Among the measures which immediately followed this decision we may
note the seizure of the German ships in American harbours, representing upwards of half-a-million of tonnage, and the intern- ment of their crews, while the work of repairing the damaged machinery was at once begun. The industrial mobilization of the country has been so well assured that thirty-two thousand companies
have offered to place themselves under Government control. The Army Bill submitted by the War Department to Congress provides for the raising of an immediate increase of five hundred thousand men by " selective conscription," in addition to an increase of the Regular Army and National Guard to about seven hundred thousand—or, roughly speaking, a total fresh enlistment of one million men—while the naval establishment and the Marines are to be doubled, bringing the numbers up to a hundred and.fifty thousand and thirty thousand respectively. The War Budget disclosed by Mr. McAdoo, Secretary to the Treasury, proposes to expend £680,000,000 on initial war preparations--i.e., raising, training, and equipping troops and increasing did strengthening the Navy—apart from the sums to be lent to the Allies. The sum will be raised by taxation—probably by a largely enhanced Income - Tax. In this context it may be added that President Wilson has formally approved of the Shipping Board's programme to build a fleet of a thousand wooden vessels of about three thousand tons each at the rate of two hundred thousand tons monthly, the first vessels to be ready in five months' time.
