The War Trust Exposed

The sensational disclosures made by Dr. Liebknecht in the German Reichstag during the discussion of the new Army Law concerning the relations existing between French and German armament companies, and also their methods of securing orders, startled the world. There followed a fierce clamour of denunciation from the columns of the Press both at home and abroad, and everywhere these self-righteous censors pointed the finger of scorn at the culprits. With one accord the capitalist organs called the gods to witness that in their country such things could never be. A sympathetic chorus of jingoes gathered around Germany to tell the tale and point the moral of her ignominious light. Among these, not the least was the Daily Mail (April 22nd, 1918), lamenting thus:

Indeed, one would have imagined that there was some magic which kept inviolate the shores and lands beneath the British flag. Anything might occur abroad, especially in Germany, but our capitalists—well, the scribes did not seem to remember that any of them were concerned in the trade of arms. No breath of suspicion wafted over their activities.

But what are the facts as they affect this country? Have we within our gates any such sinister group of interests as we ​have seen performing the Masque of Death behind the Kaiser’s throne?

There can be no doubt that there exists, in this country, a vast combination of firms building ships, equipping arsenals, manufacturing guns, armour, rifles, explosives, and all kinds of warlike munitions, which, besides supplying the Home Government, maintain the most intimate relations with foreign Powers and sell their services to any nation that can pay the price.

In the following pages I shall endeavour to show:

This great War Trust consists primarily of five great firms, each controlling or connected with subsidiary manufacturers, and linked, directly or indirectly, with the others.

These five firms are:—

The first four of the above can, with the aid of dependent and allied concerns, build every kind of warship complete in every part and ready to go into battle. They also make a great quantity of material for land defence, and might be described as Universal Death Providers.

The Nobel Trust has "as its primary object" the acquiring by exchange of shares in explosives companies. It is absolutely cosmopolitan, and is largely interested in four German explosives firms, besides being related to companies operating in Austria, South Africa, Canada, Japan, and elsewhere. It keeps a tight grip on the holders of the raw material, such as the Tharsis Sulphur Co. and Nitrogen Products, Ltd., and does not neglect to ally itself with users of the finished article, such as the Explosives Loading Co., the Birmingham Small Arms Co., and the Birmingham Metal and Munitions Co.

​The following table will show the ramifications of Vickers, Ltd. and its three big brothers, so far as this country is concerned:—

Though it has always manufactured a great amount of war material for foreign countries in its home establishments, the War Trust has never shown any hesitation in setting up works ​abroad and making its dividends out of foreign labour. Nor has it paused to consider whether it was providing slipways and arsenals for allies or potential enemies of its native land. It has merely taken unto itself wings, and wheresoever the carcase is there shall you find the armament vultures gathered together—British side by side with Germans, and Americans sharing the spoil with Italians. Out of the strong and the weak for them has come forth sweetness, and in the trail of blood they have found much gold.

Familiar as we are with the ruthless application by Capitalism of the saying "Business is business," nevertheless it makes us rub our eyes when we read that the armour and armament of the latest Greek battleship now building in Germany, the armour for the new Italian battleships, the coast-defence guns of Chile, and the ordnance and ammunition for the Argentine Navy, have been ordered from Bethlehem! One associated that name rather with the coming world dominion of the Prince of Peace than with the conquest of the world’s armour-plate market. The Bethlehem Steel Co. has an average output of 12,000 tons per year.

After this we may be prepared for anything.

Italy is a partner with Germany in the Triple Alliance, and the Navy League assures us that we must build against her. In 1915 we are told that she is to have six Dreadnought ships in the Mediterranean. We are not told that they will all carry Vickers and Elswick guns and Whitehead torpedoes. Four of them will have been built in yards whose owners have long been in alliance with Armstrong's and the Barrow firm. There will also be six cruisers and more than ninety torpedo craft threatening the trade route to India, all built by Ansaldo-Armstrong and Co., N. Odero and Co., Orlando Fratelli, and T. and T. Pattison.

