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Show AMERICA MUST SPEND IN MEN TO WIN THE WAR" Great Britain's Message to the United States at This Critical Stage in the Big Fight Against the Hun "This Is a Struggle Between the Man Power and the Woman Power of the Respective Belligerents" fly Syne'y Brooks LONDON. January. THV'RE Is In .-.slin us I writ on of tli ImI noticed hut m.vt mo-nuntous mo-nuntous confre iu'm of the war. It ia a ivnfin-tHO botvvcon tin Government Govern-ment ami the Initio unions, and lis outline will anevt and may oven dt-lermiti dt-lermiti th soopo and rharaottM of the Prilish effort durltvc the reivmin.lor of the war. For the subject that Is beinjt discusM Is th:it of man power. ' How mny more- men iloes the army ".eed and how ure they to he sot? From what Industries are they to he withdrawn? Who Is to take their p!aoe In what way can the avuil-sMe avuil-sMe resources be so handled as to meet military needs, nvvlntaln all production tht is vital to the war. ana at the s-?Nie keep the wheels of civilian Tfe revolving? Such are some of the problems that the Government la now anxiously con-sMerlr.. con-sMerlr.. They hn,ve been present, of course, to some extent since the beginning begin-ning of the w-ar. but never tn so crucial cru-cial a form as now. And the Government Govern-ment is discussing them with the trade unions Instead of at once presenting pre-senting its solution to Parliament because be-cause of a pledge we ear, some nine mosths ago. At that time a schedule rs drawn up. after lengthy and delicate deli-cate negotiations with the trade unions, which granted Immunity from military service to certain essential industries. The Schedule of Frotected Occupations Occupa-tions it was called. The trade union leaders asked for a guarantee, that the schedule would not be departed t'roai. The Government spokesman refused re-fused absolutely to give any such guarantee, guar-antee, but promised that if changes In the schedule were found to be necessary neces-sary the trade unions would be consulted con-sulted before effect was given to this. It is in fulfillment of that undertaking that the Government and the trade u-ipr.s are now met in a frlenf.y and. ore hopes, a fruitful conference. The Big Job Ahead That changes have become necessary, neces-sary, that industry must be still further fur-ther i'-nted upon if Great Britain's reffort is to be maintained. Is jStry obvious. Russia's defection, the very s:!fT trisj through which Italy is "assir.g. our growing commitments. 1 accumulated wear and tear of three ad a half years of war are forcing forc-ing us to pass all our resources through a sieve. There never was a time when more of the burden of the war fell on Great Britain's shoulders th3n now. The load we axe supporting a: this moment is literally titanic. And It will continue to grow and grow for the next six months at least until America is ready to do her share of the fighting. Therefore, the cation is called upon to gird up its loins for a supreme effort, have got down to the bare bone of the struggle. Everything that we possess must now go In if the Allied line is to hold and the Allied cause to be saved. Sacrifices such as our people have barely even imagined ard have never In all their history endured en-dured will be asked of them. Much as the pinch of deprivation Is already felt, much as the fabric of domestic industrial life has already been dislocated, dislo-cated, further discomforts and another ar.d greater upheaval have now to be faced. American in the last nine months have experienced some of the Inconveniences, Incon-veniences, the difficulties and the dis-appointrr.'-'; . war. They have learn-' . .-.t ships and airplanes, for ' .ict. cannot be called Into existence exist-ence by a mere presidential proclamation. proclama-tion. Very possibly the slowness of :heir progress in these and other mat-JVers mat-JVers has surprised and disheartened tsi At any rate it should have put them J" now in a position to appreciate appreci-ate the magnitude of the British achievement. Support that Amoi-loa". Instead of belli a solf-Niipportliii? country, had to Import seven-tenths of her food; .suppose .sup-pose that she hud ,-aised. trained, mnu-d and equipped an army of 6.000.-000; 6.000.-000; suppose that she was Helium- on "'en different fronts at once; suppose sup-pose that in addition almost tlu whole burden of keeping tho seas open to the trutllo of the Allies and closed to the enemy was home hy her; suppose that she was ulso the main arsenal and factory mul hanker of all who were nuhtlns with her; suppose further fur-ther that she had endured the strain of these duties and endeavors for three and a half years suppose all this and America would still only have equaled the British record.. IVuihtless in tho l.'nited States you are feeling on every side the effects and pressure of the war. But the full force of its dislocating power you can hardly realize, if only because the number of Americans called up for military service is very much smaller in proportion to population than the huge percentage which the army has levied on all the other belligerents. I