MUNITIONS PRODUCTION DOUBLED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 289, 7 December 1939, Page 7

MUNITIONS PRODUCTION DOUBLED

BRITISH EFFORT GATHERS MOMENTUM RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF FACTORIES [ British Official Wlreleai. 1 RUGBY, Dec. 5. Production of munitions of all sorts in Britain has been doubled during the past six months and the momentum of the munitions effort is still gathering pace. Plans now being executed will double this new output during the next six months. This rapid development has been made possible by the extension of old and the building cf new factories, bofii Government and private. Already there are six times more Government factories than two years a.go. Next year eight times the original number will be operating. So far the expansion of commercial concern* has been less rapid but some

have doubled munitions producing plants and many have created new factories. Next year they may well outnumber Government factories. Within a little more than a year since the building of one Government factory began it has now produced its first gun—a typical example of the rapidity of production of which Britain is capable. The Minister of Labour, Mr. Ernest Brown, in a broadcast, said that Britain had 1,250,000 men under arms and the number was increasing daily. Thor? were 2,500,000 more employed in productive work than in 1914. “Britain will employ her manpower and women-power fully and then we will all help to send the modern tyrants to their doom,” said Mr. Brown.