Conservation of Materials

Conservation of Materials

Part VIII of the series ‘England in Arms’

By W. Lacey Amy

From The Canadian Magazine, December 1917.

It required the war to convince the most pat­riotic of us that Great Britain was year by year becoming less self-contained, that by pro­cesses subtle or open her rivals in the world’s commerce, especially Ger­many, were gradually ousting her not alone from the foreign markets but from her own. And in the revelation that came with war one more eco­nomic theory received a staggering blow that manufacture of specific commodities should be left to the countries in a position to produce them most economically. The theory was unassailable were peace a per­manent blessing. But war has a habit of uprooting theory with relentless hand. There still remain in England those who resist the apparent corol­lary, that unprofitable national pro­duction must be protected, but the teachings of war are rendering their ideals at least momentarily unobtrus­ive. The grim straits through which Great Britain has passed since Au­gust, 1914, have impressed her with the national helplessness that accom­panies the relinquishment to foreign countries of national necessities. And as manufacturers are not the class who willingly produce at a loss in competition with their foreign rivals, there exists only the solution of Gov­ernment protection in some form.

Great Britain never realized how the very essentials of life were drift­ing into the hands of the Germans, until the sudden closing of the Ger­man market forced her to review her own industry. The facts forced home to her might well have discouraged another less resourceful coun­try. Not alone were the needs of everyday life unfulfillable, but some of the very weapons of war had so subtly trickled from British control that only British brain was able to cope with the situation without more than a temporary setback. Perhaps had the war been delayed ten years British brain might not have been so ready to re-grapple with a produc­tion she had lost only for a few years.

It is the popular impression that German dyes represent the climax of British dependence, but the dyes themselves are the least material of the deficiencies of British production. Not yet has the dominance of Ger­many in this commercial commodity been overcome, but adaptable substi­tutes are readily available, and dyes are in their nature immaterial to na­tional victory or even national life. Where the German monopoly of dye­stuffs looms most awkwardly is in the fact that Great Britain did not grasp their real significance as an indirect factor in international relations; for Germany’s monopoly was the result of her preparations for war, not of her superior inventive powers, the basis for dyes being the by-product of the manufacture of munitions. German dyes were subsidized in order to util­ize the coal-tar resulting from certain munition-making processes, and every dye-works was instantly convertible in time of war to war services. Dyes, therefore, have been the least of Great Britain’s troubles in the war.

In a thousand household needs Bri­tain’s dependence became revealed al­most with the declaration of war, and some of these were of sufficient im­portance to demand official attention at the same time as the more intimate ones of munition production. Since their manufacture has been permit­ted to creep into German hands more as an economic measure than through any inability to fulfil the local needs, they presented no striking problem. But in a score of the prime require­ments of war the effect was different. Certain processes of steel manufac­ture suitable for munitions were not practised in England. Electric sup­plies for Great Britain came almost entirely from our enemies. In the outskirts of London to-day lies idle an incomplete electric railway, be­cause construction was in the hands of German engineers using German fittings and principles. The little magnetoes that are essential to the aeroplane and the automobile were so completely of German manufac­ture that even to-day they are pro­duced in England by only two or three firms and their efficiency and cost is still not such as to supplant the German article should open com­petition recommence immediately. Germany was selling Great Britain all her finer grades of glass, such as those used for lenses and laboratory purposes. Great Britain had even permitted Germany to enter her dis­tant possessions for the practical monopolization of the minerals used in the working of steel processes. For her finer machinery required in the production of munitions Great Bri­tain is to-day at the mercy of Am­erica, since the English working engineer has not yet arrived at that nicety of adjustment, that perfection of specification which is absolutely necessary for serviceable and reliable instruments of war. I admit it with reluctance but with certainty of my ground. Indeed, English manufac­turers are candid in their statements that they must still look to America for the mechanical delicacy and nice­ty which have made British munition production one of the marvels of the war. This they may well leave where it is for the present, so long as Bri­tain’s energies are completely util­ized for more immediate require­ments. Its unsatisfactory feature is that this very mechanical perfection will be as essential to much of the coming industrial struggle of peace as it is now to the war output.

Toys, dolls, metal and leather novel­ties, gas mantles, brushes, certain popular earthenware, office requisites, musical instruments—these are a few of her daily wants for which Great Britain had been wont to send her travellers to the great German mar­kets, such as were represented at the Leipsic Fair.

There were other disadvantages under which Britain laboured on ac­count of her insular position. For her timber she was dependent largely on Norway, Sweden and Russia, and to a less degree on America. The skins for her leather came for the great part from abroad. Her paper was the product of foreign pulp. Her metals arrived by boat. In the bulk­ier raw materials England may be said to have been self-supporting only in coal.

Her problems would have been sim­ple, even in the face of these de­ficiencies, had it not been for the submarine warfare adopted by the en­emy. British control of the seas and of the shipping covering them would have assured her of sufficient supplies for her every want. The demands for war transportation would have embarrassed her shipping capacity to such a small extent that the simplest expedients of conservation would have sufficed. But with the sinkings and delays of unrestricted warfare conservation became a question equal­ly vital with the protection of the merchant shipping and the upkeep of the army. How she went about it is peculiar to a nation, proud, bound by tradition, reluctant to admit even in­convenience—and certain to overcome in the final emergency.

