Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1916. THE SPIIUT THAT WINS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 14050, 21 July 1916, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1916. THE SPIIUT THAT WINS.

The resolution passed by the Trades Congress recently held . m England, at which the' representatives of some two million workers engaged m the manufacture of munitions, m shipbuilding and m other trades essential. to the successful prosecution of the war, determined to. postpone all Holidays until victory is assured and authorised . a,' message to be sent to Sir Douglas Haig, promising i increased and continued output, to enable I tho army to complete/ its work, is equivalent to a battle", wop^v It gljjes our soldiers and our Allies the assurance that no effort will be spared to provide them with everything ! thjat is necessary to carry tho war tb a.-miccessful conclusion. 'The Reports which have reached us from time td ; ' time of labor disturbance'syin England. have* given tlie inipression that amongst a large section of the people th&'bHis a little shorV,bf criminal m war time, , bu^ iwhilst there, hag been much to cleplore hathe happenings of the past two years, it is- satisfactory now to find the people of Bi'itain inlited and bending their best energies tb the task before them. Moreover our thoughts may have been led by the lack of patriotism on the part of sections of, the workers away from the siplertdid war work that myriads of people throughout the Kingdom have been doing. One isjotought to thisconchii sion by some, splendid articles appearing m the. latest Home papers as the result of the vi^it' of British journalist's to .the North Country workshops and- the fleet. As showing. what has been accomplished Mr Gerard Fieiines /meritypns that the British Navy is nearly twice as strong m Dreadnought ships as it M r as tvhen the. War broke out and ■'■has .'added an Unknown quantity of monitoi's, • light crui_ers, destroyers,, submarines and other vessels, of new' and original type. Tlie British; Army is ten times as strong as it was before the war and it needs ten tiiries the ; amount of ammunition that ahy expert ever thought necessary; that is to say our munition works are called upon tb ; provide ; one hundred times the amount they were previously j organised to produced not only our own armies hut those of our'-AlKes are being supplied. Mr Fiennes speaks ol fthe visit to shipbuilding yards stretching for miles on both sides of a narrow river^ where wonders have been accbm:' plished. Huge hulls tower overhead everywhere, awaiting their launching, or lie m the water receiving the finishing touches. Battleships, cruisers, des-^ troyers and submarines mingle with merchantmen and oil-tankers and with ships of curious and . special build. Great guns areyßeing forged and shell turned put by' the hundred thousand. To give but one figure, m certain yrorks the hands have increased m number since the war began from eighteen hundred^ to twenty-five thousand. Another* writer, Harold .Begbie, mentions that m ;one of thesei yards they are building ships so fast that only one side of cer•tain vessels can be finished ; the other side must wait till, the ship next to it .has been launched. . Then to the munition works. At one works.no fewer than 90 different kinds of sfyell are being turned out; the workpeople who before the war numbered 1800 are now 25,000. •Many of them are women and girls, transformed from minstering angels into gentle furies of retribution. Every shell supplied to the Navy" arid Army is of. forged steel beautifully turned, finished and^ polished. What about the men and women who are fighting our battles m these workships as truly as those at sea or m the trenches— the men behind the men behind the gfuUss? • Harold Begbie writes : To see thousands of workmen congregate near ..the door of a yard waiting for the dinner-bell to . sound' is to, realise at once the immense demands of ihe Fleet and the frightful strain upon human strength to meet that demand. The bell sounds, and this multitude surges by. m a rush, the boys running, the men with their hands on the shoulders of those just ahead, forward for fresh air, food, and for rest. All the faces are marked by strain. The pallor of the skin, shicared with oil and dirt, throws" , up the unnatural brightness of the eyes. Let those who speak of shirkers aiid slackers stand and •watch this crowd of^ overwrought men. ..... And the great heads of these immense shipbuilding 1 yards— what men they are ! They . are big men engaged. - m creative • work, loving that work, and expressing their souls thipugh that work. One of these men spent £__B;05o on an experimental tank for models'- of ships; another spent. £32,ooo on a similar toy. And they know every detail of their work, Most of them have risen : from 30s a week; all of .theiii ■ understand that this war, as Matthew Arnold foretold, is a war of geist against geist; and you will not find one who doubts the power of Great Britain to overthrow the German host. There is no pessimism

m the North." Gerard Fiennes speaks m tho same strain, paying tribute to the fine example of untiring work and selfsacrifice given by the employers- and loyally followed by the men. I should like those who rail ait the unpatriotic . workman arid speak with impatience and ] scorn of the 'enormous wages' he is < earning to have stood with me and ] -watched two thousand mfen and boys ' pass out at the dinner-hourl There was , ■ \. ' 1 a, moving sea of cloth caps, and under- ( neath hardly a face which did not show j ] signs of the strain upon its owner. They ■ ' are not getting fat on their 'fourteen,! pounds a week,' these workers. The , ( skin of their faces is drawn tight over j the cheekbones of many. Their eyes are deep-sunk m their heads; their lips are i • white, and the drawn lines round theiri tell of weariness. They liad riot, iri their , youth, the good food and fresh air : which builds up the body against periods > of stress. So the body rebels, and rebellion translates itself irifco short time. Many will pay for their present exer- ' tions — they are working for ypu_and me, remember— by shortened days. But they will 'stick it' arid pay the price ' with the dour ,. determination tnat the Hun shall not be master of Britain. So will this war be won/ .by the whole weight of British industry,- of employers and employed alike," working' as one ■man ( behind* the sailors arid' soldiers to jjiye theiri.' all they need. Bismarck said that unless he gave the men whom he sent out to fight the very best %ea'pons and riiaterial which money could buy, he should feel himself* ; a murderer. Our men are getting bf the best* which , brains oan , eyolvjff and skill can construct. A partner of* one of the firms visited stated that Fritz's submarines as, compared with' ours are as a 'Ford, car to the finekt , Roils-I.oyce. i Cheap and riasty construction may be ■■ •responsible for the fact that' the bdnes pi 'many a Boche are strewing the ocean .floor; Of the lpng\tale- of U boats which have fared forth and never returned, many a one may have perished not by the hand of its enemy, but of its own imperfections. /We dp not play. With men's lives so. The sfiuff we se\id is good stuff, riveters, ships, great guns and piles of shell are only, after all, the translation of the national spirit into terms of force. Tlie imen and thcworiien and girls working so expeditiously to. turn out all which Navy and Army require for . victory Was, to. me, far more impressive than the output. The; right spirit is there."