouraged to work on Sundays and overtime on weekdays and the prices of food are so high they need little encouragement. Where women have taken the places of men their wages are in most cases lower.

KRUPPS' IMPENDING STRIKE

An Associated Press dispatch from Geneva on July 15 said:

A report has reached Basle that a big strike is threatened at the Krupp Works at Essen, Germany, the movement being headed by the Union of Metallurgical Workmen and the Association of Mechanics. They demand higher wages, the report says, because of the increased cost of living and shorter hours because of the great strain under which they work.

The workmen, according to these advices, are in an angry mood and threaten the destruction of machinery unless their demands are granted immediately, as they have been put off for three months with promises. Several high officials have arrived at the Krupp Works in an effort to straighten out matters and calm the workmen, the advices add, and Bertha Krupp is expected to visit the plant and use her great influence with the workers.

The Frankfort Gazette, according to the news reaching Basle, has warned the administration of the Krupp plant of the seriousness of the situation, and has advised that the men's demands be granted. Meanwhile, the reports state, several regiments have been moved to the vicinity of the works to be available should the trouble result in a strike.

A dispatch to The London Daily Chronicle, dated Chiasso, July 16, reported:

According to a telegram from Munich to Swiss papers, the German military authorities have informed the management and union officials of the Krupps, where disputes occasioned by the increased cost of living have arisen in several departments, that in no circumstances will a strike be tolerated.

On July 19 an Associated Press dispatch from Geneva reads:

An important meeting was held at Essen yesterday, according to advices received at Basle, between the administration of the Krupp gun works and representatives of the workmen, in order to settle the dispute which has arisen over the demands of the men for an increase in wages.

Directly and indirectly, about one hundred thousand men are involved. Minor cases in which machinery has been destroyed have been reported.

The military authorities before the meeting, the Basle advices say, warned both sides that unless an immediate arrangement was reached severe measures would be employed.

The Krupp officials are understood to have granted a portion of the demands of the employees, which has brought about a temporary peace, but the workmen still appear to be dissatisfied, and many have left the works.

A strike would greatly affect the supply of munitions, and for this reason the military have adopted rigorous precautions.

On the same date the following brief cable was sent to THE NEW YORK TIMES from London:

A telegram to The Daily Express from Geneva says many men have already left the Krupp works because they are unable to bear the strain of incessant labor, and would rather take their chances in the trenches than continue work at Essen under the present conditions.

Some minor cases of sabotage have already been reported.

REMINGTON ARMS STRIKE

In a special dispatch to THE NEW YORK TIMES, dated Bridgeport, Conn., July 14, appeared the following news of labor trouble in the American munitions factory:

One hundred workmen, twenty guards, and the Bridgeport police reserves took a hand in a riot tonight at the new plant of the Remington Arms Company, where it is planned to make small arms for the Allies. The riot brings to fever heat the labor excitement of the last week, which yesterday caused the walkout of the structural ironworkers at the plant and today a walkout of the millwrights and the ironworkers on the new plant of the sister company, the Remington Union Metallic Cartridge Company.

The three thousand workmen have been stirred into a great unrest in the last week by some unseen influence. Major Walter W. Penfield, U.S.A., retired, head of the arms plant, says pro-Germans are back of the strike. This the labor leaders deny.

On July 15 the spread of the strike was reported in a special dispatch from Bridgeport to THE NEW YORK TIMES:

The strike at the giant new plant of the Remington Arms Company under construction to make arms for the Allies, as well as, it is supposed, for the United States Government, spread today from the proportions of a picayune family labor quarrel to an imminent industrial war which would paralyze Bridgeport, curtailing the shipment of arms and ammunition from this centre, and which threatens to spread to other cities in the United States, especially to those where munitions of war are being manufactured.

On July 20 THE NEW YORK TIMES published the demands of the workmen at the Remington Arms plant, as outlined by J.J. Keppler, vice-president of the Machinists' Union:

Mr. Keppler was asked to tell concisely just what the unions wanted.

"There are at present," he replied, "just three demands. If the strike goes further the demands will increase. The demands are:

"1. Recognition of the millwrights as members of the metal trade unions and not of the carpenters', and fixing of the responsibility for the order some one gave for the millwrights to join the carpenters' union, an attempt on the part of the Remington or the Stewart people to dictate the international management of the unions.

