but we cannot afford them now; and, above all, we cannot resort to the usual method of settling them.

I suppose I have settled more labor disputes than any man in this hall, and, although those who only know me slightly may be surprised to hear me say it, the thing that you need most is patience. If I were to give a motto to a man who is going to a conference between employers and workmen I

would say: "Take your time; don't hurry. It will come

around with patience and tact and temper."

But you know Time is victory,

we cannot afford those leisurely methods now. and while employers and workmen on the Clyde have been spending time in disputing over a fraction, and when a weekend, ten days, and a fortnight of work which is absolutely necessary for the defense of the country has been set aside, I say here solemnly that it is intolerable that the life of Britain should be imperiled for the matter of a farthing an hour.

There is a good deal to be said for and there is a vast amount to be said against compulsory arbitration, but during the war the government ought to have power to settle all these differences, and the work should go on. The workman ought to get more. Very well, let the government find it out and give it to him. If he ought not, then he ought not to throw up his tools. The country cannot afford it. It is disaster, and I do not believe the moment this comes home to workmen and employers they will refuse to comply with the urgent demand of the government. There must be no delay.

This war is not going to be fought mainly on the battlefields of Belgium and Poland. It is going to be fought in the workshops of France and Great Britain; and it must be fought there under war conditions. There must be plenty of safeguards and the workman must get his equivalent.

Most of our workmen are putting every ounce of strength into this urgent work for their country, loyally and patriotically. But that is not true of all. There are some, I am sorry to say, who shirk their duty in this great emergency. What is the reason? It is mostly the lure of the drink. They refuse to work full time, and when they return their strength and efficiency are impaired by the way in which they have spent their leisure. Drink is doing us more damage in the war than all the German submarines put together.

What has Russia done? Russia, knowing her deficiency, knowing how unprepared she was, said, "I must pull myself together. I am not going to be trampled upon, unready as I am. I will use all my resources." What is the first thing she does? She stops the drink. I was talking to M. Bark, the Russian Minister of Finance, a singularly able man, and I asked, "What has been the result?" He said, "The productivity of labor, the amount of work which is put out by the workmen, has gone up between 30 and 50 per cent." I said, "How do they stand it without their liquor?" and he replied, "Stand it? I have lost revenue over it up to £65,000,000 a year, and we certainly cannot afford it, but if I proposed to put it back there would be a revolution in Russia." One afternoon we had to postpone our conference in Paris, and the French Minister of Finance said, "I have got to go to the Chamber of Deputies, because I am proposing a bill to abolish absinthe." Absinthe plays the same part in France that whisky plays in this country. It is really the worst form of drink used, not only among workmen, but among other classes as well. Its ravages are terrible, and they abolished it by a majority of something like 10 to I that afternoon.

That is how those great countries are facing their responsibilities. We do not propose anything so drastic as that—we are essentially moderate men. But we are armed with full powers for the defense of the realm. We are approaching it, I do not mind telling you, for the moment, not from the point of view of people who have been considering this as a social problem—we are approaching it purely from the point of view of these works. We have got great powers to deal with drink, and we mean to use them. We shall use them in a spirit of moderation, we shall use them discreetly, we shall use them wisely, but we shall use them fearlessly, and I have no doubt that, as the country's needs demand it, the country will support our action and will allow no indulgence of that kind to interfere with its prospects in this terrible war which has been thrust upon us.

There are three things I want you to bear in mind. The first is and I want to get this into the minds of every onethat we are at war; the second, that it is the greatest war that has ever been fought by this or any other country, and the other, that the destinies of your country and the future of the

human race for generations to come depend upon the outcome

of this war.

War is a time of sacrifice and of service. Some can render one service, some another, some here and some there. Some can render great assistance, other but little. There is not one who cannot help in some measure, whether it be only by enduring cheerfully his share of the discomfort. In the old Welsh legend there is a story of a man who was given a series of what appeared to be impossible tasks to perform ere he could reach the desires of his heart. Among other things he had to do was to recover every grain of seed that had been sown in a large field and bring it all in without one missing by sunset. He came to an anthill and won all the hearts and enlisted the sympathies of the industrious little people. They spread over the field, and before sundown the seed was all in except one, and as the sun was setting over the western skies a lame ant hobbled along with that grain also. Some of us have youth and vigor and suppleness of limb; some of us are crippled with years or infirmities, and we are at best but little ants. But we can all limp along with some share of our country's burden, and thus help her in this terrible hour to win the desire of her heart.

