imised by common
action. The National Relief Fund and the Women's Employment Fund are
intended really for this purpose. The establishment of women's training
workshops and of maintenance grants on condition of attendance at schools
and classes are steps in the same direction. The Government has increased
the disgracefully low payments made to dependants of soldiers on active
service, and its scale of pensions for widows of soldiers and sailors and
for those totally or partially disabled in the performance of military or
naval duties. Arrangements have been made for the payment of allowances of
half wages up to a maximum of L1 a week to dependants of sailors employed
on insured British merchant ships captured or detained by the enemy. More
important from the point of view of industry as a whole are the steps which
have been taken to minimise the effects of a diminution in the volume of
employment by the development of new openings. The Government through the
Board of Trade took the lead in the attempt to secure a share of the trade
hitherto done by Germany and Austria. Special efforts were made to develop
the manufacture of toys, and other industrial experiments were begun by
the Central Committee on Women's Employment. The Government appointed
a Chemical Products Supply Committee with a view to stimulating the
production of dyes and drugs at home. These proposals are in the main an
attempt to divert the trade of foreign countries, especially Germany, into
British channels. The second line of action is fuller provision of home
needs which cannot be satisfied by foreign producers, but are essentially
domestic. Such needs are housing, public parks, roads, etc. Between August
4 and September 21, 1914, the Local Government Board received over 600
applications from local authorities for powers to borrow money amounting
in all to over L2,500,000. About a fifth of this amount it was intended to
expend on housing. During this period the Board sanctioned loans amounting
in the aggregate to more than L3,500,000, as compared with rather under
L2,000,000 in the same period in 1913. The Road Board arranged to put in
hand the construction of certain new highways arranged for before the
beginning of the war. In addition, in the first seven weeks of the war, the
Board arranged to make grants amounting to about L450,000 in aid of new
road construction and road improvements in many different parts of the
country, which will involve a total e