Chapter 19

_An Associated Press dispatch from Geneva on July 15 said:_

A report has reached Basle that a big strike is threatened at the Krupp Works at Essen, Germany, the movement being headed by the Union of Metallurgical Workmen and the Association of Mechanics. They demand higher wages, the report says, because of the increased cost of living and shorter hours because of the great strain under which they work.

The workmen, according to these advices, are in an angry mood and threaten the destruction of machinery unless their demands are granted immediately, as they have been put off for three months with promises. Several high officials have arrived at the Krupp Works in an effort to straighten out matters and calm the workmen, the advices add, and Bertha Krupp is expected to visit the plant and use her great influence with the workers.

The Frankfort Gazette, according to the news reaching Basle, has warned the administration of the Krupp plant of the seriousness of the situation, and has advised that the men's demands be granted. Meanwhile, the reports state, several regiments have been moved to the vicinity of the works to be available should the trouble result in a strike.

_A dispatch to The London Daily Chronicle, dated Chiasso, July 16, reported:_

According to a telegram from Munich to Swiss papers, the German military authorities have informed the management and union officials of the Krupps, where disputes occasioned by the increased cost of living have arisen in several departments, that in no circumstances will a strike be tolerated.

_On July 19 an Associated Press dispatch from Geneva reads:_

An important meeting was held at Essen yesterday, according to advices received at Basle, between the administration of the Krupp gun works and representatives of the workmen, in order to settle the dispute which has arisen over the demands of the men for an increase in wages.

Directly and indirectly, about one hundred thousand men are involved. Minor cases in which machinery has been destroyed have been reported.

The military authorities before the meeting, the Basle advices say, warned both sides that unless an immediate arrangement was reached severe measures would be employed.

The Krupp officials are understood to have granted a portion of the demands of the employees, which has brought about a temporary peace, but the workmen still appear to be dissatisfied, and many have left the works.

A strike would greatly affect the supply of munitions, and for this reason the military have adopted rigorous precautions.

_On the same date the following brief cable was sent to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES _from London:_

A telegram to The Daily Express from Geneva says many men have already left the Krupp works because they are unable to bear the strain of incessant labor, and would rather take their chances in the trenches than continue work at Essen under the present conditions.

Some minor cases of sabotage have already been reported.

REMINGTON ARMS STRIKE

_In a special dispatch to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES, _dated Bridgeport, Conn., July 14, appeared the following news of labor trouble in the American munitions factory:_

One hundred workmen, twenty guards, and the Bridgeport police reserves took a hand in a riot tonight at the new plant of the Remington Arms Company, where it is planned to make small arms for the Allies. The riot brings to fever heat the labor excitement of the last week, which yesterday caused the walkout of the structural ironworkers at the plant and today a walkout of the millwrights and the ironworkers on the new plant of the sister company, the Remington Union Metallic Cartridge Company.

The three thousand workmen have been stirred into a great unrest in the last week by some unseen influence. Major Walter W. Penfield, U.S.A., retired, head of the arms plant, says pro-Germans are back of the strike. This the labor leaders deny.

_On July 15 the spread of the strike was reported in a special dispatch from Bridgeport to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES:

The strike at the giant new plant of the Remington Arms Company under construction to make arms for the Allies, as well as, it is supposed, for the United States Government, spread today from the proportions of a picayune family labor quarrel to an imminent industrial war which would paralyze Bridgeport, curtailing the shipment of arms and ammunition from this centre, and which threatens to spread to other cities in the United States, especially to those where munitions of war are being manufactured.

_On July 20_ THE NEW YORK TIMES _published the demands of the workmen at the Remington Arms plant, as outlined by J.J. Keppler, vice-president of the Machinists' Union:_

Mr. Keppler was asked to tell concisely just what the unions wanted.

"There are at present," he replied, "just three demands. If the strike goes further the demands will increase. The demands are:

"1. Recognition of the millwrights as members of the metal trade unions and not of the carpenters', and fixing of the responsibility for the order some one gave for the millwrights to join the carpenters' union, an attempt on the part of the Remington or the Stewart people to dictate the international management of the unions.

"2. A guarantee of a permanent eight-hour day in all plants in Bridgeport making war munitions. This carries with it a demand for a guarantee of a minimum wage and double pay for overtime.

"3. That all men who go on strike will be taken back to work."