Moreover, if the Kaiser declares war against us, his ally will have two immense arsenals to put at his disposal, viz., Vickers-Terni and Armstrong-Pozzuoli. Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co. hold 992 of the thousand shares of Armstrong-Pozzuoli, while (see the "Naval Annual," 1913, p. 337) "the founders ofthe Vickers-Terni were Messrs. Orlando and Odero, with the Acciaiere di Terni and the technical and financial aid of Messrs. Vickers."

Austria-Hungary is the second partner in the Triple Alliance, and even more loyal to its letter and spirit than Italy. Henry Whitehead and Co., Litd., whose shares are chiefly owned by Vickers, Lid. and Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., have two torpedo factories. One is at Weymouth, the other at Fiume in Hungary. The destroyers that would launch these torpedoes against our Mediterranean Fleet have, many of them, been built by Yarrow’s, Lid., and are engined and boilered almost entirely by this firm and by I. J. Thorneycroft and Co., Ltd.—companies which seem to remain outside the "ring."

​The victorious armada of Japan was built in the main by Vickers-Maxim, John Brown and Co., and Armstrong, Whitworth, and Co. in British yards. To-day the Japanese do most of their work at home and employ their own workmen. British enterprise has risen to the occasion, and the guns of a battleship and three battle-cruisers are being made at the Japan Steel Foundry Works at Muroran. Armstrong, Whitworth, and Co. control this arsenal, and Vickers, Ltd., have also got ordnance works in Japan.

What do the Australians think about it?

Russia learned many lessons in that bloody war with Japan, among others the hitting power of her rival’s ships. So Holy Russia has commissioned John Brown and Co. to design and superintend the construction of four battle-cruisers in Baltic yards. Thos. Firth and Sons, Ltd., had already established a large works out there and, no doubt, they will benefit by any work done under the superintendence of the holding firm of John Brown. At Nikoliaeff, on the Black Sea, three Dreadnoughts are being built by Vickers, Ltd., while more are to follow. Russia is to spend £190,000,000 on the rebuilding of her navy. "There's a good time coming, boys"—for British capital and Russian labour!

In the days of yore the Spanish Armada sailed out from Ferrol. Times have changed, and where the lumbering galleons were fitted out in 1588, Vickers, Armstrong-Whitworth, and John Brown, as El Sociedad Hispanola de Construccion Naval, are putting in guns on three battleships that the wheels of diplomatic chance might easily direct against Gibraltar. Fancy, Elizabeth's Admiral Drake meeting Armstrong’s Admiral Ottley—gadzooks!

Canada has now felt the stirrings of Imperialist fervour and last year made offer of three Dreadnoughts to the Motherland. The circumstances are suspicious. Last year Vickers, Lid., established a yard at Montreal incorporating a Canadian company with capital of £1,000,000. In 1911, John Brown and Co. and the Fairfield Shipbuilding Co., as the Canadian Shipbuilding Co. (capital £2,000,000), commenced in Cape Breton Isle what "will probably be the largest shipbuilding plant in either Great Britain or America" ("Navy League Annual," 1911–12, p. 10). This spring, Armstrong, Whitworth’s have installed heavy plant in a yard on the south shore of the St. Lawrence at Montreal, and the Nobel Dynamite Trust was already represented by Canadian Explosives, Ltd.

One may note in this connection these words of Mr. Borden, speaking in the Dominion Commons, December 5, 1912 ("Naval Annual," 1913, pp. 497–8):—

​But properly to appreciate the tremendous syndication and the wide sympathies of steel-plate patriotism we must examine the Harvey United Steel Co. Here was, and from all appearances still is, though in less obvious guise, the War Trust in excelsis.

The Harvey United Steel Co. (see "Stock Exchange Year Book," 1912, p. 1211)—

They were also licensors for the Krupp and Charpy processes of hardening armour-plate.

