A WAR OF MUNITIONS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 133, 7 June 1915, Page 3

A WAR OF MUNITIONS

LLOYD GEORGE'S APPEAL. UTMOST STRENGTH AND RESOURCE NEEDED. (PRESS ASSOCIATION.) (TIMES AND STDNM SUN BERYICEI.) LONDON, sth June. Mr. Lloyd George, in his Manchester speech, added : — The French have gallant men and the Russians overwhelming masses. No doubt if we want more, they will come to the call, but we want cur workshops equipped to product! weapons to shatter to the dust a cruel military despotism, and to attain a glorious end. The State needs the help of each of you. French private firms have given the State assistance at the critical hour, whose value is beyond computation, to enable them to pierce the German linea. Here I ask you to help equip our armies. It means breaking through the German lines. Our opponents have conscription, and I am entitled to say that the youth of our nation has not refused sufficiently to respond to appeaJs. The horrors cabled from the battlefield are only sending to the recruiting office greater numbers with greater speed. That is a great story. I should like to see it continued on the same exalted level to the concluding chapter. lam convinced that we have not yet concentrated half of our industrial strength on the conflict. It is a war of munitions. We are fighting the best organised nation in the world, and shall need our utmost strength and resource in turning out munitions. That means victory and an enormous saving of life. I would say to the workmen and the masters that in turning out shells they are not only killing the enemy, but saving the lives of their comrades. T a.sk the engineering firms — masters, men, and everybody — to put their strength to the task and save the lives of the most gallant set of fellows that ever quitted our shores. (Cheers.) It has been decided that compulsory powers are essential to best utilise our resources. We have a great voluntary army, which took months to enlist. We cannot afford months to enlist the industrial army." NO ROOM FOR SLACKERS. LONDON, 6th June. At the employers' meeting at Liver, pool Mr: Lloyd George said: — "If all the skilled engineers in the country and those who, have enlisted were brought back and set about producing munitions, working at the utmost limits of human endurance, we still would rot have enough labour to produce all that will- be asked for during tho next few months. Men's lives at tho front depend on the supply of material, and there is no room for slackers." After mentioning the ndmber of women employed in shell factories in France, Mr. Lloyd George said he hoped that any trade union regulations preventing the same in Britain would be suspended during the war time. The Petrograd reports of the fall of Przcmysl emphasised the necessity of a greater supply of munitions and equipment, which the Russian industries are unable to provide singlehanded. Hence Russia must assume Ihe defensive till these arrive, holding the enemy's forces on the Russian front. ( ______ A WARM RESPONSE. LONDON, 6th June. N Brunner, Mond's men are/speeding up on munitions. They are starting work 105 minutes earlier daily. Many other workers' and firms are warmly responding to Mr. Lloyd George's appeals.