With the requisitioning of tonnage for war purposes—the transportation of soldiers, wounded, and supplies; patrolling the coasts, mine-sweeping, auxiliary cruiser duties—the neces­sity for some control of importations became evident. Certain luxuries were gradually eliminated from the freight lists, the bulkier unessentials first. A part of the tonnage was re­quisitioned for stated importations at Government rates. But the inade­quacy of these measures became ap­parent long before the sinkings were numerous enough to be an immediate menace, and the injustice of singling out a few ships and depriving them of the high rates obtainable by free ships clamoured for redress. In ad­dition, it gradually impressed itself on the nation that any satisfactory solution of the submarine menace en­tailed a more perfect organization for the elimination of delay in loading and unloading, as well as the speed­ing up of construction. For these purposes experienced officials were appointed. Construction was not only standardized, but workmen were utilized where they were of greatest service, irrespective of firms and em­ployers. The difficulty of delays in loading was met to some extent by mobile dockers’ battalions, and by a more strict supervision of transpor­tation and labour.

But shipping cannot be said to have been brought within the scope of a thorough control until the middle of 1917, when the Government took over ninety-seven per cent. of the entire British registry at Government rates. By this means it was not only assured of reasonable freight charges, but the entire capacity of the boats was di­rected with a sole eye to the real re­quirements of the situation. The move took the place of the scores of former regulations. It became no longer a case of publishing prohibited impor­tations but of satisfying the Govern­ment that purchases abroad were in the interests of the country at large. Every British liner was taken over, and the profits derived from private freight went to the nation. The re­sult was a pooling of interests by the large transportation companies. Long voyages gave place to short substi­tutes, and the facilities of the near­est ports were always available to save time. Shipowners arranged to purchase their ships’ stores and pro­visions abroad in order to save home stocks—an obvious act of wisdom that was so little recognized even during the early months of 1917 that Span­ish and Dutch and Norwegian ves­sels were continuing their custom of drawing their supplies from English ports. At the very moment when not a pound of potatoes was finding its way to the majority of tables in Great Britain these foreign ships were tak­ing away with them thousands of tons.

Land transportation, while not in the same emergent class as shipping, entered the scheme of conservation on account of the shortage of men, and because trucks and engines had been requisitioned for the use of the army in France. This was effected by reducing passenger service to the minimum, and by organizing deliv­ery so that the shortest route and dis­tance was compulsory. For instance, coal was brought to London only from the nearest mines and by the short­est line, the railways being brought under Government control to a dis­interested co-operation. One striking failure to complete the simplification of transportation was in the neglect of the canals that cut England in every direction. Whether this was owing to their railway ownership or to Governmental thoughtlessness is not clear, but such bulky freight as coal might have been poured into Lon­don by this means of transportation without disturbing the material so much in demand for quicker delivery.

The immediate need for metals and explosive ingredients for war pur­poses, as well as for other commodi­ties hitherto imported, drove Eng­land to measures never before con­templated. The Explosives Depart­ment of the Ministry of Munitions was organized to assume the duty of acquiring the necessary raw material of explosives. Glycerine was early placed on the controlled lists, and in February, 1917, was further restrict­ed to preparations of the British Pharmacopoeia and to uses approved by the Ministry. It was practically eliminated from dispensing. In March, the shortage being serious, a special branch of the Explosives De­partment was formed to take over control of all fats, oils, oil-seeds, and their products, including oilcake, soap, and margarine. For the same purpose the waste of camp canteens and messes has been carefully col­lected for more than a year. Since one of the by-products in the manu­facture of illuminating gas is a neces­sity for explosives, the people were urged to use gas where possible for heat, light and power. The huge de­mand for petrol led to the Govern­ment resuming the long-interrupted efforts to find oil in Great Britain, and in order to prevent exploitation the Crown assumed the exclusive right to bore. Should petroleum be discovered in quantity—and there have been signs that point to success—the submarine menace will be near­er to solution than it has ever been. The same prospecting is being under­taken for metals, although it is cer­tain that only small supplies of in­ferior quality will be found, lead and zinc comprising the bulk of British possibilities. Copper was requisition­ed in December, 1916, and its use for manufacturing purposes forbidden.

