The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-30

ally. The following account of London Times.
 those who suggest the contrary had been
 present at those interviews when we were trying to consider who should un- l dertake the responsibility. There was
 no eagerness displayed for the post. Ev-
 cry man knew, and knew too well, what a terrible responsibility would be cast upon the man who had the post. It was
 a terrible moment in the history of the war l have seen patriotic men, who 1 knew the facts, who were not tainted l in. the least with pacifisn. come to the conclusion that victory was impossible, and that it would end in draw That I was the talk that you had at the end 1 of 1916, and you had it all over the land, not amongst men about whose patriotism 1 you had the slightest doubt, but men who loved their land dearly, and never doubt
 ed the justice of the war, but who, look l ing at those dread facts, were beginning | to say, Is victory possible? That was ] the condition under which the sovereign
 invited me to form a government, and
 don't mind telling you I did it. won't | say with fear, but I did it with trem- bling. did it with anxiety, but I did it.
 knowing that 1t was my bounden duty to
 do my bit. Loud cheers.)
 "But inasmuch as there is good deal l of criticism of that poor administration of mine, would like to tell you one or two things we did. The first thing we
 did was to reinforce men of political experience, whom you must have in ev- lery administration-this is Parliament
 ary country, and you must have men who understand the Parliamentary system ! we reinforced men of political experience I by including men whose experience was | alxt i,, Irtci, ,,I s,, off oirc v,d
 1t gave a very good mixture. Daughter and cheers.) That was new experi- ment, and I claim it was success. l (Cheers). We had, for the first time, an i Imperial war cabinet where you had the ! representatives of the whole empire. The great dominions and the great empire of l India all sat round the same table to 1 concert together as to the means of vic
 tory. That was a new experiment but ! it is going to last. How have these
 men worked? I am entitled to say some thing about these men who worked with ! me for two years. I say without hesi-
 tation that they put new life. new en- 1 lergy, and new inspiration into every de- partment which they undertook.
 l U-BOATS AND FOOD SUPPLY | Take the submarine menace, which was the most formidable menace we had 1 to meet. If Germany had succeeded in her submarine warfare, the war would 1 have been hopelessly lost. You could not have sent your troops to France, and | you could not have fed the troops who were there. France would have been | cut off from the world. The Americans l could not have got there, and Germany would have ruled the earth from ocean l to ocean, and she knew it. On the other ] hand, if that submarine warfare had not succeeded, Britain in the end, with her sea power, was bound to win. | {Cheers). The first thing, therefore, that l we concentrated upon was beating the ! submarine campaign. Look at what these I men did. First of all, they brought the whole of our shipping under control, in- stead of nearly half of it as you had | before. What was the result? Although millions of tons of shipping had been sunk, you have got more essential com modities into this country than you had before. Why? Because it was good | business management at headquarters. l Imports were restricted. and only essen l tials were brought here. Ships were built. We did not build as many ships as we expected. But this year, with less labor, we have built between three and l four times as many ships as in the year l before we came into office.
 ! "The food supplies were worked up Tire rationing system was set up, and l let me say this of Lord Rhondda's ra- 1 tioning system, that it abolished queues. ! It so distributed food that there was no difference between the rich and the poor. l Loud cheers) The Germans themselves, :, In an official report we had two or ] three months before the war was over, called attention to the system in Britain
 and pointed out how superior it was to l their system. It was a system. let me l say, for which poor Lord Rhondda gave l his life I am glad he saw the success ], of the efforts for which he had paid such 1 a sacrifice, and that he received the gratitude that was his due before he passed away (Cheers). Then attention l was given to the home production Of food When we came in, home produc- ton was down by hundreds of thousands l of acres We had to take many men
 away from the fields into the battlefield 1 In spite of that, this year, compared
 with 1916, there were 100000 more acres
 under. cultivation than we had in that year. That is something for which those
 who organized this agricultural produc-
 ton have a good right to feel pleased 1 and proud
 "Then the submarine warfare, the SUD- l marine itself was dealt with. The con | voy system was set up for the 1irst time. so as to make it difficult. and | even impossible, for the submarine 10 attack our ships. That saved millions l Of tons, ana tnOuSAItus ol SdhNht t''o~ | of our sailors. (Cheers). Then there were devices for destroying submarines. Gradually, month by month, we were chasing them with these new designs, | pursuing them, hunting them through the deep, and you have no notion of the per sistency, the skill, the daring, the en- durance which have been put by the Brit | ish sailor into the hunting ot this wiid animal. Loud cheers). Hidden in the i deep, night and day. sunshine and storm, | up in the frozen waters of the north, l in the torrid waters of the south, east | and west ocean, gulf. strait and sea, through the months, day by day, hour I bv hour, without ceasing, hunting. chas- ling. pursuing, fighting, and destroyins. until at last this pest was got completely | under. Prolonged cheers). Believe me, lin the whole of their glorious history 1 the British seamen have never been greater than in the last five years. | (Cheers).
 l THE "SIDE-SHOWS" JUSTIFIED
 Then the time came-the time came when Germany began to realize that ner submarine campaign had failed. ana nope l went out of her heart. Despair came m I her morale began to be shaken, and she l saw nothing but dense blackness aroune | her, and it was the beginning or the | defeat--the beginning of the sense or oe. feat in Germany. Those who organized I that not merely the seamen who carrieu if out but those who organized IL pe-