The company has been voluntarily wound up during the last year, after the decision of two extraordinary general meetings held on July 15 and 31, 1912. In 1910 the company paid 15 per cent. Reductions of capital had been made in 1905 and 1909, and its services were dispensed with, in all probability, because all the holding firms have, to judge from recent issues of the "Naval Annual," been using their increased capital and vast reserves to set up their own forges and rolling mills.

These are the Firms which, banded together, were known as the Harvey Steel Co.:—

Krupps are related to the Skoda Co. of Austria; Schneider and Co. (who make the Creusot gun) have interests in Russia; while the Dillinger firm is owned by Deutsche Waffen und Munitions Fabrik—authors of the notorious letter sent to the Paris Figaro—which has holdings in Belgium and in the Mauser Co.

Just as the armament firms have made themselves indispensable abroad, so at home, as the years have passed, they have managed to secure a larger and ever larger share of Government orders. We will see them first at the Admiralty.

Some classes of work the firms have had almost as an exclusive monopoly. For instance, no torpedo-boat and no destroyer has ever been built in a State yard. Of eighty-one submarines completed to date, sixty-nine have been privately built. Of ten powerful battle-cruisers, ships with most costly engines and heavy armament, two have been constructed in the Royal Dockyards.

Now all the dirigible airships, and most of the seaplanes, are to be built by Vickers, Ltd., or by Armstrong, Whitworth, and Co. After spending thousands of pounds at the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, and obtaining, if nothing else, a ​great deal of information about aeronautical technique, the State proceeds to feather the nests of the War Trust, and gives to private enterprise the benefit of all its experiments.

Says The Engineer, August 22, 1913:—

The Times, July 7, 1913, has no tears to shed over the demise of the small makers, and plumps for the large firms, saying that

While the policy of the War Office was tritely expressed by Colonel Seely, speaking of the Royal Aircraft Factory in the debate on the Army Estimates last year, when he said:

Airships, seaplanes, torpedo-cratt, torpedoes, submarines, fitted with the most costly mechanism, and the all-big gun ships, veritable mastodons of the deep, with great, throbbing engines, endless electric equipment, mighty ordnance, and layer on layer of armourplate are all products of the genius of private enterprise.

Never, in any year, are more than two Dreadnoughts laid down in State yards, and then they are merely fitted together out of the material shipped into Devonport and Portsmouth by the private contractors. The same is true of cruisers; all the parts, save an insignificant fraction, are made outside the yards. The State has no Se mas for ere | modern naval artillery of large pattern, or the larger kinds of armour-piercing shell. It buys all its armour, and this year, out of an expenditure of £2,105,004 on naval gun mountings, only £84,816 will be spent at Woolwich.

At Devonport the smithery has been practically closed down and the work given to contractors; at Woolwich men are working short time in mine shops, while orders are going to firms that cannot do the work; and some years ago the Government was discharging men from the Torpedo Factory at the very time it was giving an order for 261 torpedoes to a firm that could not come within £48,000 of the Woolwich prices, and then the torpedoes were so defective that they would not fire straight! These are only instances among many.

​The following table shows where the taxpayer's money has, during the last fourteen years, been finding its way:—

The real reason for the increased expenditure on dockyard-built ships in the current year is that the contractors are full-handed and cannot take on any more work just at present. However, the supplementary estimates now required to provide for the three battleships, accelerated on account of the failure of the Canadian offer, will reduce the proportion of dockyard expenditure for 1913–14.

It will be noticed that in 1910–11 there is a tremendous increase in the expenditure—the total rises suddenly by £4,608,002, or more than 50 per cent., and of this only £193,500 is spent on dockyard work, while the colossal sum of £4,409,502 goes to the contractors.

This was the first-fruit of Mr. McKenna’s swift capitulation to the Jingoes in 1909.

In 1908, no battleships were ordered from private firms, and only one each in 1906 and 1907. In each of these years two were laid down at Devonport and Portsmouth.