"2. A guarantee of a permanent eight-hour day in all plants in Bridgeport making war munitions. This carries with it a demand for a guarantee of a minimum wage and double pay for overtime.

"3. That all men who go on strike will be taken back to work."

In addition, of course, Mr. Johnston demands that Major Penfield retract his charge of German influence being back of the strike.

A check, if not a defeat, administered to the fomenters of the strike was reported to THE NEW YORK TIMES in a Bridgeport dispatch dated July 20, as follows:

John A. Johnston, International vice-president of the Iron Workers' Union, and J.J. Keppler, vice-president of the Machinists', were on hand to inaugurate the big strike. All of Bridgeport's available policemen were on duty at the plant.

As the whistle blew the crowd surged about the gates, where barbed wire and guards held them back. Five minutes passed, ten, twenty, and 12.30 saw Keppler and Johnston pacing up and down before the plant awaiting their men. At 1 o'clock not a machinist had issued from the portals. The hoarse whistle blew, calling back the two thousand workers to their task, and Keppler and Johnston and the rest were left in wonder.

A cog had slipped in this way:

Before the noon whistle blew, Major Walter G. Penfield, works manager of the plant, placed guards at all the exits to ask the machinists to wait a few minutes. They did. The foreman told them that, on behalf of the Remington Company, Major Penfield desired to assure them a permanent eight-hour day, beginning August 1, and to guarantee a dollar a day increase in pay.



The Power of the Purse

How "Silver Bullets" Are Made in Britain

By Prime Minister Asquith

For the first time in the financial history of Great Britain, Prime Minister Asquith declared in his Guildhall speech of June 29, an unlimited and democratic war loan was popularized, appealing to all classes, including the poorest, and advertising the sale through the Post Office of vouchers for as low as 5 shillings to be turned into stock. His speech was intended also to initiate a movement for saving and thrift among the people as the only secure means against national impoverishment by the war.

A statement by Reginald McKenna, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on July 13, showed that approximately L600,000,000, or $3,000,000,000, had been subscribed, making this the greatest war loan raised in the history of any nation. The total number of subscribers through the Bank of England was 550,000, aggregating L570,000,000, or $2,850,000,000, while 547,000 persons had subscribed $75,000,000 through the Post Office. Besides this no estimate of the small vouchers taken out had been made, and the Post Office subscriptions had not been closed. The gigantic total, Mr. McKenna said, represented only new money, and not any stock which will be issued for purposes of conversion. Prime Minister Asquith's speech appears in full below.

In his speech in the Guildhall, London, on June 29, 1915, Mr. Asquith said:

This is, I think, the third time since the war began that I have had the privilege of addressing you in this hall. On the first occasion, as far back as September last, I came here to appeal to you to supply men to be trained to fight our battles at the front. Today I have come to ask you here in the City of London for what is equally necessary for the success of our cause—for the ways and means which no community in the Empire is better qualified to provide, to organise, and to replenish.

This is the costliest war that has ever been waged. A hundred years ago our ancestors spent eight hundred millions to vindicate, as we are vindicating today, the freedom of Europe, in a war which lasted the best part of 20 years, which brings out a rough average of considerably less than a million pounds a week. Our total expenditure today approaches for one year a thousand millions, and we are spending now, and are likely to spend for weeks and months to come, something like three million pounds a day. Our daily revenue from taxation, I suppose, works out less than three-quarters of a million per day.

Those are facts which speak for themselves, and they show the urgent necessity, not only for a loan, but for a national loan—a loan far larger in its scale, far broader in its basis, and far more imperious in its demand upon every class and every section of the community than any in our history.

For the first time in our financial experience no limit has been placed on the amount to be raised; and that means that every citizen in the country is invited to subscribe as much as he can to help us to a complete and speedy victory. I need not dwell on its attractiveness from the mere investor's point of view. Indeed, the only criticism which I have heard in or outside the House of Commons is that it is perhaps a little too generous in its terms. That is a fault, if it be a fault, upon the right side.

