CHAPTER VI

WOMEN IN MUNITIONS

"Hats off to the Women of Britain!"--Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE in
_The Times_, November 28, 1916.


When war broke out the Government had three National workshops
producing munitions--today it has 100, and it controls over 5,000
establishments through the Ministry of Munitions, many of which are
continually growing in size.

The total output has increased over thirty-fold but in many cases
increase in production has been far greater. In guns, the production
of 4.5 field howitzers is over fifty times as large; of machine guns
and howitzers over seventy times and of heavy howitzers (over 6 inch)
over 420 times as large.

More small shell is now made in a fortnight than formerly in a year,
and the increase in output of heavy shell has been still larger.
Equally striking results have been attained in the production of
machine guns, aeroplanes motor bodies, and the other war supplies, for
which demand and replacement have necessarily grown with the demand
for guns and shells. To these have to be added the ships and the
anti-submarine and anti-aircraft machines and devices that have been
demanded by the enemy's method of warfare.