Says the "Naval Annual," 1909 (pages 9–10):

With the result that, in response to the cry "We want eight and we won't wait," Mr. McKenna ordered eight battleships, four cruisers, and thirty destroyers from the contractors. He laid down the minimum in the dockyards—two battleships. His ​plea was that the Government had information that the Germans were speeding-up their programme. The Germans denied it, and, when the mischief was done, Mr. McKenna admitted that the Government had been misled.

Prior to the placing of the orders, and while the Jingo campaign was raging in the country, Mr. Mulliner, Managing- Director of the Coventry Ordnance Co., informed a meeting of the Cabinet that Krupp’s were increasing their plant for the manufacture of armour-plate. In this very year the Harvey United Steel Co., in which both C. E. Ellis, Director of Coventry Ordnance, and Heinrich Vielhaber and Emil Ehrensberger, of Krupp’s, were concerned, reduced its capital by £112,500. What was passing between Krupp’s and Coventry Ordnance? How did the manager of a firm of contractors gain admission to the secret conclave of the Cabinet? Was it because

Or was it because two Liberal Peers and a Liberal Knight were directors or debenture trustees of the holding firm of John Brown and Co., Ltd.?

So much for the Fleet!

As at the Admiralty, so at the War Office. To-day there is only one Government establishment for the manufacture of rifles, bayonets, etc., viz., The Royal Small Arms Factory, at Enfield. There used to be another at Sparkbrook, Birmingham, but in 1907, the Liberal Government, on the advice of a committee appointed by the Tories in 1905, sold it to the Birmingham Small Arms Co.

Says the Report of the Government Factories and Workshops’ Committee (1907) p. 4:

Yet a return presented to Parliament in 1905, on the motion of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, showed that the average cost per rifle, during the period 1890–1903, was:

—difference, merely 19s. 6½d.!

Again at Enfield in 1905 there were employed 2,335 men; now there are only some 1,850, though the Government definitely promised to maintain the numbers at 2,000.

There is no competition in the rifle-making trade. The same Committee tells us that the prices charged by Birmingham Small Arms and the London Small Arms Co. are "invariably the ​same." Naturally. Are we not told elsewhere in the Report (p. 6):

The Royal Arsenal at Woolwich has, however, been the chief victim of the Trust. Whereas, before the South African War, 15,434 men were employed, to-day there are not more than 8,300 in the whole place. The Government Workshops’ Committee, fixing the minimum at 8,000 men, stated that "the proper establishment lies at or about this 'minimum,'" and yet the Chief Superintendent put the irreducible minimum consonant with efficiency at 11,212. The Committee was appointed by the Tories to inquire (inter alia) "whether Government production can be advantageously replaced by private enterprise," and reported in favour of private enterprise all along the line.

It stated that

and as

a great part of the plant is to be kept idle. Nor must it be used for other purposes, because

Finally, we are assured that

For instance, 18-pounder gun-carriages at £672 7s., and 18-pounder limber wagons at £283 12s. 1d. each, when Woolwich could have supplied them at £343 14s. 4½d. and £107 9s. 7d. respectively. It was deemed more "in the public interest" to send the work to contractors and keep 43 per cent. of the plant idle in the Royal Carriage Factory.

We have seen above how many and how subtle are the influences at work on behalf of the Trust. We are all familiar with, and perhaps now some of us will have a clearer understanding of the meaning of, that specious plea so often made, that questions concerning the defence of the Empire should be removed from the dusty arena of party politics. The Trust has taken good care that this is, as far as possible, already the case. It has its champions in both political camps, it has made friends ​with the hand that feeds it, it has left no stone unturned upon its triumphant way.

It has its friends at Court, its directors in the Peers and Commons, supported by scores of shareholders; its voice is heard in the Press, and its apostles in the pulpits of cathedrals and tabernacles. The money-changers of the world shoulder its abbés, its bishops, its pamphleteers, its patriotic orators, and its privy councillors. While of retired admirals, generals, and half-pay officers in its employ, a special National Reserve might be formed.