For L100 in cash you get L100 in stock, with interest at 4-1/2 per cent. on the credit of the British Exchequer. The loan is redeemable in thirty years, when every subscriber, or those who succeed him, must get his money back in full, and the Government retain an option to repay at the end of ten years. That is the earliest date on which any question of re-investment can arise. Further, the stock or bonds will be accepted at par, with an allowance for accrued interest as the equivalent of cash, for subscription to any loan that the Government may issue in this country throughout the war.

I want especially to emphasise that this is for the first time in our financial history a great democratic loan. The State is appealing to all classes, including those whose resources are most limited, to step in and contribute their share to meet a supreme national need. The Post Office will receive subscriptions for L5, or any multiple of L5, and will sell vouchers for 5s. and upwards which can be gradually accumulated, and by December 1st next turned into stock of the new loan.

Every advantage which is given to the big capitalist is granted also in the same degree to the smallest supporter of the country's credit and finance. And, under such conditions, I am confident that the success of the loan as a financial instrument ought to be, and indeed is now, absolutely secured. (Cheers.)

This meeting was called not only to advertise the advantages of the War Loan, but to initiate a concerted national movement for what may be called war economy. My text is a very simple one. It is this: "Waste on the part either of individuals or of classes, which is always foolish and shortsighted, is, in these times, nothing short of a national danger." According to statisticians, the annual income of this country—I speak of the country and not of the Government—the annual income of this country is from two thousand two hundred and fifty to two thousand four hundred millions, and the annual expenditure of all classes is estimated at something like two thousand millions. It follows that the balance annually saved and invested, either at home or abroad, is normally between three hundred and four hundred millions.

Upon a nation so circumstanced, and with such habits, there has suddenly descended—for we did not anticipate it, nor prepared the way for it—the thundercloud of war—war which, as we now know well, if we add to our own direct expenditure the financing of other countries, will cost us in round figures about a thousand millions in the year. Now how are we, who normally have only three hundred or four hundred millions to spare in a year, to meet this huge and unexpected extraordinary draft upon our resources?

The courses open are four. The first is the sale of investments or property. We have, it is said, invested abroad something like four thousand millions sterling. Can we draw upon that to finance the war? Well, there are two things to be said about any such suggestion. The first is that our power of sale is limited by the power of other countries to buy, and that power, under existing conditions, is strictly limited.

The second thing to be said is this: That, if we were to try, assuming it to be practicable, to pay for the war in this way, we should end it so much poorer. The war must, in any case, impoverish us to some extent, but we should end it so much poorer, because the income we now receive, mainly from goods and services from abroad, would be proportionately, and permanently, reduced. I dismiss that, therefore, as out of the question.

Similar considerations seem to show the impracticability on any considerable scale of a second possible expedient, namely, borrowing abroad. The amount that could be raised in any foreign market at this moment, in comparison with the sum required, is practically infinitesimal, and, if it were possible on any considerable scale, we should again have to face the prospects of ending the war a debtor country, with a huge annual drain on our goods and our services, which would flow abroad in the payment of interest and the redemption of principal. That again, therefore, for all practical purposes, may be brushed aside.

There is a third course—payment out of our gold reserve, but that need only be stated to be discarded. We cannot impair the basis of the great system of credit which has made this City of London the financial centre and capital of the world.

There remains only one course, the one we have come here today to advocate, and to press upon our fellow-countrymen—to diminish our expenditure and to increase our savings.

If you save more you can lend the State more, and the nation will be proportionately enabled to pay for the war out of its own pocket. A second proposition, equally simple, and equally true, is this. If you spend less, you either reduce the cost and volume of our imports, or you leave a larger volume of commodities available for export.

The state of the trade balance between ourselves and other countries at this moment affords grounds—I do not say for anxiety, but for serious thought. If you look at the Board of Trade returns for the first five months—that is, to the end of the month of May—of the present year—you will find, as compared with the corresponding period of last year, that our imports have increased by thirty-five and a half millions; while our exports and re-exports have decreased by seventy-three and three-quarter millions. What does that mean? It means a total addition in five months of our indebtedness to other countries of nearly a hundred and ten millions, and if that rate were to continue till we reached the end of a completed year, the figure of indebtedness would rise to over two hundred and sixty millions.

