and heart-inspiring eloquence with these accounts that she gives of what
she has seen with her own eyes of the resurrection of England.

It is not for me to anticipate her startling and thrilling narratives on
this subject. She takes for her text what Mr. Lloyd George said in his
speech in the House of Commons on reviewing his new department: "Unless we
quicken our movements, damnation will fall on the sacred cause for which
so much gallant blood has flowed," and Mr. Asquith's serious words in
December: "We cannot go on," said he, "depending upon foreign countries
for our munitions. We haven't the ships to spare to bring them home, and
the cost is too great. We must make them ourselves."

Mrs. Ward dwells with keen insight upon the difficulties met with among
the trade-unions and labor people, and successfully overcome, and explains
in full what they call over there the work of the Dilution Commissioners,
which is a wholly new phrase for us, and she gives this clear definition:
"Dilution means, of course, that under the sharp analysis of necessity,
much engineering work, generally reckoned as 'skilled' work, and reserved
to 'skilled' workmen by a number of union regulations, is seen to be
capable of solution into various processes, some of which can be sorted
out from the others, as within the capacity of the unskilled, or
semiskilled worker. By so dividing them up and using superior labor with
economy, only where it is really necessary, it can be made to go
infinitely further, and the inferior, or untrained, labor can then be
brought into work where nobody supposed it could be used; where, in fact,
it never has been used." This novel experiment, together with the equally
novel employment of women in such work, soon proved a triumphant success,
and the women proved themselves able to do the work of men, some of it
even better. There were, of course, difficulties at first, but the
mischief, whatever it was, was quickly cured, and in one factory that Mrs.
Ward names, "men and women soon began to do their best. The output of the
factory, which had been planned for four thousand shells a week, ran up to
twenty thousand, and everything has gone smoothly since."

The adaptation of firms and factories, already existing, the control of
which was taken by the Government, was wonderful, but the national
shell-factories, founded, financed, and run by the Ministry of Munitions,
are more wonderful still, and give us many new ideas a