armed with 15-inch guns. The French have finished four of 23,000 tons,
with 13 1/2-inch guns, and are finishing three more. The Russians are
at work upon six of 23,000 tons, with 12-inch guns. The Japanese are
building one superdreadnought of 30,000 tons, with 14-inch guns, and
three battle-cruisers of 27,500 tons and 27-knot speed, with 14-inch
guns.

Churchill, it will be remembered, figured that England could lose one
battleship each month and still maintain her full strength. While the
building of war-tonnage seems to be well in hand, there is no
corresponding replacement of mercantile tonnage.

I have the highest authority for the statement that the world possesses
no machinery at the present time to manufacture war-material at the
rate at which the nations of Europe have been using it during the first
hundred days of the war.

At one time the German armies were exploding 120,000 shells a day in
France and Belgium. The response from the French alone was 80,000
shells a day, and General Joffre made a request that his supply be put
up to 100,000 per day. This is for shells of all sizes, and the
estimate to me was of an average cost of two pounds, or ten dollars,
per shell. Some of the big German shells cost as high as $500 each.
In some kinds of shrapnel, holding 300 bullets, there are more than
thirty pieces of mechanism.

Within forty-eight hours after England declared war she had engaged the
total output of an American manufacturer, whose machinery was an
important part of the shell-making business. An American factory in
Connecticut received orders for $25,000,000 worth of cartridges which