That is a serious prospect, and I want to ask you, and those outside, how can that tendency be counteracted? The answer is a very simple one—by reducing all unnecessary expenditure, first, of imported goods—familiar illustrations are tea, tobacco, wine, sugar, petrol; I could easily add to the list—and that would mean that we should have to buy less from abroad; and next, as regards goods which are made at home—you can take as an illustration beer—setting a larger quantity free for export, which means that we have more to sell abroad, and enable capital and labour here at home to be more usefully and appropriately applied. That may seem a rather dry and technical argument—(laughter)—but it goes to the root of the whole matter.

If you ask me to state the result in a sentence, it is this: All money that is spent in these days on superfluous comforts or luxuries, whether in the shape of goods or in the shape of services, means the diversion of energy which can be better employed in the national interests, either in supplying the needs of our fighting forces in the field or in making commodities for export which will go to reduce our indebtedness abroad.

And, on the other hand, every saving we make by the curtailment and limitation of our productive expenditure increases the resources which can be put by our people at the disposal of the State for the triumphant vindication of our cause.

I said our cause. That, after all, is the summary and conclusion of the whole matter. We are making here and throughout the Empire a great national and Imperial effort, unique, supreme. The recruiting of soldiers and sailors, the provision of munitions, the organisation of our industries, the practice of economy, the avoidance of waste, the accumulation of adequate war funds, the mobilisation of all our forces, moral, material, personal—all these are contributory and convergent streams which are directed to and concentrated upon one unifying end, one absorbing and governing purpose.

It is not merely with us a question of self-preservation, of safeguarding against hostile design and attack the fabric which has withstood so many storms of our corporate and national life. That in itself would justify all our endeavours. But there is something even larger and worthier at stake in this great testing trial of our people.

There is not a man or a woman among us but he or she is touched even in the faintest degree with a sense of the higher issues which now hang in the balance, who has not, during this last year, become growingly conscious that, in the order of Providence, we here have been entrusted with the guardianship of interests and ideals which stretch far beyond the shores of these islands, beyond even the confines of our world-spread Empire, which concern the whole future of humanity. (Cheers.)

Is right or is force to dominate mankind? Comfort, prosperity, luxury, a well-fed and securely sheltered existence, not without the embellishments and concentrations of art and literature, and perhaps some conventional type of religion—all these we can purchase at a price, but at what a price! At the sacrifice of what makes life, national or personal, alone worth living. My Lord Mayor and citizens of London, we are not going to make that sacrifice (loud and prolonged cheers, the audience rising and waving their hats). Rather than make it, we shall fight to the end, to the last farthing of our money, to the last ounce of our strength, to the last drop of our blood. (Loud cheers.)



Cases Reserved

By SIR OWEN SEAMAN

[From Punch.]

"The Government are of opinion that the general question of personal responsibility shall be reserved until the end of the War."—Mr. Balfour in the House.

Let sentence wait. The apportionment of blame To those who compassed each inhuman wrong Can bide till Justice bares her sword of flame; But let your memories be long!

And, lest they fail you, wearied into sleep, Bring out your tablets wrought of molten steel; There let the record be charactered deep In biting acid, past repeal.

And not their names alone, of high estate, Drunk with desire of power, at whose mere nod The slaves that execute their lust of hate Laugh at the laws of man and God;

But also theirs who shame their English breed, Who go their ways and eat and drink and play, Or find in England's bitter hour of need Their chance of pouching heavier pay;

And theirs, the little talkers, who delight To beard their betters, on great tasks intent, Cheapening our statecraft in the alien's sight For joy of self-advertisement.

Today, with hands to weightier business set, Silent contempt is all you can afford; But put them on your list and they shall get, When you are free, their full reward.



New Recruiting in Britain

By Field Marshal Earl Kitchener, Secretary of State for War

State registration of all persons, male and female, between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five, the particulars to include each person's age, work, and employers, and his registering to be accompanied by an invitation that he volunteer for work for which he may have special fitness, was the provision introduced in the House of Commons on June 29, 1915, and passed by that body on July 8. In explaining the bill's intent its introducer, Mr. Walter Long, who is President of the Local Government Board, replied on July 9 to the objection of critics who saw in it the first steps to compulsory service. He said that the National Register stood or fell by itself. So far as the use of it went, so far as the adoption of compulsion went, he declared frankly that the Prime Minister would be the last man in England to say, in the face of the situation in which Britons found themselves, anything which would prevent the Government adopting compulsory service tomorrow if they believed it to be right and necessary in order to bring this war to an end. Their hands were absolutely free. On the same day Earl Kitchener opened a recruiting campaign with a speech in the London Guildhall, which appears in part below.

