MR LLOYD GEORGE’S MISSION.

Otago Witness, Issue 3196, 16 June 1915, Page 27

MR LLOYD GEORGE’S MISSION.

LONDON, June 12. Mr Lloyd George at Bristol addressed a great gathering of people belonging to the western industries' which are concerned with the manufacture of war munitions. The British engineering trade, he said, could not win the war, but without them victory would be impossible. He understood that Bristol was suffering from a scarcity of labour, and firms had been asked to furnish the names of skilled labourers who would be more useful at Home than in the trenches. Lord Kitchener had issued instructions that they should be “dug out’’ and invited to return.

Mr Lloyd George appealed to the Laboul leaders to use their influence to secure a suspension of the regulations preventing the use of unskilled and girl labour during the war. “Wo have heard of Neuvs Chapelle,” he said, “but we want a deluge of shells that we can rain for 40 days and 40 nights without ceasing. Then we shall hear the cracking of the German steel barrier and the cheers of the British infantry marching through the shattered entrench-, ments to victory.’’ Mr Lloyd George’s speech was businesslike and unrhetorical. He pleaded for a sufficiency of high explosives to enable out soldiers to crash their way through to victory.

“You can supply them; if you do, fewer lives will bo lost. We hardly like to use tha words ‘short of shell.’ Yes, J need it, and must get it. You can give it. need it, and must get it. You can give it Whatever you do I hopa you will do it quickly. Tima here means lives. The more shells the surer and speedier will be the victory.” APPEAL TO SOUTH WALES. LONDON, June .12. Mr Lloyd George laid emphasis on iho fact that he "wanted two or three war factories in South Wales. The patriotism of Wales was already shown, in that Glamorganshire had provided 68,300 recruits and Monmouthshire 18,668. His appeal was not for more men, but for support for those who were at the front.* Too many of the valleys of South Wales had become valleys of widows. “ We are sending more men,” Mr Lloyd George continued. “We want them not merely to win victory for us; we want them to return and rejoice with us in the victory which their valour has captured. Do Ist us give them a fair chance in a fair fight.’’ South Wales, he went on, might adopt the policy of Yorkshire, which was establishing two or throe national shell factories, each area requisitioning machinery for these from other workshops in the district, or that of Lancashire, utilising the existing workshops with additional machinery, each shop producing all the shells it* could. In the alternative both methods might be combined. Centra! national arsenals were being created with machinery either taken voluntarily or under the Defence of the Realm Act from other works, while private shops had undertaken the production of complete shells or incomplete shells for completion in the national arsenals. He favoured the latter plan.. Everybody must contribute to this undertaking, and lie had promised that none of the manufacturers who look up shell making should surfer by the competition of unpatriotic rivals who did no shell making. “1 am asking you to plant your flag in your workshops, to convert your lathes and machinery into battalions which will drive the foe from the lands they had tortured, trampled upon, and disgraced, and see liberty again enthroned.’’ At the close of the meeting Mr Lysaght, the owner of a large engineering works at Newport, placed them at tho Disposal of the State. a Mr Lloyd George announced that specimens of the shells needed wquld shortly be exhibited at Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea. THE CLYDE ENGINEERS. LONDON, June 12. Advices from Glasgow state that BcJrdSmore’s workmen, with the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, are organising. Delegates have gone to the front for a week to see the actual needs of tho soldiers. The visit is likely to be followed by others from the different centres with a view to stimulating the output of munitions. BENEFICIAL EFFECT AT BIRMINGHAM. LONDON, June 11. The institution of a Ministry of Munitions has already produced a beneficial effect at Birmingham, infusing a new spirit of buoyancy and energy. The idea is that the munitions industry authorities will entrust a quantity of work to a local bedy of practical men and let them do it their own way.

At Leeds the engineers are concentrating and establishing a special shell factory to turn out the complete article under the direction of an executive committee of engineers not financially interested. -The private employer will thus be eliminated. Speaking at the Cardiff Munition Conference, Mr Lloyd George urged the recruiting of every lathe in every workshop in order to turn out shells. He said that Great Britain having entered the war could not go back without writing its name off the map of the world as a great Power. The trade union officials have returned to Manchester from London. They report that the Government had intimated in very plain terms that there must be no stoppage of the Lancashire cotton trade.