In addition, of course, Mr. Johnston demands that Major Penfield retract his charge of German influence being back of the strike.

_A check, if not a defeat, administered to the fomenters of the strike was reported to_ THE NEW YORK TIMES _in a Bridgeport dispatch dated July 20, as follows:_

John A. Johnston, International vice-president of the Iron Workers' Union, and J.J. Keppler, vice-president of the Machinists', were on hand to inaugurate the big strike. All of Bridgeport's available policemen were on duty at the plant.

As the whistle blew the crowd surged about the gates, where barbed wire and guards held them back. Five minutes passed, ten, twenty, and 12.30 saw Keppler and Johnston pacing up and down before the plant awaiting their men. At 1 o'clock not a machinist had issued from the portals. The hoarse whistle blew, calling back the two thousand workers to their task, and Keppler and Johnston and the rest were left in wonder.

A cog had slipped in this way:

Before the noon whistle blew, Major Walter G. Penfield, works manager of the plant, placed guards at all the exits to ask the machinists to wait a few minutes. They did. The foreman told them that, on behalf of the Remington Company, Major Penfield desired to assure them a permanent eight-hour day, beginning August 1, and to guarantee a dollar a day increase in pay.

The Power of the Purse

How "Silver Bullets" Are Made in Britain

By Prime Minister Asquith

For the first time in the financial history of Great Britain, Prime Minister Asquith declared in his Guildhall speech of June 29, an unlimited and democratic war loan was popularized, appealing to all classes, including the poorest, and advertising the sale through the Post Office of vouchers for as low as 5 shillings to be turned into stock. His speech was intended also to initiate a movement for saving and thrift among the people as the only secure means against national impoverishment by the war.

A statement by Reginald McKenna, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on July 13, showed that approximately £600,000,000, or $3,000,000,000, had been subscribed, making this the greatest war loan raised in the history of any nation. The total number of subscribers through the Bank of England was 550,000, aggregating £570,000,000, or $2,850,000,000, while 547,000 persons had subscribed $75,000,000 through the Post Office. Besides this no estimate of the small vouchers taken out had been made, and the Post Office subscriptions had not been closed. The gigantic total, Mr. McKenna said, represented only new money, and not any stock which will be issued for purposes of conversion. Prime Minister Asquith's speech appears in full below.

_In his speech in the Guildhall, London, on June 29, 1915, Mr. Asquith said:_

This is, I think, the third time since the war began that I have had the privilege of addressing you in this hall. On the first occasion, as far back as September last, I came here to appeal to you to supply men to be trained to fight our battles at the front. Today I have come to ask you here in the City of London for what is equally necessary for the success of our cause--for the ways and means which no community in the Empire is better qualified to provide, to organise, and to replenish.

This is the costliest war that has ever been waged. A hundred years ago our ancestors spent eight hundred millions to vindicate, as we are vindicating today, the freedom of Europe, in a war which lasted the best part of 20 years, which brings out a rough average of considerably less than a million pounds a week. Our total expenditure today approaches for one year a thousand millions, and we are spending now, and are likely to spend for weeks and months to come, something like three million pounds a day. Our daily revenue from taxation, I suppose, works out less than three-quarters of a million per day.

Those are facts which speak for themselves, and they show the urgent necessity, not only for a loan, but for a national loan--a loan far larger in its scale, far broader in its basis, and far more imperious in its demand upon every class and every section of the community than any in our history.

For the first time in our financial experience no limit has been placed on the amount to be raised; and that means that every citizen in the country is invited to subscribe as much as he can to help us to a complete and speedy victory. I need not dwell on its attractiveness from the mere investor's point of view. Indeed, the only criticism which I have heard in or outside the House of Commons is that it is perhaps a little too generous in its terms. That is a fault, if it be a fault, upon the right side.

For £100 in cash you get £100 in stock, with interest at 4-1/2 per cent. on the credit of the British Exchequer. The loan is redeemable in thirty years, when every subscriber, or those who succeed him, must get his money back in full, and the Government retain an option to repay at the end of ten years. That is the earliest date on which any question of re-investment can arise. Further, the stock or bonds will be accepted at par, with an allowance for accrued interest as the equivalent of cash, for subscription to any loan that the Government may issue in this country throughout the war.

