Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/1073

Rh this respect than the Germans ; but the experience of the campaign of 1916 finally removed any scruples of this kind. A notable achieve- ment of the trench warfare department in this field was the development of the cast-iron shell as a container for poison gas. This device avoided making an additional call upon the limited supplies of shell steel, and as it could be opened by a less violent explosion than was required with a steel shell there was less likelihood of destroy- ing the properties of the gas and dissipating it too widely. By 1917 the proportion of chemical-filled shell to H.E. shell was rapidly increasing, and as it finally grew from being a small supplement into an integral part of the ammunition programme, the_ filling of chemical shell was ultimately taken over by the ammunition filling department. In the autumn of 1918, 20% of certain natures and 12 % of others were filled with chemical, and the percentage in 1919 would have been immensely greater. (3) During 1916 the de- partment equipped the army with shrapnel-proof helmets, which rapidly became a regular part of the soldier's equipment.

Tanks. Another feature of Mr. Lloyd George's administration was the commencement of the manufacture of tanks. The design of the first tank was developed (see TANKS) by an Admiralty com- mittee and tested before several members of the Cabinet in Feb. 1916. The design was favourably reported upon by the military representatives present, and a special department was created in the Ministry under Col. Albert Stern to manufacture these new weapons. The secret was well maintained, in spite of the special priority in regard to labour and materials which was given to the manufacturers during 1916. Tanks were first used in the field in Sept. 1916, and thereafter their production assumed its normal place among the other departments of the Ministry.

Other Activities. During Mr. Lloyd George's administration steps were taken to establish a general system of priority not only in regard to machine tools and the use of raw material, but also in all the work done in engineering and chemical factories; but the carry- ing-out of the scheme in full belongs to a later date.

Foreign Purchases. Within a month of his appointment Mr. Lloyd George sent Mr. D. A. Thomas (later Lord Rhondda) to the United States and Canada to report upon the progress of munition output in America. Mr. Thomas reported that although the commission paid to Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co. seemed high the work was being well done and he recommended no modifica- tion in the arrangement. In Dec. 1913, Sir Ernest Moir was sent to America to exercise a general supervision over deliveries. An organization was set up in New York which kept track of output, followed goods through to port, and reported progress to the Ministry. This organization continued in existence until the end of the war, but became part of the British mission in the United States when America joined the Allies. In Canada Mr. Thomas found an organization in being under Gen. Sam Hughes, the Canadian Minister of Militia, though Gen. Hughes had no direct control over British orders. Subsequently the Canadian Pacific Railway were made agents for the British Government, and their organization developed into the Imperial Munitions Board, which exercised the functions of the Ministry of Muni- tions in Canada except that of inspection, which remained under an officer in Ottawa responsible to the head of the inspec- tion department in Great Britain.

Financial Control. At the commencement of the war it was evident that in the existing state of uncertainty it would be impossible for Parliament to retain control over the details of expenditure, and from Aug. 6 1914 onwards the money for carry- ing on the war was voted in the form of unallotted votes of credit, whose distribution was placed in the hands of the Treasury. The latter department, however, at once recognized that it was impossible for the spending departments to submit detailed proposals, and it therefore abandoned the machinery by which it normally sanctioned expenditure. This relaxing of control applied first to direct expenditure for the war, but was soon extended to cover advances to contractors, etc.

When the Ministry of Munitions was formed, similar powers were necessarily conferred upon the Minister except as regards the salaries of officials. Nor was it possible for the finance officers of the Ministry to control expenditure in the sense that they could exercise any influence upon the volume of orders to be placed. It has been stated that at the outset the Ministry placed orders largely in excess of War Office requirements in order to increase munition-producing capacity, and at a later date the Ministry discussed the character of the programme put forward by the War Office from the standpoint of the balance

between various demands, the extent to which they could be met from stock, or the limitations imposed by lack of materials, tonnage, labour or other limiting factors. But except as regards the limit of money available for foreign purchases, financial con- siderations did not, in fact, govern the munition programme.

The task of the financial officers of the Ministry, under the assistant financial secretary (Sir Hardman Lever), was, therefore, confined to ascertaining that the public funds were spent as economically as possible. The limitation of contractors' profits to a large extent suspended the normal stimulus to reduce costs of production, and the first and most important enterprise of the finance department of the Ministry was to develop and impose upon contractors an adequate system of " costing " and cost-accounts. These were developed during the first few months of the Ministry's existence, and enabled the officials of the Ministry to negotiate successfully considerable reductions in prices. This costing system, together with the rapidly increas- ing efficiency of production through experience of manufacture on a large scale, quickly produced substantial reductions in price as compared with the original sums paid for all classes of munitions. In Aug. 1916 it was claimed by Mr. Montagu in the House of Commons that the Ministry had already saved by this means 20,000,000 on home shell contracts alone and that American and Canadian prices for shell had been reduced 15% and 1 2^% respectively.

Design. A most important expansion of the functions of the Ministry took place in Nov. 1915, when the design department of Woolwich was transferred to the Minister. A new inventions board had already been instituted in the Min- istry, but this did not deal with established service articles. It had for many months been a subject of complaint, by those controlling production in the Ministry, that the design department was still working on pre-war traditions and was not sufficiently in touch with the requirements imposed by methods of mass production, nor was it drawing sufficiently upon the experience which was being gained by those actually engaged in this production. The War Office quite properly attached the very greatest importance to questions of design and the accuracy limits in specifications which the 'safety of the army made necessary, and were unwilling to release control of this department. The matter, however, was decided by the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) in favour of the Minister of Munitions, the transfer was made, and it was laid down that the Army Council should inform the Minister in general terms of the qualities required in a specific supply, that the design department under the Minister should submit its results to the War Office, and that the latter would then indicate the amount of its requirements. The officer in charge of design under the Minister would, however, be responsible for approving the specifications for manufacture. This officer, who in the first instance was also given charge of the inspection staff, thus took over the duty of laying down the standards of inspection.

The work of this department during the first six months after its transfer to the Ministry was of an exceedingly difficult character, for it had to solve the problem of successfully detonat- ing artillery shell filled with the new high explosive (amatol).

The transfer of this department, which was put under a mili- tary officer with war experience (Maj.-Gen. Du Cane), had the important consequence of creating direct contact between the Ministry and the army in the field, and so enabled the behav- iour of the new munitions under service conditions to be known in the workshops.

The Somme Battle. The first period of the Ministry's history ends with the opening of the battle of the Somme. The output of artillery and of ammunition, so long delayed by one difficulty after another, had at last permitted the army to accumulate a substantial stock of shell and to dispose of an artillery equipment with which it could match the standard of expenditure set by the Germans at Verdun. But the stock had only begun to accumulate in the preceding six weeks; and as the preliminary bombardment (which could be heard from the English coast) continued day after day, the rapidly dwindling stock was watched