As the new Minister of Munitions, Mr. Lloyd George visited
Manchester on Thursday week and addressed a meeting of engineers. His message, he said, was the most urgent ever delivered to Manchester. He had come to tell the truth. The Russians had suffered "a severe set-back." That was due not to the superiority of the German soldier, or to German leading, or to German numbers, but solely to the German superiority in munitions. Similarly, on the western front, if we had been able to treat the Germane as they had treated the devoted Russians—by firing, for example, two hundred thousand shells in a single hour and seven hundred thousand Ma single battle —the Germans might alreadyhave been expelled from Belgium and France and we might already be in Germany. Germany owed her success to the organization of her workshops, and we must look to our workshops for the same results. The discussion about the ethics of compulsion was going on as though we were discussing land reform or Home Rule in times of peace. " But you cannot argue under shell fire; you can only decide."
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