BRITAIN'S NEED OF RECRUITS1

Napoleon, when asked what were the three things necessary for a successful war, replied: "Money, money, money." Today we vary that phrase, and say: "Men, material, and money." As regard the supply of money for the war, the government are negotiating a new loan, the marked success of which is greatly due to the very favorable response made by the city. To meet the need for material, the energetic manner in which the new ministry of munitions is coping with the many difficulties which confront the production of our great requirements afford abundant proof that this very important work is being dealt with in a highly satisfactory manner. There still remains the vital need for men to fill the ranks of our armies. In one

1 Speech of Field Marshal Earl Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, at the Guildhall, London, on June 9, 1915.

of my earliest statements made after the beginning of the war I said that I should require "More men, and still more, until the enemy is crushed." I repeat that statement today with even greater insistence. All the reasons which led me to think in August, 1914, that this war would be a prolonged one hold good at the present time. It is true we are in an immeasurably better situation now than ten months ago, but the position today is at least as serious as it was then. The thorough preparedness of Germany, due to her strenuous efforts, sustained at high pressure for some forty years, have issued in a military organization as complex in character as it is perfect in machinery.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of the response that has been made to my previous appeals, but I am here today to make another demand on the manhood of the country to come forward to its defence. I was from the first unwilling to ask for a supply of men in excess of the equipment available for them. I hold it to be most undesirable that soldiers, keen to take their place in the field, should be thus checked and possibly discouraged, or that the completion of this training should be hampered owing to lack of arms. We have now happily reached a period when it can be said that this drawback has been surmounted, and that the troops in training can be supplied with sufficient arms and material to turn them out as efficient soldiers.

It is an axiom that the larger an army is, the greater is its need of an everswelling number of men of recruitable age to maintain it at its full strength; yet, at the very same time the supply of those very men is automatically decreasing. Nor must it be forgotten that the great demand which has arisen for the supply of munitions, equipment, etc., for the armed forces of this country and of our allies also, as well as the economic and financial necessity of keeping up the production of manufactured goods, involves the retention of a large number of men in various trades and manufactures, many of whom would otherwise be available for the colors.

The public has watched with eager interest the growth and the rapidly acquired efficiency of the new armies, whose dimensions have already reached a figure which only a short while ago would have been considered utterly unthinkable. But there is a tendency, perhaps, to overlook the fact that these larger

armies require still larger reserves, to make good the wastage at the front. And one cannot ignore the certainty that our requirements in this respect will be large, continuous, and persistent; for one feels that our gallant soldiers in the fighting line are beckoning, with an urgency at once imperious and pathetic, to those who remain at home to come out and play their part too. Recruiting meetings, recruiting marches, and the unwearied labors of the recruiting officers, committees, and individuals have borne good fruit, and I look forward with confidence to such labors being continued as energetically as hitherto.

But we must go a step further, so as to attract and attach individuals who from shyness-or other causes-have not yet yielded to their own patriotic impulses. The government have asked Parliament to pass a Registration bill, with the object of ascertaining how many men and women there are in the country between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five eligible for the national service, whether in the navy or army, or for the manufacture of munitions, or to fulfil other necessary services. When this registration is completed we shall anyhow be able to note the men between the ages of nineteen and forty not required for munition or other necessary industrial work and therefore available, if physically fit, for the fighting line. Steps will be taken to approach, with a view to enlistment, all possible candidates for the army-unmarried men to be preferred before married men, as far as may be.

When the registration becomes operative I feel sure that the Corporation of the City of London will not be content with its earlier efforts, intensely valuable as they have been, but will use its great facilities to set an example of canvassing for the cause. This canvass should be addressed with stern emphasis to such unpatriotic employers as, according to returns, have restrained their men from enlisting.

What the numbers required are likely to be it is clearly inexpedient to shout abroad. Our constant refusal to publish either these or any other figures likely to prove useful to the enemy needs neither explanation nor apology. It is often urged that if more information were given as to the work and whereabouts of various units, recruiting would be strongly stimulated. But this is the precise information which would