I want especially to emphasise that this is for the first time in our financial history a great democratic loan. The State is appealing to all classes, including those whose resources are most limited, to step in and contribute their share to meet a supreme national need. The Post Office will receive subscriptions for £5, or any multiple of £5, and will sell vouchers for 5s. and upwards which can be gradually accumulated, and by December 1st next turned into stock of the new loan.

Every advantage which is given to the big capitalist is granted also in the same degree to the smallest supporter of the country's credit and finance. And, under such conditions, I am confident that the success of the loan as a financial instrument ought to be, and indeed is now, absolutely secured. (Cheers.)

This meeting was called not only to advertise the advantages of the War Loan, but to initiate a concerted national movement for what may be called war economy. My text is a very simple one. It is this: "Waste on the part either of individuals or of classes, which is always foolish and shortsighted, is, in these times, nothing short of a national danger." According to statisticians, the annual income of this country--I speak of the country and not of the Government--the annual income of this country is from two thousand two hundred and fifty to two thousand four hundred millions, and the annual expenditure of all classes is estimated at something like two thousand millions. It follows that the balance annually saved and invested, either at home or abroad, is normally between three hundred and four hundred millions.

Upon a nation so circumstanced, and with such habits, there has suddenly descended--for we did not anticipate it, nor prepared the way for it--the thundercloud of war--war which, as we now know well, if we add to our own direct expenditure the financing of other countries, will cost us in round figures about a thousand millions in the year. Now how are we, who normally have only three hundred or four hundred millions to spare in a year, to meet this huge and unexpected extraordinary draft upon our resources?

The courses open are four. The first is the sale of investments or property. We have, it is said, invested abroad something like four thousand millions sterling. Can we draw upon that to finance the war? Well, there are two things to be said about any such suggestion. The first is that our power of sale is limited by the power of other countries to buy, and that power, under existing conditions, is strictly limited.

The second thing to be said is this: That, if we were to try, assuming it to be practicable, to pay for the war in this way, we should end it so much poorer. The war must, in any case, impoverish us to some extent, but we should end it so much poorer, because the income we now receive, mainly from goods and services from abroad, would be proportionately, and permanently, reduced. I dismiss that, therefore, as out of the question.

Similar considerations seem to show the impracticability on any considerable scale of a second possible expedient, namely, borrowing abroad. The amount that could be raised in any foreign market at this moment, in comparison with the sum required, is practically infinitesimal, and, if it were possible on any considerable scale, we should again have to face the prospects of ending the war a debtor country, with a huge annual drain on our goods and our services, which would flow abroad in the payment of interest and the redemption of principal. That again, therefore, for all practical purposes, may be brushed aside.

There is a third course--payment out of our gold reserve, but that need only be stated to be discarded. We cannot impair the basis of the great system of credit which has made this City of London the financial centre and capital of the world.

There remains only one course, the one we have come here today to advocate, and to press upon our fellow-countrymen--to diminish our expenditure and to increase our savings.

If you save more you can lend the State more, and the nation will be proportionately enabled to pay for the war out of its own pocket. A second proposition, equally simple, and equally true, is this. If you spend less, you either reduce the cost and volume of our imports, or you leave a larger volume of commodities available for export.

The state of the trade balance between ourselves and other countries at this moment affords grounds--I do not say for anxiety, but for serious thought. If you look at the Board of Trade returns for the first five months--that is, to the end of the month of May--of the present year--you will find, as compared with the corresponding period of last year, that our imports have increased by thirty-five and a half millions; while our exports and re-exports have decreased by seventy-three and three-quarter millions. What does that mean? It means a total addition in five months of our indebtedness to other countries of nearly a hundred and ten millions, and if that rate were to continue till we reached the end of a completed year, the figure of indebtedness would rise to over two hundred and sixty millions.

That is a serious prospect, and I want to ask you, and those outside, how can that tendency be counteracted? The answer is a very simple one--by reducing all unnecessary expenditure, first, of imported goods--familiar illustrations are tea, tobacco, wine, sugar, petrol; I could easily add to the list--and that would mean that we should have to buy less from abroad; and next, as regards goods which are made at home--you can take as an illustration beer--setting a larger quantity free for export, which means that we have more to sell abroad, and enable capital and labour here at home to be more usefully and appropriately applied. That may seem a rather dry and technical argument--(laughter)--but it goes to the root of the whole matter.