The control of petrol has been one of the big failures of attempted con­servation. For the first twenty months of the war this control rested in the hands of various inter-departmental committees whose main anxiety—as is the case in a hundred instances of divided control in England—was their authority and dignity. They competed against each other in the market and in shipping facilities and bought in the application of their au­thority even in war spheres. The Pe­trol Committee which succeeded them had not a petrol expert in its com­position, and at its best was impeded by a jealous Board of Trade. In dis­gust it resigned, after a period of in­adequate control and incompetent ef­forts. Its successor has proved more efficient. A different scheme has evolved. The principal petroleum companies have arranged a pool for distribution and importation, under the control of a Pool Board Petroleum Supplies. Restrictions were early put on petrol licences, and these have been extended at various times with the declared aim of cutting out pri­vate consumption. Business firms are allowed a certain amount for deliv­ery purposes. Taxi-cabs, of which there were 8,287 in London alone be­fore the war, were reduced to an al­lowance of thirty gallons a month, the most conspicuous result of which was to encourage the drivers to break the laws governing their service to the public. And motor-buses, which provide the popular means of trans­portation in London, were seriously curtailed. But the working of the restrictions was glaringly lax and un­fair. Petrol was wasted in the army sometimes used even for washing the trucks. Taxis, which usually carry but one passenger, were grant­ed petrol which if supplied to the in­terrupted bus service would have car­ried many times the number of pas­sengers. Until recently there were no restrictions whatever on the motor luxuries of officers, every one of whom of any rank has his own car and chauffeur for running about Eng­land. Day and night and Sundays this indulgence was unlimited until the middle of 1917, and since then its control has been evident only in the replies of Government officers be­fore the House of Commons. While private licences were supposed to be cut off in May, 1917, there is not a minute of the day when any import­ant street in London does not prove that civilians still ride at their plea­sure; and on Sundays the roads from London are still busy. In spite of the repeated official denials that pet­rol is granted for private use there is the frankest display of such waste. Even the social notes in the news­papers speak of wedding trips and visits to seaside resorts by motor, and the procuring of supplies demands but slight ingenuity. The greatest obstacle to such a perversion of a much-needed commodity is a price of $1.17 a gallon established in Au­gust, only twelve cents of which is Government tax. It is a detail of the recognized principle of regulation in England to reserve the privileges for the rich.

The shortage of petrol has led to the use of substitutes, but the fur­ther prohibition of liquid substitutes has confined the inventiveness of mo­tor enthusiasts to the utilization of gas.

Conservation of coal has been taken up officially, not because of a national shortage, but to save labour and trans­portation. In 1915 the price was fix­ed to prevent exploitation. In the spring of 1917 there was in London a severe shortage that bore heavily on the poor, who purchase in small quantities; and in the summer of that year steps were taken to prevent a repetition. A Coal Controller was ap­pointed to arrange delivery from the nearest mines and to equalize distri­bution. The Board of Trade issued advice to the people to purchase their winter supplies early, but when the orders poured in it was found there was not the coal to fill them. It was another instance of neglected prelim­inary organization before urging the public to action. The several in­stances of this which have occurred have done much to discourage public co-operation in attempted conserva­tion. The next step was to ration the coal according to the number of grates. A house with not more than four grates was allowed two hundred­weight a week, and the allotment was detailed up to two tons and a half for a house of more than fifteen rooms. Every consumer using more than two hundredweight a week had to register. The Controller’s plan was to work up to a five weeks’ stock in the coal yards, reducing the allow­ance as this quantity was reduced. The difficulties of such a system of rationing are obvious, since the ex­tent of occupation of a house, rather than its number of grates, determines its consumption. There is, too, no assurance that the rationed quantity will be available.

One of the early materials to be controlled was paper. Newspapers were cut down to definite quantities, based on their consumption during the year before the war, and this amount was further reduced in 1916. Importation was in the hands of the Government. The result was a dwin­dling of size and a consequent in­crease in price owing to the curtail­ment of advertising space. The Times rose by halfpenny stages to twopence, and many of the halfpenny papers advanced to a penny. In March, 1917, posters over a certain size were for­bidden, and tradesmen might not send out catalogues or price lists ex­cept on request. The newspaper con­tents bill, a feature of street an­nouncement in England, was pro­hibited. By the last measure alone it is estimated that 500 tons a week are saved. In July, 1917, the War Office arranged that, since the cas­ualty lists could no longer be pub­lished in the smaller papers, they should be issued weekly to the book­stores for sale. A few days later tradesmen were limited in their cir­culars and catalogues to a third the weight of paper used in the same period of the year before. And the whiteness of paper has been sacrificed in order to save bleaching powder.

In the matter of wearing apparel control was delayed as long as pos­sible. Leather had first to be taken in hand. The huge call for army boots was eating into the available supplies with disturbing rapidity, and in March, 1917, the Government took over all sole and upper leathers suitable for army use, following a less complete requisition of the previous December. Civilian footwear immedi­ately advanced. In June the Govern­ment made arrangements for the sale of old army boots at fixed centres, with the stipulation that they should not be patched but taken to pieces for repairing other shoes. The ob­ject was to prevent the scrapping of serviceable army boots. But shoe re­pairs continued to rise so seriously—soling advanced more than three hun­dred per cent. from the period before the war—that in September the Gov­ernment was forced once more to in­tervene and release for civilian use at fixed prices quantities of leather suitable for repairs.