Imagine Just now an American army of 12,000,000. That would be just more than twice the size of the British army, and the population of the Ur.iteJ States is just more than twice as large as that of Great Britain. But the army you have actually raised or are in process of raising does not, I understand, exceed 2.000.000. Great Britain, in other words, with half'as many persons, has created an army three times as large; and not until Americans sit down and think out the disturbance, the positive upheaval, up-heaval, in all forms of domestic, agricultural agri-cultural and industrial life that would follow were the President to ask for a further 10,000,000 men will they be able to picture the present state of nffairs In (Iieat lliitalu and tho problems prob-lems with which wo are rapplln. hat above everything else this war has tliuj;ht Is that man power Is the pivot of all national effort. Nono of the I'clllKi-rcnts fully realh-.cd this in T.'l I. Croat Hritaln.it commercial, iionmilitary nation, witli a small hut highly trained professional army, hardly nallcd It at all. Wo thought of war wo thought for a long while even of this war- as an ail. ill of armies and tic. Ms. not si'cim? that It was tval!y a iIiukkIc between the whole of the man power and woman power of the ivpiTtive hrlliL-ereuts. At the beginning we had nothing that could he called n man-power pol icy. Tt is only within the last year that we have begun to evolve one. Hitherto Hith-erto we have thrown men into what ever gaps in the national equipment disclosed themselves now into the army, now into munition factories, now into mines, now into agriculture, now into the shipyards. But today at last we are surveying the problem prob-lem as a whole and understand and acknowledge that everything depends on the strategic discriminating use of our remaining resources of human strength and skill. The first mistake we made but it was a splendid mistake was to encourage en-courage wholesale recruiting. Before the war about 30.000 men enlisted in the regular forces annually. After the war began more than that number of recruits presented themselves In a single sin-gle day. There was one week in September. Sep-tember. 1914, when a quarter of a million men joined us. The rush was so great that the War Office ma chinery broke down, htrpH had to ho taken to check the llmv of recruits, and then u pi imUkIoum pi opnranda campaign cam-paign became neerstiary to revive lle enthusiasm of the early days. 11 was not until the war had been c.ottiK on for ncai !y a year, not until more than 2,01)0.000 men had volunteered, volun-teered, that wo licaii to perceive the true character of the struKKle and the tact (hat Industry was destined to play In It (l part as vital as naval or military mili-tary force. Then we passed the national na-tional icKlstralb.n act, which for the Ilrst time placed recruiting on a mm c or less selcntillc and orderly basis. I'ml'T lis terms not only had the actual ac-tual occupation of every male and female fe-male between tho Hues of fifteen and I say, --Sain, dome down 'ere and pull 'ard youll 'aveto Sooner or later" Suppose that America". Instead of able to picture the present state of chinery broke down, stops had to ho v, ,- heiiiK a .self supiiortluK country, had to --flairs in Ureal llritain and the prob- taken to check the llmv of recruits, and f I lmpet t seven-tenths of her food; sup- lems with which wo are i4ia.pllnn. then a piudlglnUM in opa randa cam- ) pose that she had raised, trained. What above everything else this paten became nen-snary to revlvu tle -Yt f aimed and equipped an army of 6,000.- war has taui:bt Is that man power Is enthusiasm of the early days. jC 'f ? ( 000; suppose that she was Unhung on the pivot of all national effort. Nono It was not tint II the war had been --T V" V seven different fronts at once; sup- of the bclllKcrents fully reallr.cd this coins' on for n.-ai ly a year, nut until S-S!-' V " pose that in addition almost tlio whole in I'.'ll. Cleat Hi itnln, a commercial, more than 2,000.1100 men had vnlun- y" ""fX K-SSS. r? - - 'C burden of keeplns the sea open (o iionmilitary nation, with a small but teeretl, that we hcKan to perceive the A ' ( - ' ' ' the tratllc of the Allies and closed to litchly trained professional army, true character of the strtiKKle and the '-''(')'V-.l, S - y tho enemy was borne hy her, suppose hardly realized It at all. Wo thought fact (bat Industry was destined to play hi S?.t . 'J , "K" s,u also the main arsenal of war wo thought for a lonu while In It a part as vital as naval or mill- i f;l ' ''sAi'' i p'i fc--j--'n and factory and hanker of all who even of this war- as an ml air of tary force. Then we passed the na- ' 7 ' '''V Kk-T-ipCp were righting with her; suppose fur- armies and tic. -is, not seeliu? that It tlonal icKlstrati..n a.i. which for the hA'P . ij.f 'jvf !?:&p?tpX ther that she had endured the strain 'iw (vally a ; 1 1 ucc.lc between the Ilrst time placed recruit in-,- on a nunc l Avs'"' i'-' tc ''r'?'!