00 rifles a week; and a rifle can shoot well for only about 1000
rounds. Yet in December a single contractor in England was turning out
40,000 a week, and every possible contractor there and elsewhere had
his hands full.

Kitchener must compass every detail from the rifle to the supply base;
from the seasoned wood for that rifle right down to the number of
troops he must have on the Continent when it comes to a settlement;
for, says Kitchener, "You cannot draw unless you hold cards."

The broad sweep of the English preparations may be indicated by this:
that when war broke out England not only commandeered horses in every
city, village, and highway of England, taking them from carriages and
from under the saddle, but started buying them over the seas. Of
English shipping she gathered into her war-fold such a number of boats
as I do not dare to repeat. She gathered in under the admiralty flag
so many steamships from the mercantile marine that those which were
found most expensive to operate were soon turned back into the channels
of trade. With the many hundred steamers that she commandeered she set
about transporting everything needed, including horses, from over the
ocean.

The French bought their horses by the thousand in Texas and contracted
at good prices for their shipment to Bordeaux. Steamship rates became
almost prohibitive, and the horses arrived from their long journey in
poor condition. England inspected the horses in America, paid for
them, and then put them in charge of her own men on her own ships, and
landed them by the shortest routes in England and on the Continent, in
prime condition.

Although Germany had been buying liberally of horses in Ireland as
early as March, when the long arm of Great Britain reached out there
was no failure in her mounts for the cannon and cavalry divisions. For
good horses at home and abroad she did not hesitate to pay as high as
$350.

Americans should not forget that this war has brought about the
greatest contraction in ocean tonnage that has ever been seen. I
estimate that about one fourth of the world's oversea tonnage has been
commandeered, interned, or put out of service. Before the war the
Germans had nearly one eighth of the world's mercantile tonnage. That
is now interned, destroyed, or tied up, outside the trade on the
Baltic. As much more has been taken by the Allies from the mercantile
to the war marine. It must also be figured that the Baltic