An Advisory Committee on Wool Purchase was set up, representing the various Government departments con­cerned and civilian interests. It fix­ed prices and prescribed uses. Wool was not largely imported, but it was deemed advisable to continue exports as well as to supply home needs. Standard cloth is now produced for officers’ uniforms, and civilian wear will probably be similarly controlled. The manufacture of cotton has had to be curtailed, although it is one of England’s leading manufactures. Blankets are in Government control for army use and only such quanti­ties released for civilian use as are considered necessary.

All stocks of sawn timber in the United Kingdom were taken over by the Government in February, 1917, and in July the Local Government Board urged local authorities to for­go the use of wood-paving for the period of the war. In January anastigmatic lenses of defined focal lengths were requisitioned. In Feb­ruary the supplies of jute in the coun­try were commandeered. In June citizens were requested by the Board of Trade not to waste glass recept­acles of any kind. Metal spur, chains, buttons and badges of rank on officers’ uniforms were abolished, leather spur straps and buttons, and worsted badges of rank taking their place. Stone quarries were taken over in July.

General prevention of waste and of misdirection of effort was applied in a score of ways. Building and pri­vate motor-making were stopped. A new Bill was introduced for the pre­vention of corruption in Government contracts. A department was set up for the utilization of idle machinery. In 1916 an Order-in-Council empow­ered the Admiralty and Army Coun­cil to regulate or prohibit transac­tions in any article required in con­nection with the war. No horse suit­able for cultivation of land might be sold by the land occupier without licence. To save fuel illuminated ad­vertisements and lights outside shops and theatres were prohibited in May. 1917. In extension of this principle two of the large London stores closed on Saturdays.

Of course, with all this evident shortage there was profiteering. The case of matches affords a good ex­ample. These sold before the war as low as three cents a dozen boxes. To­day they are as high as thirty-two cents, although the manufacturers in­sist that not more than sixteen cents should be asked the consumer. In addition to their high price there are times when they cannot be obtained at all, and the stores release to each customer only a small box or two. The Government, knowing there were sufficient stocks somewhere, has taken steps to control distribution. A pool of manufacturers has been formed, and orders will be taken only through a Match Control Office in London, which will be under the Tobacco Con­trol Board.

In these measures of conservation it was necessary at times to ignore the claims even of allied countries. France, being close at hand and Great Britain’s source for much that might be called luxuries, has suffered most keenly. Fruit, wine, and silk were the largest of these importations. At various times all these products of our friends across the Channel have been either restricted or prohibited. Protest has been made, and at times mild reprisals applied, but common sense has prevailed. In some cases the protesting country yielded, in others the restrictions were modified. A general agreement between the two countries was announced in Septem­ber. By it England takes from France goods of French origin, ex­cept such as wood, motor-cars, ma­chinery, gold, spirits, and ornamental goods; and France has thrown her doors open to everything but cotton and woollen piece goods, soap, and oils. The fact that England has the European Allies almost completely at her mercy on account of her con­trol of shipping is proof of the wis­dom and justice of her treatment of them.

The straits into which the war has thrown Great Britain in the matter of material supplies are not without their blessing. The people of the small island which has dominated the world for so many centuries are learn­ing how luxurious and enervating was their style of life among certain classes, how much they can eliminate without serious inconvenience—even with advantage—and how near they were to losing valuable markets. The necessities of war have developed an inventiveness that was tending to doze and have taught the wisdom of great­er dependence on their own produc­tions than upon those of other coun­tries who appraise more truly the value of industrial eminence in the world’s markets. England after the war will swing swiftly into the Eng­land she can be, a resourceful coun­try that need give precedence to no rival in commercial as well as in in­tellectual attainments.

The next article of this series is entitled “The Enemy in England”.

The Farmer and the War

THE FARMER AND THE WAR

—PART II. of ‘England in Arms’.

By Lacey Amy

From The Canadian Magazine, June 1917.

No one in England has been more intimately af­fected by the war than the farmer. No one in England will, in the long run, profit so com­pletely.

“No doubt the State showed a la­mentable indifference to the impor­tance of agricultural industry, the very life of the nation. No civilized country spent less on agriculture, or even spent as little on it, directly or indirectly, as we did.”

In that frank confession before the House on a memorable day in Febru­ary, nineteen-seventeen, Lloyd George, faced by a startling shortage of food as the result of the condition he now deplored, supported by the ready as­sent of a people who had, for the first time in its history, been forced to weigh its allowance, sounded a na­tion’s remorse. Ahead stared the menacing future of a struggle with a ruthless foe that was attacking in England’s most vulnerable spot. Be­hind were generations of neglect of the only industry that could surely save her in her extremity. Ahead lay even the uncertainty of a victory that might have been assured had England not so immutably set her course by a plan whose blindness was now recog­nized perhaps too late. “Seventy to eighty per cent. of our wheat has been imported,” groaned the Premier. “Our food stocks are low, alarmingly low—lower than they have ever been within recollection.” And a nation, paying the penalty of its own folly, grimly bent its tardy efforts to re­forming the system, to remodeling its ideas of national industry and na­tional life.

