Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1918. BRITAIN'S GREAT MUNITIONS OUTPUT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LII, Issue 165, 10 July 1918, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1918. BRITAIN'S GREAT MUNITIONS OUTPUT.

THE m'agniit.ude of Great Britain's military effort can be grasped from the greatness of the measures necessary to sustain it. the size of her fleets and armies estimated by the extent of the nation's exertions to supply, ind keep them supplied l , with munitions. The resources of arsenals and vo>t n>.mamen t works are insufficient for the purpose and have to be reinforced ty the assistance of not only every lathe •and mechanic in the country, but by every place capable of ho.dmg a- iaire, and every person c;ipat>!e of being trained as a mechanic. The smallest garage in the most inaccessible spot is handling' shells, and only shells. Every private business, adaptable by any possible means to the requirement*; of the Ministry of -Munition's, ha® been set on Government contracts. The result is that Great Britain's output of war material is increasing by leaps and bounds. Compared with January and February, 1917, she turned out in the first two months' of this year 58 per cent more heavy gun*, 96 per cent m-oe machine-guns, 83 per cent more (■hells, and 225 per cent more aeroplanes. In one week now she makes' as many ma-chine-guns as she made in five months of 1915 and as many aeroplanes as m two months of 1915. To perform a feat such as this British hiduscry has been transformed, from top to buctoip. Take, for .instance., the firms that in made agricultural machinery, ploughs, threshing machines, traction engines, and tno like. One in *Snffolk "is now turning out gun-car-riages, naval mines, andl this total of shells' weekly—3,ooo 18-pounder, 2,000 4.5. 500 5-inch ; another supplies per week 8.000 18-pounder shrapnel, 2.000 4.5, 5,000 60-pounder, and also aeroplane parts; while a third, besides a weekly total of 1,000 bombs has largely increased its works in order to make aeroplanes. Electrical engineering businesses have undergone a similar change. (One concern- has left off makng dynamos in favour of naval searchlights, the staff having increased from 600 to 1,200; a Bristol firm turns out 10,000 18-pounder shells a week; while a dynamo works in Somens-et makes fus£s. shell primers, and naval mines. General engineering firms have been equally affected. Instead of high speed engines, internal combustion gas and oil engines, and so on, their output is now trench warfare requirements, bombs, hand-grenades, and' the like. "Examples of the wholesale way in which British industry has been diverted to tl* manufacture of munitions of war are endless. A Hampshire yacht builder is making sea-planes, a bridge-builder near Leicester trenph bombs, Gloucester wood, workers ammunition boxes, a manufacturer of gas geysers in Hertfordshire tanks for aeroplanes, a plumber at Cambridge bombs and shell heads, a Bristol firework factory hand grenades, a Luton builder aeroplanes. A church decorator and fitter, employing 40 men, embarked on' the production; of planes for aircraft; now,,, with a staff of 120, he turns out 10 completed aeroplanes a week. A steam joinery near 'Southampton! is engaged on. ammuiiitibm boxes, periscope boxes and gun beds, i.e., the heavy wooden platforms on which 9.5 howitzers and 3-inch Stokes' guns are placed to fire. An Eissex firm that specialised in window frames now makes 15,000 shells a week, the staff having grown from 400 to 1,200, of whom 900 are women. including a. General's daughter and the wives of Colonial fighting men. A works a* Beccles with a peace-time output of v-apstan-s for trawlers now makes each week 20,000 base plates, 20,000 adaptors, and 4,000 18-pounder shells. A water-meter factory in Bedfordshire with a staff of 5,000—4,000 being women—and covering an area three times its pre : war size, has supplied millions of fuses. In the same town a firm of gas-stove and' kitch en-range makers has 800 people at work on bombs, over 150.000 having been made to date. In Bristol ie a rock-drill factory now solely occupied ora fuse sockets' for 60pounder shells—s,ooo being completed each week—and- mine sinkers for 'keeping naval mines submerged. Norwich has a firm ordinarily making petrol engines, wire-netting, and iron building, now employing 3,500 workpeople to produce every part of'a.n aeroplane save the engine. Elsewhere corn-eleva-tors have been re-equxpped with the result that 500 9.2 and 2,000 Impounder shells are finished each week, a factory for railway sijnals has been diverted to the manufacture of gum sights, a concern specialising 1 in machinery for the boot and shop trade is handling gun mountings, two firms of paper makers and. well-sinkers are devoting themselves to trench and aeroplane bombs, while a cloth factory now makes hand grenades. These details, concerning a part of -Great Britain hitherto principally engaged in agriculture, and. entirely outside the great manufacturing centres of the Midlands and 'North, show tho thoroughness with which she has thrown- herself into the task of winning the war. The people that Napoleon described a s "a nation of shopkeepers" may still be shopkeepers, b,ut the goods they are delivering are shells, guns, aeroplanes, and tanks.