BRITAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 May 1916, Page 5

BRITAIN.

WHAT IS WANTED, GU.NS AND SHELLS. SPIRITED APPEAL TO WORKERS. 0 London. May 28. '■ Mr. J. N. Griffiths, M.P., after fourteen months at the front, makes a strik- ■ ing appeal to munition workers through 11 the Weekly Dispatch. He savs:— "The next six months will bo the most critical time of the whole war. We are 11 passing rapidly to our zenith, and the 1 enemy's efforts are ever increasingly f violent. We shall be in the gravest i danger if caught short of ammunition I or guns with the enemy commanding apparently illimitable supplies of both. s Holidays at Whitsuntide, with the in- ' cvitable curtailment of output, will be V little short of murder for the Tommies in the trenchps. This is a gun war. '• "Verdun has proved that any shortage " is fatal. Men without guns and shells do not count. Shortage or waste means the sacrifice of thousands of lives. We never until recently had guns or ammunition approaching anywhere near the total available against us. "All these long months we have been struggling to equalise conditions, and are now on the right road and are overtaking the Germans. I do not believe we are going to ibe let down because the munition workers are determined to i. take holidays. The science of gun reading enables the enemy to di.-'co'ver your weakness and whether you are conserving ammunition or awaiting guns. Let • the munition workers treat themselves to the best of holidays—one enjoyed by the mind from the sense of duty done, giving the mind a rest from the terrible thought that slackness on your part has compromised our safety. "If we all play up well we shall put i the soldiers well on the goal line. If ; there is slackness I fear to contemplate i the consequences. It is as serious as ; that." >» • • « i MIXED FEELINGS. ,«f _ __. THE WHITSUN HOLIDAYS. Received May 29, 8.50 p.m. 1 London, May 29. Mr. Lloyd George's appeal to sacrifice ! the Whitsuntide holidays has met with a mixed reception. The armament and munition masters at Sheffield, are ! unfavorable, they say, to penalise good ( workers while the bad ones take a holiday anyway. Many of the VickersMaxim staff have worked eighty-three hours weekly since the war began,' and it is necessary to clean the flues, furnaces, and forges, and repair the machinery. Birmingham, Leeds, and Glasgow : masters are similarly doubtful, though willing to forego, if urgent, the temJ porary need. Others have suggested that instead of a general holiday the workers be allowed a few days' rotation, like the soldiers at the front. Many miners have decided to take only a day. NO HOLIDAYS URGED. MUNITIONS WANTED. London, May 27. Mr. Lloyd George conferred w'ith the representatives of the engineering and ship-building employers at the Clyde and the Tyne, and strongly appealed to them to forego the Whitsuntide holidays, when the fight will be developed at its .hottest. Easter holidays were nominally two days, he said, but they actually resulted in the loss of a week's output of ammunition. The French, Russians, Italians, Germans and Austrian* were going without holidays, and the demand for ammunition was very great. Britain must majce a special effort to produce munitions during the next few months. The lighting was getting hotter on the British front, and the Army was clamoring for big j>una. "I should be ashamed." he said, "to write to General Haig and explain that I could only send half the usual fortnight's supply of ammunition, and hundreds fewer machine guns." A meeting of workers will be held oa Monday to discuss the proposal. REQUEST TO WELSH MINERS. London, May 28. The Admiralty has requested the Welsh miners to restrict the Whitsuntide holidays to a single day. NOTES, NOT GOLD. London, May 28. Professor Foxwell, in a lecture in : London, said ho hoped that now the public had taken kindly to paper notes there would be no sudden replacing of it i after the war by gold, otherwise there ] would be a sharp fall in prices, com- , parable with the depression after the i conclusion of peace in 1815. ' ( i SALE OP AMERICAN SECURITIES. London, May 28. ' Owing to Mr. McKenna's forthcoming ' additional income-tax on American se- ! curities many holders congregated at the National Debt Office on Saturday offering to sell them. A LLOYD GEORGE NEWSPAPER. London, May 28. i 'Nearly '£loo,ooo has been subscribed ' for a new Liberal morning newspaper to - represent Mr. Llovd George's views. i - 1 j * i j 1 « i 1 ( J \