MUNITION MARVELS

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 221, 27 October 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

MUNITION MARVELS

OUR GL'XS THE BEST IX THE FIELD.

OI'TPL'T OE SHEI LS THAT WILL DESTROY GERMANY

With intense satisfaction, s;.ys a Loudon Daily paper of last n't nth, tIM country and the country's fighters will read tho statement of the new Minist;. - of Munitions with regard to the wur; of the Munitions Department Mr. Edwin .Montagu held the House enthrall vl with his statistics. His speech describ ed how the Ministry of Mu-.itions, established on the slender foundation of an organisation created for the requirements of an army of 200,(KJ0, had wit 1in a few short months produced wit i magical speed the equipment deman 1ed by an army of four millions. The speech was at once a romance of se.erttific warfare and an epic ot human achievement. Mr. Montagu, speaking in the presence of Air. Lloyd George, recalled that Minister's speech of last December, reviewing the work of the department from its foundation, and he took up the story a,t that point. Hebegan with the record of she'l production. The figures were amazing. Since September, 1914, the output had increased : Eor 18-pounders 170 time*. For heavy shells 2,650 times. The weekly output this year, as compared with the average of last year, had increased : Eor 18-pounders CJ times. (In one week last month 17} times.; Eor Held howitzers 8 times. (The product'on has now increased 27 times. Eor medium artillery 7} times. (In June tho increase was 31 times.) Eor heavy guns 22 times. (It his now reached I J4 tmes that of last year. The output which it took 12 months to produce before liie Ministry of Munitions started was now produced: Eor 18-pounders in 3 weeks. Eor hold-howitzers in 2 weeks. Eor medium guns n 11 days. Eor heavy guns in 4 days. Then we hack made immense strides in the manutiMure of heavy gvns. We now turned out in a month twice as many heavy guns as we did in the year BEFORE THE MINISTRY BEGAX OPERATIONS:

tor every 100 18-pcunders turned out in the 12 months ended March last we turned out 500 now. So with machine guns. The output was 14 times more than before the Ministry tooK up, anl it was increasing; in spite of the demands of aircraft and the Navy, we should soon be able to satisfy all the requirements of the Army, and then tj turn our attention to the needs ot our -Allies. High explosive production ha J increased since the beg lining of 1915 to the following astonishing extent: — Increase over 1914, 06 times Wecklv consumption, 31.000 iO 12,000 tunes. Output of bombs, 33-foid. These figures did not exhaust cur nnterial contributions to the needs of the Allies. We had sent to France: One-third of the British output ot shell-steel. Metals of all kinds, value £-(5,000,000. The constituents of high explosives. Twenty per cent, of the machine-tools produced. In a tribute to the splendid work done by Mr. Lloyd George. Mr. Montagu said that Minster at first was told he bad ordered too many heavy guns, but before he left for the \\ ar Office he had the satisfaction of receiving new requisitions, and of learning that lie had ordered rather too few than too many. These new orders, added Mr. Montagu significantly, would he completed by the spring of next year. Our helmets hn i proved satisfactory; body slrelds war*! being experimented with, ani our tie'l lights wee good. Many ot these results were due to tl.c stimulus given by the department of invention vliieli Mr. Lloyd George had set up. We lirvl away last mouth more than c'.nible tin amount nliich e : ght months ago wis thought to bo nn adequate store,,anl the preliminary bombardment the week before the attack coi.sumed more than the total amount manufacture! during tl'.o first 11 months of the war. The total of the heavy ammunition produced during ii\z same period would not have kept the bombard:;.ent for a single day. The Gem ans sail wc had exhausted our resources irreparably by this expenditure of shot ::nd shell, but Mr. .Montagu. AMID THE CHEEKS OF THE WHOLK HOISE, made the following remarkable declarations : Tiie output of our factories week !>v week covers the expenditure;, and thee is now no fear that the present offensive will be brought to a j.reniatu ••-' conclusion by u s.uutage at ammunition. A word of praise for the personnel of the Ministry of Munitions, now numbering 5,000; d description ~>t thyhun-dred-and-ono problems and di.ties of a single day in the Minister's office ana an account of the success of tiie departments of inspection, examination, iud accountancy in reducing the cost of guns, ammunition, and munitions generally were followed by the enumeration of futher interesting facts : Overseas transport of munitio is reached 1,000,000 tons. There are now 93 national niumth.i factories, and one of them fills twice as much as Woolwich. Last year America supplied 70 [>er cent, of light shells; this year we shall make cur own. American heavy shell supply was -n----valuable. but we l:;ipe, with Canada •'• help, to be independent of it. The finance department of the Ministry controls nn expenditure ot £1,000,000 a day. its supervision lus saved £20.000,000 a year on shells; it lias reduced American contract prices by 15 per cent. 45,000 soldiers have been recalled fsmuution work. A year ago 1,035.030 persons were employed; to-day there are 2.250,000, and of thes'i 400,000 are wc men. Mr. Lloyd George contributed to th-j subsequent debate an eloquent

ENDORSEMENT OF HIS SUCCESSOR'S OPTIMISM. "From what 1 know is going on, \ysaid, ] may say that I have never see 1 Dion at the front so satishod, esperial'y men who last year entertained doubts. The House would he simply appalled ti hear of the dangers wc tiad to run last year. We always assume that we are the only people wiio make mi-takes, •■ n I that is perhaps the only way for ie- to improve. Hut when J think of the chances ih(\(ieniia:is had la-t year an I which they did not take, well, I am hi'l o£ gratitude: and when U:<y g:>: to know it it will make them reel verv unhappy, a.- nullappy as thev deserve. Those who know the conditions tost year with regard to big guns and shells and our reserve*, and how now i!rmiiiiitions aie pouring in at n prodigious rat ■. will be extremely grato'ul to those in this country who have tak - i part in supplying munitiors to .he Army. They wII be grateful to tlv employers an.] the men. ;.nd especially to those volunteers who gave 'their time to improve the output jf our munitions. (Cheers.)