If you ask me to state the result in a sentence, it is this: All money that is spent in these days on superfluous comforts or luxuries, whether in the shape of goods or in the shape of services, means the diversion of energy which can be better employed in the national interests, either in supplying the needs of our fighting forces in the field or in making commodities for export which will go to reduce our indebtedness abroad.

And, on the other hand, every saving we make by the curtailment and limitation of our productive expenditure increases the resources which can be put by our people at the disposal of the State for the triumphant vindication of our cause.

I said our cause. That, after all, is the summary and conclusion of the whole matter. We are making here and throughout the Empire a great national and Imperial effort, unique, supreme. The recruiting of soldiers and sailors, the provision of munitions, the organisation of our industries, the practice of economy, the avoidance of waste, the accumulation of adequate war funds, the mobilisation of all our forces, moral, material, personal--all these are contributory and convergent streams which are directed to and concentrated upon one unifying end, one absorbing and governing purpose.

It is not merely with us a question of self-preservation, of safeguarding against hostile design and attack the fabric which has withstood so many storms of our corporate and national life. That in itself would justify all our endeavours. But there is something even larger and worthier at stake in this great testing trial of our people.

There is not a man or a woman among us but he or she is touched even in the faintest degree with a sense of the higher issues which now hang in the balance, who has not, during this last year, become growingly conscious that, in the order of Providence, we here have been entrusted with the guardianship of interests and ideals which stretch far beyond the shores of these islands, beyond even the confines of our world-spread Empire, which concern the whole future of humanity. (Cheers.)

Is right or is force to dominate mankind? Comfort, prosperity, luxury, a well-fed and securely sheltered existence, not without the embellishments and concentrations of art and literature, and perhaps some conventional type of religion--all these we can purchase at a price, but at what a price! At the sacrifice of what makes life, national or personal, alone worth living. My Lord Mayor and citizens of London, we are not going to make that sacrifice (loud and prolonged cheers, the audience rising and waving their hats). Rather than make it, we shall fight to the end, to the last farthing of our money, to the last ounce of our strength, to the last drop of our blood. (Loud cheers.)

Cases Reserved

By SIR OWEN SEAMAN

[From Punch.]

"The Government are of opinion that the general question of personal responsibility shall be reserved until the end of the War."--_Mr. Balfour in the House._

Let sentence wait. The apportionment of blame To those who compassed each inhuman wrong Can bide till Justice bares her sword of flame; But let your memories be long!

And, lest they fail you, wearied into sleep, Bring out your tablets wrought of molten steel; There let the record be charáctered deep In biting acid, past repeal.

And not their names alone, of high estate, Drunk with desire of power, at whose mere nod The slaves that execute their lust of hate Laugh at the laws of man and God;

But also theirs who shame their English breed, Who go their ways and eat and drink and play, Or find in England's bitter hour of need Their chance of pouching heavier pay;

And theirs, the little talkers, who delight To beard their betters, on great tasks intent, Cheapening our statecraft in the alien's sight For joy of self-advertisement.

Today, with hands to weightier business set, Silent contempt is all you can afford; But put them on your list and they shall get, When you are free, their full reward.

New Recruiting in Britain

By Field Marshal Earl Kitchener, Secretary of State for War

State registration of all persons, male and female, between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five, the particulars to include each person's age, work, and employers, and his registering to be accompanied by an invitation that he volunteer for work for which he may have special fitness, was the provision introduced in the House of Commons on June 29, 1915, and passed by that body on July 8. In explaining the bill's intent its introducer, Mr. Walter Long, who is President of the Local Government Board, replied on July 9 to the objection of critics who saw in it the first steps to compulsory service. He said that the National Register stood or fell by itself. So far as the use of it went, so far as the adoption of compulsion went, he declared frankly that the Prime Minister would be the last man in England to say, in the face of the situation in which Britons found themselves, anything which would prevent the Government adopting compulsory service tomorrow if they believed it to be right and necessary in order to bring this war to an end. Their hands were absolutely free. On the same day Earl Kitchener opened a recruiting campaign with a speech in the London Guildhall, which appears in part below.

_The Lord Mayor of London, in calling upon Lord Kitchener, said the Empire had indeed been highly fortunate in having him at the head of the War Office in this great national crisis. Earl Kitchener was received with cheers as he said:_