In the Lords there are, on the Liberal benches, four directors—three with their coronets newly-burnished—Baron Aberconway, Baron Glenconner, Baron Pirrie, and Baron Ribblesdale.

Lord Aberconway, nephew of John Bright and a founder of the Eighty and National Liberal Clubs, was created a peer in 1911. He left two sons to watch the fortunes of the family in the Lower House. He is chairman of John Brown and Co., Ltd., and is, naturally, interested in Canadian and Russian questions.

Lord Glenconner is Mr. Asquith's brother-in-law, High Commissioner of the Kirk of Scotland, President of the Peebles Branch of the National Service League, chairman of the Tharsis Sulphur Co., and has large holdings m the Nobel Explosives Co.

Lord Pirrie entertained the First Lord of the Admiralty when visiting Belfast. He is chairman of Harland and Wolff, Lid., and debenture trustee of John Brown and Co., Thos. Firth and Sons, and Coventry Ordnance Co.

Lord Ribblesdale, the fourth advocate of "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform" in the Gilded Chamber, stated, at the last annual meeting of the Nobel Dynamite Trust:—

Opposite these gentlemen sit the following directors:—

The Marquess of Graham, Earl Grey, Earl of Denbigh and Desmond, Baron Balfour of Burleigh, and Baron Hillingdon, besides a swarm of shareholders, among whom the most illustrious are Lord Midleton (formerly Mr. Brodrick), and the great Pro-Consul of India, Earl Curzon of Kedleston.

The Marquess of Graham commands the Clyde Section of the Volunteer Naval Reserve, and is a director of Wm. Beardmore and Co.

Earl Grey, late Governor-General of Canada, and a Vice-President of the Navy League, is a debenture trustee of Armstrong, Whitworth, and Co.

Earl of Denbigh and Desmond, a Vice-President of the Navy League, and of the National Service League, is enthusiastic about ​the Canadian offer. He is a debenture trustee of the Fairfield Shipbuilding Co., part owners of the Canadian Shipbuilding Co.

Lord Balfour, Senior Elder of the Kirk of Scotland, is a debenture trustee of Wm. Beardmore and Co. and the Coventry Ordnance Co.

Lord Hillingdon represents Messrs. Glynn, Mills, Currie, and Co., the bankers, as well as Vickers, Lid., and Wm. Beardmore and Co., of which he is a debenture trustee.

Lord Midleton is interested in Armstrong, Whitworth, and Co., and Lord Curzon—who is nothing if not an Imperialist—in Messrs. Hadfield’s Foundry Co., Ltd.—of which more anon.

In the House of Commons are many popular figures. There is Lord Claud Hamilton, director of Messrs. Hadfield’s. Then Sir Alfred Mond, vice-president of the Navy League, and chairman of the Mond Nickel Co.; the Brothers McLaren, scions of the new nobility of Aberconway; Godfrey M. Palmer, shareholder in Palmer’s Shipbuilding Co.; Sir Stephen W. Furness, member of the National Service League, and director of Richardson, Westgarth, and Co.; Sir J. Compton-Rickett, treasurer of the Free Church Council; and Sir J. B. Lonsdale, member of the Solemn League of Ulster, the former interested in John Brown and Co., and Cammell, Laird, and Co., the latter in Armstrong, Whitworth and Co.

Higher in the social scale—shall we say—stand the Right Hon. Alexander Ure, the Right Hon. Lewis Harcourt, and the Right Hon. the Speaker of the House of Commons with shares in Vickers, Ltd.; the Right Hon. Walter Runciman and the Right Hon. Stuart-Wortley, respectively shareholder and debenture trustee of Cammell, Laird, and Co.

