Evening star., 1916-08-06
Years Work in a Month.

We can now produce in less than
month s many of the lighter shells
! as could have been turned out in the
whole year of 1S14-15. In less than a
| fortnight we can make more heavy
! year 1a14-16. We can now turn out in
a week far more shells. filed and COM
plete. than were used in the whole
battle Of Loos. which extended over a
| fortnight. and they had been saving
| ammunition for that battle for a
| month. We could have battle of
Loos every week now and it wouldn't
| touch the shell reserve stock.
! The manufacture of guns, which
did not lend itself to the process of
J subdivision like ammunition, has had
| to be concentra ted largely in the hands
! of experienced firms, but new factories
| under the direction of these firms have
| been made for 'single-purpose' work.
! 'Rega riding our present capacti~ for
: gun production as compared with the
; capacity in JUNG. 1919, before the war,
| we are now making in the case of the
! lightest guns over ten times what we
! were then: in the case of medium
| weight guns over twenty times and
! in the case of heavy guns more than
| fifty times.
| THE production of trench warfare
supplies has meant the creation of an
/
| tically no experience in this country.
Now grenades are being made in back
yards and in all sorts of small shops
| as well as in the big factories and
| duced weekly. In the early days of
! the war the trench mortar was a
| weapon which had received little at
| tention and undergone little develop
| ment and there was n mere handful
of these weapons in existence They
i are now being produced in Immensely
improved types in hundreds where
| they were previously in units. And the
OUTPUT of their heavy ammunition has
had to keep pace. The output of
! bomby where il previously was reck-
| oned in hundreds has now reached a
| total of scores OF thousands weekly.
The production of trench warfare
! munition in a most miscellaneous COL
lection of workshops has. OF course,
/ necessitated the provision of many as
| sembly and inspection stations
One Of the. Earliest Steps Taken.
"One of the earliest steps the minis
| try of munitions had to take was to
| acquire control of every machine tool
+, maker in the United Kin gdom and also
| to bring in the manufacturers of ma
| chine tools. Every machine tool made
| during the last twelve months has
, been disposed of as directed by the
ministry Of munitions. The tools have
| been. sent where they were most
| needed for the making of munitions
One Of our most anxious problems
has been the supply and the distrihu-
| tion Of skilled labor. There was not
enough skilled labor to go round. This
fact was recognized by the trades
unions and the government has re-
ceived their hearty assistance through
out in the distribution Of skilled labor
and In the dilution of skilled labor
with olr RI Tho tvtr m n
unskilled labor into the field of skilled
labor is sacrifice of skilled labor to
| which no too high tribute can be paid.
Skilled men have trained and instruct
ed unskilled worksrs and in thousands
OF cases have Willingly been moved
from piece work to- day wages with the
result that they have earned smaller
wages than the people they, had trained
have received at piece werk. go.
This position was rendered more
difncult by the fAct that many skilled
vorkmen crowded fnte the army. Mere
! than 5000 highly skilled workmen
have since been withdrawn, for NUM-