-fv!l! of these duties and endeavors for three whole of the man power and woman or less si lcntiilc and orderly basis. JS Lf M' ''' 'J?ji1'- V&'sJ-. X'5'' ''- and a half years suppose all this power of the respective holliL-eronts. I'lubr its terms not only had the ao- f 'J(, "jf and America would still only have At the beginning we had nothing timl occupation of every male and lo- I 'It 'fy equaled the Llrltlsh record.. that could bo called a manpower pol- male between tho ancs of fifteen and J (t ' 'r .''yii. V' '''ify)r-'t Xfm IXmhtless in tho rnited States you ' V. ''hJt are feeling on every side the effects k W-ff''t f ?'iJ'-X and pressure of the war. But the full " T M J . jj 'viiWsS!' and puU W-voull avto sMiftHf &W-55X Sooner or later" ,-'f&ZJ) mm&J&Xm a" tIc ' j11''' V f 'f-S-'.v-V s , sTltn Bnarcf was set up. This was amalga- Yt' Vt:-V : ' 4 (Z ' mated about a year ago in the Min- V ' r'? 4 "TZZZ1 istry of National Service, which is f3fiii"'" ZZrS5- fi--' ". Sr- . ?z. " 'iir-;i nor in manv wavs the most powerful gjfZZgpR&JrL. M'-X T-' ZZs -V"" 7 V. of time, money and energy, under any of all the Government offices. , 'Vl , 'fy''-f--rf ' Tfj&Zzy ''T" "t' system, compulsory or voluntary, to The functions of this ministry are. I V,J. VV' ,; Xvafci "t.-j trriin m-n to flqht and thn to discover first of all. to translate into terms of Sf f 'Ci'' -VTS.'-r th:tt thpy would be morc usefuI mak man power all proposals put forward ' V-C' 'Z 'j -y ''J fniT mnnitinns or carrying on their by the war cabinet. "We want to do t f0 - wCO-normal trades. We made that blunder this and this." says the cabinet. Vj ' ; v. IS- ''y- sfV?. V A i anr1 so dii France and Germany. Per- "Kindly let us know how many men if'J&-:st? " haps "f aI1 the 'Hiperents the United Ve can rely upon for doing it." And tL s " C"v C.T :i. Plates is the only one that has avoided the Ministry of National Service y ' . X ' 'S t'JJ '-' il- tackles the problem. But it can only -''ZZw'j& i.r' J.'tT J Our next advance toward a more work out the solution if it has com- .riC- (f"-S rational use of man power was the piete and -undivided authority over all :rJ ' j1'jf ;!vL; Derby system of recruiting. Under tne man power in the country. And -. it ' . y l$ this plan all the unenrolled manhood this is what it has. . i f. j f . of the country was attested and di- jt undertakes recruiting for the MJ ' ved into groups according to age for army and navy and reports on the sixty-rive to be declared, but alto their capacity for any other business which niiirht be serviceable to the country. A complete survey was thus,, made of the whole nation and of every eligible eli-gible man and woman in it. At the sa-me time various committees were busily at work weighing the comparative compara-tive needs of the army, munition works, agriculture and other civil industries. in-dustries. Their recommendations, v. lien put side by side with the results of the register, made it possible to draw up lists of trades in the order of their national importance and to decide de-cide in the case of some of them that no workers, even though of military age. should be drafted from them into the army. All the belligerents in this war have found that to extract the maximum of righting power you must observe a just proportion between the claims of the fighting services and the claims of industry. It is the sheerest waste of time, money and energy, under any system, compulsory or voluntary, to train m'n to right and thn to discover that they would be more useful making mak-ing munitions or carrying on their normal trades. "We made that blunder and so dii France and Germany. Perhaps Per-haps of all the belligerents the United Plates is the only one that has avoided it. Our next advance toward a more rational use of man power was the Derby system of recruiting. Under this plan all the unenrolled manhood of the country was attested and divided di-vided into groups according to age for the military authorities to call to the colors as and whenthey were wanted. It vias a good plan and had we adopted it at the beginning of the war it might have seen us through. But we found that many thousands of single men of military age had failed to signify sig-nify their readiness to serve when called upon. Compulsion was at once applied to the unmarried shirkers, and a few months later, in May, 1916, was extended to airmen in Great Britain between the ages of eighteen and forty-one. But that settled one problem only to raise or to leave unsolved a dozen others. All the Government departments, depart-ments, and especially those that looked after munitions and agriculture and shipping, were clamoring for men, were competing with one another and with the War Office and the Admiralty for men, and were dipping indiscriminately indiscrimi-nately into the lessening pool of labor. To bring about some sort of order among them a Man-Power Distribution Board was set up. This was amalgamated amalga-mated about a year ago in the Ministry Min-istry of National Service, which is now in many ways the most powerful of all the Government offices. The functions of this ministry are, first of all. to translate into terms of man power all proposals put forward by the war cabinet. "We want to do this and this." says the cabinet. "Kindly let