Hitherto the English farmer, in a country where man is classified large­ly by the work he does, moved on the lowest plane. He fulfilled no vital function of national existence. He lived on suffrance. His only recog­nized function was to render profit­able some insignificant part of the huge tracts owned by wealthy land­lords, and to keep them in shape for the latter’s amusements. He was little more than a servant of the land­lord from whom he rented his land—for he seldom owned it. Generation after generation his family grovelled and dug, hopelessly, almost stupidly, ground down by the system that de­prived him of every incentive of am­bition. His sons who were worth while left him and sailed for the Colonies, where a man might be a man and still be a farmer, where the limits of the scale, social and financial, depended only on a man’s capacity.

There is another “farmer” in Eng­land, the landlord owner who never handled a hoe or stirred a spadeful of earth or harnessed a horse. His voice swells in the House of Commons, on the public platform, in rural organi­zations. The other day a London news­paper displayed a letter from a “Far­mer” protesting against the cry for more cultivation when labourers were unavailable owing to the demands of the Army. On his 800 acre farm, he lamented, he had but sixteen hands, and the land was idle for want of workers. But the letter was sent from one of the most exclusive and expen­sive clubs in London. There are thous­ands like him in England—men who call themselves farmers but never farm, who bewail the dearth of help but scorn to remove their own coats. That is not the farmer of whom I am going to speak.

The English farm was but a corner of a large sporting estate. Where tens of acres were tilled hundreds were left wild for the deer, the fox, the pheasant, the rabbit to multiply for the sport of the landlord. Or parks and paddocks in the best locations represented the owner’s keenest con­cern. Deer browsed off the fields, and foxes and pheasants grew fat on the farmers’ work that the lord of the manor might find his sport at his door. And the sufferer from their depredations dare not shoot them. The huntsmen galloped across his fields in pursuit of the fleeing fox; they left open his gates and controlled the heights of his fences to the capacities of their horses. And the farmer had no redress. Even after two and a half years of war, when game had multi­plied through lack of hunters until the farmers’ best efforts threatened to be nullified, it was only against keen opposition in the House that they were given the right to shoot the game that was assisting the enemy to cut down the nation’s subsistence. A conserva­tive country fought to the last ditch any change that favoured the farmer against the idle landlord even when the latter’s food was at sake with the former’s.

England was a nation of sports­men, of financiers, of shopkeepers. What need of the farmer? Were there not unending fleets of merchant ships to fetch the food the islands needed? Was there not the Navy to protect them against the world’s attacks in their passage? Folly, England de­clared, to break up the fields that formed the amusement of the wealthy. England would always be mistress of the seas. The rest of the world might be the world’s granary.

The result was inevitable. Smaller and smaller grew the farms, tighter and tighter the areas of tilled fields. The farmer did not develop for there was not the room. He made no experi­ments; he was not supposed to. Ex­periment was not for his class. He stuck to the beaten track of his grand­father, without a vision of better things. And his sons, disgusted, revo­lutionary, left him. Gradually land that had raised its average of thirty bushels of wheat passed into the in­terminable pasture that covers Eng­land. Five millions of acres ceased to cater to the needs of the people. For seventy miles round London there is no farming. Down in Kent there are broken acres set out with hop poles, but scarcely anywhere within that area, especially to the south and east and west, do growing fields of grain gladden the eye. No prairie was ever more unproductive. Golf links every­where, rolling sweeps of meadow land adorned with a few sheep and cattle, rising heights of glorious parks—a dream of gentle, beautiful landscape, but useless, utterly useless to a coun­try surrounded by water.

That was England up to 1917. Now the scene is changing. “The plough is our hope,” admitted Lloyd George, with that candid note of apology that promises bright things for the future. “The war at any rate has taught us one lesson—that the preservation of our essential industries is as import­ant a part of the national defence as the maintenance of the Army and Navy.” And in that sentence rang hope to the dulled farmer, the emanci­pation of an industry that had been choked almost to extinction. The Island Kingdom had awakened to the fact that no nation can repudiate the essentials of life and thrive, even un­der its ordinary contingencies.

Yet even to-day there are Free Trade enthusiasts—so far publicly ex­pressing themselves only in the House of Lords—who contend that had the farmer been protected, had he been encouraged, England would not have possessed its 12,500,000 tons of ship­ping when the war broke out. No one has troubled to reply. The outcome of the next three months will answer—it is answering now.

The war had been in progress almost two years when Mr. Asquith, then Premier, rose in the House and as­sured it that there was no need for worry. The submarine peril had been overcome; England might continue to import its food stuffs with perfect con­fidence in its future. There might be shortages here and there in certain luxuries, but the granaries of the world were at the nation’s door. It pleased England, the conservative, that it need not change. But a very few months later, while still there was no submarine ruthlessness, the Prem­ier had risen to alter his tone. Wheat was climbing to unprecedented heights. The condition of the market was proving that, even should the country not starve, there was little profit in leaving itself in the hands of foreigners, whether the seas were free or not. But it was left to the Premier demanded by a people who had begun seriously to doubt to face the real crisis of England’s policy.

