Government. Even this was not sufficient
in some cases to get all the workmen in the proper frame of mind.
Lloyd George went down himself and addressed meetings of the men. Here
is an extract from one of his speeches: "The enlisted workman cannot
choose his locality of action. He cannot say, 'I am prepared to fight
at Neuve Chapelle, but I won't fight at Festubert, and I am not going
near the place called "Wipers."' He can't say, 'I have been in the
trenches ten and a half hours, and the trade-unions won't let me work
more than ten hours.' He can't say, 'You have not enough men here, and
I have been doing the work of two men, and my trade-unions won't allow
me to do more than my share.' When the house is on fire, questions of
procedure and precedence and division of labor disappear. You can't
say you are not liable to serve at three o'clock in the morning if the
fire is proceeding. You can't choose the hour. You can't argue as to
whose duty it is to carry the water-bucket and whose duty it is to put
it into a crackling furnace. You must put the fire out. There is only
one way to do it--that is, everything must give way to duty and
good-fellowship, good-comradeship, and determination. You must put the
whole of your strength into obtaining victory for your native land and
for the liberties of the world."

The British trade-unions wanted but little persuading under such an
appeal, and rights and privileges struggled for and won at heavy cost
during half a century were cheerfully relinquished for the time being.
There was some friction among small sections in connection with the
powers taken by Lloyd George to punish workmen who struck work, or who
dislocated operations in a workshop by leaving it to seek better money.
But in the passion for victory which coursed through the veins of the
nation the ruthless doings of Lloyd George were welcomed by the
overwhelming majority of the community. He asked the English people to
submit to shackles such as they had not known since the tyranny of the
Middle Ages. They willingly and even enthusiastically agreed.

Lloyd George not only rushed the beginning of national shell-factories,
since completed, but established large new towns of temporary houses in
country districts with something more than the rapidity of camps on a
rich gold strike. Britain, psychologically transformed, was in a large
measure physically altered also.

And yet, when all was said and done, Lloyd