us know how many men we can rely upon for doing it." And the Ministry of National Service tackles the problem. But it can only work out the solution if it has complete com-plete and undivided authority over all the man power in the country. And this is what it has. It undertakes recruiting for the army and navy and reports on the physical fitness of the men leaving it to the naval and military authorities to say how those whom it certifies as fit for service are to be employed. It transfers labor from one form of work to another in accordance with me shifting needs of the war. It helps in concert with a war priority committee to determine what are the most urgeDt requirements of the moment. It has to provide substitutes for the labor it withdraws into the army or swings over to other work. It has to register the whole working population of the country and be ready at any moment to furnish estimates of the man power that is available for any given purpose. It is. in short, the clearing house for the human energy of the British Isles, a sort of general staff of man power, tojehing the iifo of the nation at almost al-most every point. In consultation with the shipping controller it can so reduce re-duce the imports of raw material for any specified industry as almost to drive it out of business, and so oblige the men enjrajyed in It to a:' work elftewhere and to find It, of course, in some form of employment that the Government wishes particularly to popularize. In the uame way it will oon have, if it does not already pos-eees, pos-eees, authority to forbid the opening of any new businesses whatnoever, and to eupprenH, or cut down to a mint-mum, mint-mum, the BO-ca.I!ed luxury tradea. The war ha taught ue that the 1n-duHtrial 1n-duHtrial forces of the nation, like Its military forcea, must be grouped to strike now here and now there. To arrange for these concentrations and tranHfers la the supreme function of the Ministry of National Service. It is a colossal task. It touches th trade unions and the rights, privileges and susceptibilities of organized labor on the one hand, and such questions as the use of naval and military and civilian prisoners, and the employment of women, and the getting of unskilled men to do work hitherto arbitrarily reserved by the trade unions for skilled men, on the other. Some of its most anxious problems are legacies from the earlier days of the struggle, when the science of man power was barely even guessed at, when the short-war fallacy dominated Whitehall, when very few of us realized real-ized what we were up against, and when everything connected with recruiting re-cruiting for the army and for industries indus-tries wae makeshift and Improvident. We were then merely groping our way, and we snatched at almost any expedient expe-dient that would tide us over a temporary tem-porary difficulty. In that early period many promises were made to the trade unions that ought never to have been made. Many undertakings were entered into with them that it proved impossible afterward to carry out. The TTill to Win But these pledges and agreements still last and prevent that full and unrestricted use of all our resources which has now become indispensable. To get rid of them, to make a new start with a clean slate, and to do so with the co-operation and good will of labor. Is the chief object of the conference con-ference now taking place between the Government and the trade unions. "Dilution" for instance that is the substitution of women or unskilled men on work that does not really require re-quire highly skilled labor could be used to release for the army men whom the trade unions claim aa "skilled but whose Jobs could, in fact, be equally well done by unfit men or by women. But there is an old understanding un-derstanding that dilution snould not be employed for purposes of recruiting. recruit-ing. Promises, again, have been made that skilled workers should not be called up for general service in the army. But we have now reached point where some classes of skilled men, if they are physically fit, are more urgently needed in the line regiments regi-ments than In any of the technical corps. There are a number of small bnt irritating problems like this to be disposed dis-posed of. But above them all stand the question whether the national effort in this supreme crisis of the war is to be handicapped by agreements agree-ments and pledges entered into under other circumstances and now transformed trans-formed by events into hindrances instead in-stead of aids, and whether any par-ticular par-ticular class of the population is to enjoy en-joy an immunity from military service that Is not possessed either by their fellow workers or by the rest of their countrymen. I have no doubt what the answer to these questions will be. Labor if tactfully, and sympathetically, and frankly treated will respond to the Government's appeal. Throughout the British people as a whole the will to win isas strong as ever, and no class or sector, even if any wanted to, could stand out against it. Great Britain, never fear, will rise to the full height of the crisis that now confronts her. i |