money for the war, the Government are negotiating a new loan, the
marked success of which is greatly due to the very favorable response
made by the City. To meet the need for material, the energetic manner
in which the new Ministry of Munitions is coping with the many
difficulties which confront the production of our great requirements
affords abundant proof that this very important work is being dealt
with in a highly satisfactory manner. (Cheers.) There still remains
the vital need for men to fill the ranks of our Armies, and it is to
emphasize this point and bring it home to the people of this country
that I have come here this afternoon. When I took up the office that I
hold, I did so as a soldier, not as a politician--(loud cheers)--and I
warned my fellow countrymen that the war would be not only arduous,
but long. (Hear, hear.) In one of my earliest statements made after
the beginning of the war I said that I should require "More men, and
still more, until the enemy is crushed." I repeat that statement today
with even greater insistence. All the reasons which led me to think in
August, 1914, that this war would be a prolonged one hold good at the
present time. It is true we are in an immeasurably better situation
now than ten months ago--(hear, hear)--but the position today is at
least as serious as it was then. The thorough preparedness of Germany,
due to her strenuous efforts, sustained at high pressure for some
forty years, have issued in a military organization as complex in
character as it is perfect in machinery. Never before has any nation
been so elaborately organized for imposing her will upon the other
nations of the world; and her vast resources of military strength are
wielded by an autocracy which is peculiarly adapted for the conduct of
war. It is true that Germany's long preparation has enabled her to
utilize her whole resources from the very commencement of the war,
while our policy is one of gradually increasing our effective forces.
It might be said with truth that she must decrease, whilst we must
increase.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of the response that has
been made to my previous appeals, but I am here today to make another
demand on the manhood of the country to come forward to its defence. I
was from the first unwilling to ask for a supply of men in excess of
the equipment available for them. I hold it to be most undesirable
that soldiers, keen to take their place in the