Outside of the Trust, but a truly picturesque figure, is the Hon. Member for Portsmouth, Admiral Lord Charies Beresford, chairman of Henry Andrew and Co., Ltd., of Sheffield (according to "Who’s Who in Business," specialists in "steel for rifles, swords, shot, and shell.").

This breezy individual fills nine columns of Hansard with a speech on the need for the automatic rifle, m the course of which he says:

The Churches are represented by:—

The Bishops of Chester and Newcastle, both members of the National Service League and shareholders in Vickers, Ltd.; the Bishops of Adelaide, Newport, and Hexham interested in Vickers, Ltd., Armstrong, Whitworth, and Co., and John Brown and Co.; Dean Inge, of St. Paul’s, like Baron Kinnaird, pre​sident of the Y.M.C.A., and Sir Walter Runciman, a well-known Wesleyan, are shareholders in Vickers, Ltd.

After this "laying-on of hands," one is not so horrified to find that the chairman of Armstrong, Whitworth, and Co., Ltd., has been given the order, by a grateful Government, of Commander Jesus Christ of Portugal.

The Navy League is represented among the owners of Italian arsenals, Austrian torpedo factories, and Russian shipyards by four vice-presidents. These gentlemen, no doubt, agree heartily with this sentiment expressed in the Annual Report of the Navy League:—

Not "for" the Triple Alliance, of course—that would give the game away.

The War Trust is well represented in the National Service League.

Sir Andrew Noble, chairman of Armstrong, Whitworth and Co.; Sir Hellewell Rogers, chairman of Birmingham Small Arms Co.; Mr. Neville Chamberlain, shareholder in Kynoch’s, Ltd.; Major-General Nicholson, chairman of the Guncotton Powder Co.; Lord Glenconner, chairman of the Tharsis Sulphur Co.; Sam Roberts, M.P., director of Cammell, Laird, and Co.; General Brackenbury, director of Hadfield Steel Foundry, Ltd.; Sir Vincent Caillard, director of Vickers, Ltd., and B. A. Firth, chairman of Thos. Firth and Sons, Ltd, are all members of the National Service League, and, as one would expect, believe in a "Nation in Arms."

The War Trust has more direct methods even than those enumerated above of facilitating business.

For instance, this is the kind of thing which seems to hold favour in certain Liberal circles. Mr. Tudor Walters, speaking in Brightside, Sheffield, some years ago is reported to have said that:

​Then the armament firms have a great predilection for ex-members of the Services with high qualifications as technical experts, or with a knowledge of the little habits of the denizens of Whitehall and the Ordnance Factories.

The Fairfield Shipbuilding Co. have, among their directors, Admiral Sir Digby Morant, formerly Superintendent of Pembroke Dockyard.

The Coventry Ordnance Co., in 1910, secured, as managing director, Rear-Admiral Bacon. From 1907—1909 he was director of Naval Ordnance and Torpedoes at the Admiralty.

The Hadfield Foundry Co., Palmer’s Shipbuilding Co., and Richardson, Westgarth, and Co. had the late Admiral Sir Archibald Douglas on their boards. He had been vice-president of the Ordnance Committee.

At the annual meeting of the Foundry Co. in 1908 that darkest hour before the dawn of 1909—he told the shareholders that larger orders must necessarily come from the Government next year.

Armstrong, Whitworth, and Co. have obtained Rear-Admiral Ottley, sometime secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, to advise them. As Naval Attaché in Japan, Italy, Russia, America, and France, and as Director of Naval Intelligence he must have seen and heard much.

At any rate, Sir Andrew Noble said, speaking of him and Sir Perey Girouard, that they "had found their assistance most valuable." (Financial Times, April 15, 1913).

From Woolwich, Vickers-Maxim obtained Sir Trevor Dawson, now managing director. Birmingham Small Arms have, this year, engaged the late manager of the Royal Gun and Carriage Factories. The Nobel Explosives Co. have at the head of their cordite department, Colonel Sir F. Nathan, late superintendent of the Government Cordite Works at Waltham.