The Lord Mayor of London, in calling upon Lord Kitchener, said the Empire had indeed been highly fortunate in having him at the head of the War Office in this great national crisis. Earl Kitchener was received with cheers as he said:

Hitherto the remarks that I have found it necessary to make on the subject of recruiting have been mainly addressed to the House of Lords; but I have felt that the time had now come when I may with advantage avail myself of the courteous invitation of the Lord Mayor to appear among you, and in this historic Guildhall make another and a larger demand on the resources of British manhood. Enjoying as I do the privilege of a Freeman of this great City—(hear, hear!)—I can be sure that words uttered in the heart of London will be spread broadcast throughout the Empire. (Cheers.) Our thoughts naturally turn to the splendid efforts of the Oversea Dominions and India, who, from the earliest days of the war, have ranged themselves side by side with the Mother Country. The prepared armed forces of India were the first to take the field, closely followed by the gallant Canadians—(cheers)—who are now fighting alongside their British and French comrades in Flanders, and are there presenting a solid and impenetrable front against the enemy. In the Dardanelles the Australians and New Zealanders—(cheers)—combined with the same elements, have already accomplished a feat of arms of almost unexampled brilliancy, and are pushing the campaign to a successful conclusion. In each of these great Dominions new and large contingents are being prepared, while South Africa, not content with the successful conclusion of the arduous campaign in South-West Africa, is now offering large forces to engage the enemy in the main theatre of war. (Cheers.) Strengthened by the unflinching support of our fellow-citizens across the seas, we seek to develop our own military resources to their utmost limits, and this is the purpose which brings us together today.

Napoleon, when asked what were the three things necessary for a successful war, replied: "Money, money, money." Today we vary that phrase, and say: "Men, material, and money." As regards the supply of money for the war, the Government are negotiating a new loan, the marked success of which is greatly due to the very favorable response made by the City. To meet the need for material, the energetic manner in which the new Ministry of Munitions is coping with the many difficulties which confront the production of our great requirements affords abundant proof that this very important work is being dealt with in a highly satisfactory manner. (Cheers.) There still remains the vital need for men to fill the ranks of our Armies, and it is to emphasize this point and bring it home to the people of this country that I have come here this afternoon. When I took up the office that I hold, I did so as a soldier, not as a politician—(loud cheers)—and I warned my fellow countrymen that the war would be not only arduous, but long. (Hear, hear.) In one of my earliest statements made after the beginning of the war I said that I should require "More men, and still more, until the enemy is crushed." I repeat that statement today with even greater insistence. All the reasons which led me to think in August, 1914, that this war would be a prolonged one hold good at the present time. It is true we are in an immeasurably better situation now than ten months ago—(hear, hear)—but the position today is at least as serious as it was then. The thorough preparedness of Germany, due to her strenuous efforts, sustained at high pressure for some forty years, have issued in a military organization as complex in character as it is perfect in machinery. Never before has any nation been so elaborately organized for imposing her will upon the other nations of the world; and her vast resources of military strength are wielded by an autocracy which is peculiarly adapted for the conduct of war. It is true that Germany's long preparation has enabled her to utilize her whole resources from the very commencement of the war, while our policy is one of gradually increasing our effective forces. It might be said with truth that she must decrease, whilst we must increase.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of the response that has been made to my previous appeals, but I am here today to make another demand on the manhood of the country to come forward to its defence. I was from the first unwilling to ask for a supply of men in excess of the equipment available for them. I hold it to be most undesirable that soldiers, keen to take their place in the field, should be thus checked and possibly discouraged, or that the completion of this training should be hampered owing to lack of arms. We have now happily reached a period when it can be said that this drawback has been surmounted, and that the troops in training can be supplied with sufficient arms and material to turn them out as efficient soldiers.