Of course every industry and occu­pation in England considers that it has been especially selected to bear the brunt of the war. But labour and food production, the two great sources of victory, quite as vital as the Army and the Navy, can bear only a certain amount without the entire nation pay­ing the penalty. Both responded to the early call of the recruiting officers with a zeal that spoke well for their loyalty. The farming communities were unevenly affected, as were the towns. In certain districts the pat­riotism was of such an intense nature that farmers were shorn of their as­sistance almost to the point of stop­ping production. The Derby scheme took many more. One hundred and eight thousand farm-hands enlisted voluntarily.

In the early stages there was no thought of selection. England must have an Army, wherever it was ob­tained. Kitchener had to raise a mil­lion men almost by the stroke of the wand. Nothing else mattered but that France should have the instant sup­port of its most powerful but most un­prepared ally. Even when the press­ing urgency of men grew less insistent there was no fear of the depletion of the farms. Where some sections had enlisted en masse others had not felt the call; the farmers thought that somewhere in England was labour enough. Their patriotism was more sensitive than their purses. All Eng­land was too sure of itself, too confi­dent that history would be repeated without seriously disturbing the coun­try ’s plan of life.

But when conscription ruthlessly took the fit, the loose labour market was thinned out and the farmer had nowhere to turn to make up his de­ficiency. So he did the thing that had for many years come so easy to him— turned his growing grain fields into grass lands. One of the difficulties was the English system of labour. Farms and private houses, factories and stores, are in ordinary times man­ned by an army of help that has learned to confine itself to its specified duties. A house that in Canada would be content with two servants, in Eng­land employs five. A farm that would be worked in Canada by two men, in England is shorthanded without seven or eight—probably with more inten­sive farming. It is an extravagance of labour from which there is much suffering now. And so many farms were devoted to fancy crops that re­quired additional hands. Neverthe­less the condition had to be taken as it was, and while it is changing rapid­ly under necessity, there is loss of energy in the process.

The work of the Tribunals appoint­ed to decide on exemptions from the Army did little to improve matters. Some ignored every plea of the farmer and took his assistant. Others refused to make the farmer organize his work that fewer helpers might do it. Thus there were farm-hands to spare in places, and land that could not be worked in others. It depended upon the direction of one’s vision whether one condemned the Tribunals as care­less of the Army or of the nation’s food. In general it was natural that the military representatives who ap­peared before these official bodies should insist on the farmer as most suited by his outdoor, severe work for the harsh life of the trenches.

In the fall of 1916 the country could no longer ignore the shortage of cer­tain food stuffs. Hitherto it had de­ceived itself by imagining that the rising prices came entirely from pro­fiteering and market manipulation. To the last moment the Asquith Govern­ment had delayed official interference. Now a Food Controller was proposed, his duties being vaguely named to in­clude production and distribution. In August, two months before, a Com­mittee had been appointed in response to public fears to inquire into the whole food question and to propose what remedies seemed advisable. In­cidentally, it made its report seven months later, after the new Govern­ment had been forced to anticipate it, without its assistance, by several weeks. And the Food Controller idea was left untouched for two months to the consideration of the people. It was a habit of the Asquith Govern­ment.

In December, when the people changed leaders, nothing practical had been done. The Food Controller had not been named. A score of proposals had gone no further. Week after week the newspapers were left to urge their own particular hobbies, to resist that which did not meet their fancy. And day by day conditions were growing more desperate. When Lloyd George took the reins one of his first appoint­ments was the Food Controller, his duties limited to food distribution and food consumption; and other officials followed for the great problem of pro­duction. No one man could handle all ends of the food question.

Almost before the new Premier had settled down to individual problems came the submarine menace to impor­tations, and instantly everything else had to be dropped for the greater anxiety. Without delay he realized that in the farmer was the only hope. There might be discovered means of destroying the submarine; there might not. And the latter contingency had to be considered first. An appeal was made to the farmer to break every available acre, and power was given the authorities to commandeer for till­age idle land. Allotments were laid out all over England for the towns­people to work after hours. A large order for tractor ploughs was wired to America.

But the farmers had become dis­gusted with the lack of consideration shown them thus far. Their response was: “How can we break land with­out the help to do it”? And when most of the tractor ploughs were sunk on the way over it became more than a condition that could be met by ap­peal.

The Ministry of National Service, a special production of Lloyd George’s brain in anticipation of such prob­lems, went to work. It concentrated on furnishing the farmer with the help he needed. It invited every man who could handle a plough to give up his present work and spend the next six weeks on the land while yet the sea­son’s crops might be planted. It be­gan to train women for work they had never anticipated in their wildest dreams.

The Army was combed. Eleven thousand farm-hands were lent from the units training in England.

Twenty-seven thousand were taken from the trenches and returned to the land, subject to twenty-four hours’ re­call. Camp commandants were or­dered to let out their draft horses to the farmers at a dollar a day. Five thousand German prisoners were put at work. Of the 60,000 farm-hands whose Tribunal exemptions were up only 30,000 were asked for, and be­fore they could respond their number was reduced to 10,610.

