for now in France and
Flanders our countless guns crash in ceaseless concert, so that here
in England one may hear their ominous muttering all day long and
through the hush of night; and hearkening to that continuous
stammering murmur one thanks God for the women of Britain.

Two years ago, in June, 1915, the Ministry of Munitions was formed
under Mr. David Lloyd George; as to its achievements, here are
figures which shall speak plainer than any words.

In the time of Mons the army was equipped and supplied by three
Government factories and a very few auxiliary firms; to-day gigantic
national factories, with miles of railroads to serve them, are in
full swing, beside which, thousands of private factories are
controlled by the Government. As a result the output of explosives in
March, 1917, was over _four times_ that of March, 1916, and
_twenty-eight times_ that of March, 1915, and so enormous has been
the production of shells that in the first nine weeks of the summer
offensive of 1917 the stock decreased by only seven per cent. despite
the appalling quantity used.

The making of machine guns to-day as compared with 1915 has increased
_twenty-fold_, while the supply of small-arm ammunition has become so
abundant that the necessity for importation has ceased altogether. In
one Government factory alone the making of rifles has increased
_ten-fold_, and the employees at Woolwich Arsenal have increased from
a little less than _eleven thousand_ to nearly _seventy-four
thousand_, of whom _twenty-five thousand_ are women.

Production of steel, before the war, was roughly seven million tons;
it is now ten million tons and still increasing, so much so that it
is expected the pre-war output will be doubled by the end of 1918;
while the cost of steel plates here is now less than half the cost in
the U.S.A. Since May, 1917, the output of aeroplanes has been
quadrupled and is rapidly increasing; an enormous programme of
construction has been laid down and plans drawn up for its complete
realisation.

With this vast increase in the production of munitions the cost of
each article has been substantially reduced by systematic examination
of actual cost, resulting in a saving of L43,000,000 over the
previous year's prices.

Figures are a dry subject in themselves, and yet such figures as
these are, I venture to think, of interest, among other reasons for
the difficulty the human brain has to appreciate their full meaning.
Thus