hich give a peculiar passion and poignancy to my
recollections of a crowded day--and peculiar interest, also, to the talk
of an able representative of the Ministry of Munitions, who is travelling
with me, and endeavouring to give me a connected view of the whole new
organisation. As he speaks, my thoughts travel to the English battle-line,
to the trenches and casualty clearing-stations behind it, to distant
Russia; and I think of the Prime Minister's statement in Parliament--that
the supply of munitions, for all its marvellous increase, is not yet equal
to the demand. New shops, new workers, new efforts--England is producing
them now unceasingly, she must go on producing them. There must be no
pause or slackening. There will be none.

I am going now to see--after the Midlands--what the English and Scotch
north is doing to swell the stream. And in my next letter there will be
plenty to say about "Dilution" of labour, about wages, and drink, and some
other burning topics of the moment.

III

Dear H.

It is now three months since Mr. Lloyd George made his startling speech,
as Munitions Minister, in the House of Commons in which, as he wound up
his review of his new department, he declared: "Unless we quicken our
movements, damnation will fall on the sacred cause for which so much
gallant blood has flowed!" The passion of this peroration was like the
fret of a river in flood chafing at some obstacle in its course. Generally
speaking, the obstacle gives way. In this case Mr. George's obstacle had
begun to give way long before December 21st--the date of the speech. The
flood had been pushing at it with increasing force since the foundation of
the Ministry of Munitions in the preceding summer. But the crumbling
process was not quick enough for Great Britain's needs, or for the energy
of her Minister.

Hence the outspoken speech of December 21st, supported by Mr. Asquith's
grave words of a few weeks later. "We cannot go on," said the Prime
Minister in effect, "depending upon foreign countries for our munitions.
We haven't the ships to spare to bring them home, and the cost is too
great. We _must_ make them ourselves." "Yes--and _quicker_!" Mr. Lloyd
George had already said, with a sharp emphasis, meant to "hustle" that
portion of the nation which still required hustling; overpainting his
picture, no doubt, but with quite legitimate rhetoric, in order to produce
his effect.

The result of that fresh "hustling" was