have something to say in my next letter. Let me record another visit of
the same day to a small-arms factory of importance. Not many women here so
far, though the number is increasing, but look at the expansion figures
since last summer! A large, new factory added, on a bare field; 40,000
tons of excavation removed, two miles of new shops, sixty feet wide and
four floors high, the output in rifles quadrupled, and so on.

We climbed to the top floor of the new buildings and looked far and wide
over the town. Dotted over the tall roofs rose the national flags, marking
"controlled" factories, i.e., factories still given over a year ago to
one or other of the miscellaneous metal trades of the Midlands, and now
making fuse or shell for England's Armies, and under the control of the
British Government. One had a sudden sharp sense of the town's corporate
life, and of the spirit working in it everywhere for England's victory.
Before we descended, we watched the testing of a particular gun. I was to
hear its note on the actual battle-field a month later.

An afternoon train takes me on to another great town, with some very
ancient institutions, which have done very modern service in the war. I
spent my evening in talking with my host, a steel manufacturer identified
with the life of the city, but serving also on one of the central
committees of the Ministry in London. Labour and politics, the chances of
the war, America and American feeling towards us, the task of the new
Minister of Munitions, the temper of English and Scotch workmen, the flux
into which all manufacturing conditions have been thrown by the war, and
how far old landmarks can be restored after it--we talked hard on these
and many other topics, till I must break it off--unwillingly!--to get some
sleep and write some notes.

Next day took me deep into the very central current of "England's