The Government spent two million dollars on farm machinery. In the shortage of tractor ploughs every one was commandeered and men sought to keep them at work in three shifts day and night.

The Cabinet took a peremptory hand in the disagreements between the War Office and the Board of Agriculture. “In this particular case,” it said dip­lomatically, “we regard the produc­tion of food as more important even than sending men to the Army.” That was the last word. And to back up its decision it formulated conditions to control the relationship of farmer and helper, of farmer and the public.

In establishing terms that would in­duce the utmost extension of land cul­tivation the Government was faced by two problems—the “plough-fright” of the farmer, and the reluctance of the labourer. To a Canadian it may seem strange that concessions should be necessary to prevail upon the farm­er to break all the land he could work, but peculiar English conditions had made it seem more profitable for him to let his land go to grass. Back in the early eighties and nineties he had felt the keen suffering of land poverty, when the inadequacy of prices for grain made his work a loss. And now the unknown future was further blackened by an uncertainty of labour to enable him to profit from the capa­city of the land put under cultivation. Unless he could be assured reasonable returns from his labour for a certain course of years, he would not be likely to invite a repetition of his insolvency of thirty years ago. Next, the protec­tion of the farmer would be of little avail if conditions were made insuffi­ciently attractive to draw the labour to him in steady supply.

Therefore the Government attempt­ed in one stroke to overcome both ob­stacles. It established minimum prices for six years for wheat and oats, and minimum wages for the worker. Wheat, at the time this announcement was made, had reached $2.25 a bushel, and working roughly from this basis and considering the cost of produc­tion, the minimum price for 1917 was set at $1.78 per bushel, ranging down to $1.34 during the last three years of the period. Oats were to bring not less than 65 cents this year and 45 for the last years affected.

It must be remembered that the prices were minimum only. That is, there was nothing to prevent the farmer accepting whatever the mar­ket would give him above the scale. As I write wheat is quoted at $2.75 in England, and should the submarines continue, even as at the present, the price will advance much higher be­fore the year is finished. At first glance it might seem an unwarranted protection, an unjustified drain on the country during its struggle for re­construction and a world’s markets in the early period of peace. But there is no more theoretical right to the Government to force the farmer to raise wheat than a tool maker to make shells. The latter has been forced, or practically forced, but common equity demanded that the country take the risk. And the nation must have wheat whatever the cost.

The matter of wages was equally im­portant. No one in England with am­bition went into farming before the war unless that was what he had been brought up to. The wages were only a few cents a day, and the life was miserable, as befitted the social scale to which the industry had been driven. A cowman had become the symbol of stupidity—because no one with thought would accept the pit­tance of reward for his labours. Un­der the rising prices of war times the farm-hand could not purchase the ne­cessaries of existence on the old rates, and wages had to rise. The scarcity of help was another factor that forced the farmer to pay more. But when the Government saw the necessity of turning labour to the land by the hundreds of thousands it realized that something adequate in the way of wage must be assured. According­ly the minimum wage for even the novice was set at $6.25 a week, which is not high when it is considered that the farm-hand keeps himself. That it is not too high is proved by the lack of protest from the farmers. In fact some are offering two dollars a week more, and even higher. The farmer’s outlook on life has broadened with the new conditions and with the prospect that opens up to him in the future. The war has remade him.

One of the surprises of the war is the facility with which women learned the disagreeable, arduous tasks of the farm. And the farmers, after fight­ing female labour on principle as con­trary to common sense and destined to deprive them of the men they pre­ferred, are ready to declare their con­version. Six months ago 140,000 wo­men were performing men’s work on the farm, and the number has doubled since. Training farms have been set aside for them now, with free keep and training. After that they are placed on farms under female super­vision, and paid $4.50 a week, without keep, uniforms found. That there is insufficient margin seems evident from the attempted justification of the De­partment that munition hostels have proved that their keep need cost no more than $3.75 a week. Of course the woman may take as much as she can induce her employer to pay, and with experience she has demonstrated her ability to earn the equal of the English man. Formerly women were not paid enough on the farm to keep them, in many cases, so that their vol­unteering was a sacrifice even of money. Under the new condition thousands of girls are leaving the kitchen and the factory to till the soil.

The introduction of Sunday labour is another feature of the war affect­ing the farmer. While England has never—at least of late years—ob­served the Sabbath as strictly as Can­ada, Sunday labour was not recog­nized as either necessary or desirable. The immediate necessity of spending every moment on the land could not, however, be denied during the early months of this year. All over London allotment workers were busiest on their only free day, and even an of­ficial appeal advocated uninterrupted ploughing. And several Bishops gave it their sanction. The farmer’s week has become, therefore, a full seven days of work.