From every grade and every dockyard and every ordnance factory the Trust has taken them by scores at twice, four times, and sometimes more than that, their former salaries. These ex-officials can, at any time, visit their former haunts and in private conversation, by correspondence, and, in various ways, elicit a great deal of useful information. A firm has actually got its office inside one of the fitting shops at Portsmouth. Specifications, designs, and all kinds of valuable hints are obtained by their agents with the full agreement of the Admiralty.

On the other hand, the frequency with which members of the Inspection Department are taken into private employ cannot but have a demoralising effect on a number of the officials responsible for passing contract work, and the way in which the officers' wants and fancies are considered in the matter of accommodation all helps to ingratiate the firms in what will, sooner ​or later, be influential quarters. For instance, on the "Scout" type of ship, the commander had as much room allotted to him as 280 of his crew.

Just as in the public schools and the colleges, "it is a way they have in the Army, it is a way they have in the Navy" to "leg" each other up. And the firms know how to exploit this team-spirit to their own advantage.

In reading this account of its magnitude and its activity, its power and its resourcefulness, the reader must have wondered how any successful attempt can be made to control the Trust. Whatever action is taken must be international, and pressed on by the peace forces in every land. Especially must the Labour and Socialist parties in the various Parliaments, and their propagandist organisations among the people, at once forge the weapon and wield it against the universal tyranny of dividend-mongering militarism.

In this country, as elsewhere, it devolves upon us to expose the vested interests that lurk behind the "patriotic" societies. Let us show the directors and shareholders of armament firms supporting and encouraging the advocates of the "Nation in Arms"; the builders of everybody’s battleships fostering the Navy League; the patron of the All Empire Aerial Defence Campaign, Admiral Fremantle, now demanding "provision for aerial defence under all conditions, and at any cost," then presiding over the British Deperdussin Aeroplane Co., estimating how many airships the Empire will require "within the next two years."

But, above all, let our aim be to manufacture the nation's war material in the national yards and national arsenals. More work should be done in the Dockyards, and at Woolwich, Enfield, and Farnborough. Plant that is idle should be set working, and machinery installed for the making of the largest ordnance and ammunition, for rolling armour-plate and constructing engineering equipment. If the present establishments are not favourably situated or capable of expansion, then the Admiralty should put down factories, forges, and slipways at Rosyth, buy its mines and its own raw material in Fife, Lanark, and elsewhere, and set itself to compete against the Trust. Sooner or later the whole industry must be nationalised, and the sooner the better. Every year the firms add millions to their stock. The vested interests of capital and labour are becoming ever more powerful and more far-reaching. Only by nationalisation can we strike at the heart of the octopus.

Then, with the factories and yards under our own control, by comprehensive labour legislation embodying the minimum wage, the eight-hour day, the right to work or maintenance, and ​by bold measures of social reconstruction, using money for improved motor transit, the building of light railways, housing schemes, and general national development, we could absorb the displaced labour into other channels of activity.

At present the Chancellor of the Exchequer has no money to spare for making effective the Development Act, or for relieving the appalling burden of the rates by Grants in Aid. Every penny that he can rake together must swell the torrent pouring ceaselessly into the bottomless till of the War Trust. In Germany £50,000,000, in France £25,000,000 more this very year. Greater war budgets in Austria, Greece, Spain, and Russia. Japan spending half her revenue on war preparations. Hundreds of thousands of men being added to the armies of Europe and Asia, and millions of rifles, and hundreds of millions of cartridges.

At once they are putting more and more of the workers under ruthless military discipline, and piling upon their backs the burden of the War Trust's ever-growing dividends.

It is for us to bestir ourselves before the waves of Conscription swamp this last domain of civil liberty, and to see that the people of this country stand ready to join the common army.

For it is only as the workers of all lands unite, across the frontiers of nations and the boundaries of continents, resolved by political and industrial action to make themselves free, that slowly but surely we shall carry the banner of the International to triumphant victory!