nizing the difficulties there
are.

You cannot remove difficulties without looking at them, and you cannot
look at difficulties without seeing them, and that is why the business
of a Minister is to point them out, and then to appeal to every
section of the community to assist the Government in overcoming the
obstacles in the way.

Now we want especially the help of those who can contribute to the
increase of the munitions, the equipment, and the material of war. We
want the help of employers, we want the help of the workers. We want
employers and workmen to feel their responsibility in this matter. It
is my intention to utilize as much as I possibly can the business
brains of the community. I hope to get their assistance. Some of them
will be at my elbow in London to advise, to counsel, to guide, to
inform and instruct and to direct, but I want the help of the business
brains in the localities.

This is no time for the usual methods of doing business with the
Government. ["Hear, hear!"] I am assuming that Governments in the past
have done their business in the most perfect way. This is not a time
for the usual roundabout methods of Government business. ["Hear,
hear!"]

We have got to trust business men in the localities to organize for
us, to undertake the business in the particular locality on our
behalf. We want to suspend during the war not merely trade-union
regulations, but some Government regulations, too. ["Hear, hear!"]

We want rifles, we want guns, we want shells, fuses, chemicals, and
explosives. There is one thing we want less of than usual, and that is
red tape. It takes such a long time to unwind--[laughter]--and we
can't spare the time. Therefore, the first thing I am going to ask you
to do is to organize for yourselves in this locality, and in every
other locality, the engineering resources, for the purpose of
assisting the Government. You know best what you can do. I know the
resourcefulness of the engineers of this country, I know, as the Lord
Mayor has already pointed out, their adaptability. I want you to come
together and form your own committee of management. Having done that,
organize among yourselves the engineering resources of the locality,
with a view to producing the greatest result in the way of helping our
gallant forces at the front.

That involves a good deal more confidence and trust than usual. We
have no time to go through the same processes of examination, of
bargaining, as y