The exciting market conditions that have marked the progress of the war and its effect on the supply of food stuffs have brought the English farm­er into personal touch as never before with the reason and justification of price levels. It has revealed to him his inexperience in marketing and the profit accruing from a more intimate knowledge of the conditions that af­fect prices. That inexperience has left him thus far the prey sometimes of the middleman’s smartness, some­times of his own greed. From the first he has insisted through his organ­izations that he be left to reap the ut­most benefit from the relationship be­tween supply and demand, ignoring the fact that much of the fluctuation of price has been due to the manipu­lations of the supply house from whom all incentive to bring about higher prices would be removed if the farmer were to pocket the extra profit. Undoubtedly the farmer’s demand is justified, with certain restrictions, but it would be the public who would pro­fit, not the farmer. Should the farmer, however, have been left to take full advantage of public panic and pre­arranged manipulation, the conditions of living in England would have been intolerable; for he alone has the final control of the supplies.

The joint efforts of the three hands through which the farmer’s produc­tions reached the public threatened such dire things, however, that the Government was forced to establish prices. The most interesting commod­ity thus affected was potatoes. There was a world shortage, and it must, or should, have been known that the de­ficiency would centre in England, since the past season’s crop had been largely ruined. England was supply­ing more than her share to the armies, and importation was difficult and un­profitable. Yet no attempt had been made to curtail waste or limit con­sumption. Thousands of tons a week were even being shipped from the country to adjacent neutrals. The ex­tent of stocks was made public sud­denly, a trick of the wholesalers and of little profit to the farmer at the moment. In two days the price leaped from two cents a pound to six. Threat of Government action sent it back again equally swiftly. But the fact was not to be ignored that England was going to be short of its favourite food. The farmer began to see his opportunity, and for weeks he was re­ceiving as high as three and a half cents a pound. Then the Government took a firm stand. At first it was con­sidered sufficient to limit the retail price, but the retailer and wholesaler tried to force the farmer down to such a ridiculous price as a consequence that he refused to accept it. And so the entire gamut of selling was cover­ed by the Government order. The farmer was to receive $45 a ton from the wholesaler, the wholesaler $52.50 from the retailer, who received in turn $70 from the consumer. The initial attempt to make the farmer accept $40 was reviewed in a couple of days and the price raised a pound. But as there was nothing to prevent the far­mer selling direct to the retailer, or even to the consumer, thousands of tons reached the table at the legal price with more profit to the farmer.

To meet the inadequacy of supplies appeals were sent all over the country that the wealthy should eat subsitutes and leave potatoes to the poor. Hotels began to have potatoless days, and by April 1st, when the legal price was to increase, several clubs were serving no potatoes whatever. Whether this de­crease in demand will make the farmer regret having held back his stocks un­til the higher price was obtainable is not evident at the time of writing.

Wheat, of course, travelled steadily upwards to heights unknown since the Crimean War. And the farmer reaped the profit. Milk advanced to twelve cents a quart, the farmer following its rise more closely than his other pro­ductions, until at that price it could not be handled by the dairies. And again the Government interfered. But the result of the interference was to drive the farmers from keeping dairy herds; and now a higher price is an­nounced for next winter’s supply in order to encourage the farmer to con­tinue his herds.

One contingency of the war painful to the farmer and working with seem­ing injustice was the commandeering of supplies for the Army. At first this was done with little regard to market prices, and always at a lower level than was obtained by the farmer in the open market. The ignoring of prevailing prices was stopped, but commandeering at something below market scale, even though it necessar­ily selects certain farms and passes others by, is an attendant of war. What sympathy might have been given by the public was killed by the orgy of profiteering that struck the farmers in the cases of potatoes and milk—although precisely the same principle is considered good business in all other branches of business.

Lament as he may, the English farmer’s position has not been an un­enviable one. What makes his trials more poignant to him is the inability to utilize to their fullest extent the opportunities that lie at his hand. For every idle acre now is lost money. He may not be netting the tremendous profits of the ship-owner, but neither is he taking the risk. And he escapes both income and excess profits taxes. Indeed, he alone of the profiteers of the war is exempt from any enforced return to the country. Compared with his brothers in France he is extremely favoured. Across the channel the farmer is not exempt from military service, the work on the land being performed by women and children. The English farmer is forced to accept substitutes who do not substitute, but every bushel he produces nets him twice what it did before, and the Gov­ernment has protected him against the risks of future years. No other industry has suffered so little, but no other industry was on such an unwar­rantedly low level.

His new standing in England will affect more than himself. The Do­minions will not profit so freely from his migration, for his opportunities will be greater and there will be mil­lions more cultivated acres in England to justify his remaining at home. His standard of living will be raised, and his position in society will add a new dignity and self-confidence. It seems certain that the rights of landlords to idle acres will be drastically limited, and the farmer will be enabled to rise from the semi-serfdom of the renter to the independence of the owner of land on which his every effort will count to his own profit.

It can be said that the new English farmer of the future is the direct re­sult of Mr. Asquith’s procrastination in taking steps necessary to ensure reasonable production within the shores of England. Had protective measures been taken earlier the pub­lic would never have learned how de­pendent it was upon that which had been so long considered an unessential of English supremacy—the farmer and the farm.

Next month Mr. Amy will write about the working man and the war.