Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-04-26
MORE THAN REPLACE
BRITISH GUNLOSSES
Two Thousand More Cannon
Ready Against One Thou
sand Captured
SUPPLIES UNLIMITED
tonnage Alone Determines Amount
of Shells, Churchill Tells
Commons

London. Apru e6.
Winston Spencer Churchill told tho
House Of Commons yesterday that dur
ing th" five weeks since the battle i'm
Franc" had opened thcy had been pass
Ing through the greatest strain regard.
ing the supply or war material that had
occurred In the experience Of the
ministry.
Not only had tho conrumrtion and dc.
Stru'ton "i munitions Of All kinds been
proceeding at the greatest rate. but
ln'f" HlSo were very heavy losses by
canturc by the enemy The minister
said:
We lost nearly thousand guns bv
Sncll lire or capture between 1000 and
3ooO machine guns have been lost or
destroyed, and the quantity OF ain,pu-
nIuon' apart from that which has been
iired and that which has been lost I'm
the dumps. amounted to something be-
tween one and three weeks total Of
manufacture.
"Other materials have been used or
lost in great variety Of classes and
on a similar scale, but by the end of
last week all tho losses has been made
good and in many cases moro than
made good.
Recoup SmaIl-Nrm Loss
Vast quantities of snalI-arr,, an,,,,,-
nltIon nave been lost or left behind hut
great as the demand has been. tho OK.
pehal,ure IN th" last month did not on
Cr'd me maximum potential capacity Of
the British factories without touching
enormous reserves which had accun,u-
stated against such contingency The
MaSteaEc Of rifles was very great. but
made good. ''P'''
Our preparations had contemplated a
porlou Ot supreme battle intensity from
the third week of February instead Of
from the thlrd week Of March, so we are
at present from one to three weeks 10
thc good Those calculations allowed the
artlIcry TO fire during the whole fipht-
ing season a considerably heavier volume
OF shells than was expended weekly
during the offensive battles Of last yea,,
and more than double the volume of
shells fired during the terrific lombard
4 ment which characterized the Son1mr
offensive Ct 1916. They also proyided
tor the carrying forward into 1919 oF
/ Sui'lclCut reserves to allow the British
7 to,al to mount one Stcn higher tben ir
power and intensity.
I'm fact, barring unforeseen Circum.
stances, our supply of ammunition would
enable MS TO carry on a battle at the
supreme pitch of intensity until winter
without compromising our requirement
for 1919 This is despite the fact that
] l'''''N l''Il N'lt Ndhtl from lnunltlOn
. factories for service in the army
Alrplnne Production Leaps Ahead
we are making in a single week moro
airplanas than we made in the whole OF
1919; in a single month more than We
made i'm the whole Of 1915; in three
months more than ave made in the whole
Of 1916. And we are going TO make
this year several times what We made
last year
Mr.. Churchill said that owing TO the
tonnage required for importation to this
country. coal to France and Italy and
the assistance which England had To
give for the transportation Of the Amer.
lean army. he had to accept "A consider
able reduction in the tonnage budget
upon which he had hoped to build his
plans But" he added, "Enough's as
good as a feast"
lie paid tribute to the workers, say
ing that latterly less than One-siXth the
total of the time worked had been lost
through labor disputes, while labor
during the Easter holidays had more
than wiped this out. Another explana-
tiou of the ministrys success was that
more than three-quarters of n million
women were employed in the munition
factories. More than nine-tenths of the
whole manufacture of shells was due
TO the labor of women who before the
war had never seen a lathe
While every demand for steel plate