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dangerous to tackle. There are all sorts of regulations for restricting
output. I will say nothing about the merits of this question. There are
reasons why they have been built up. The conditions of employment and
payment are mostly to blame for those restrictions. The workmen had to
fight for them for their own protection, but in a period of war there is
a suspension of ordinary law. Output is everything in this war.

This war is not going to be fought mainly on the battlefields of Belgium
and Poland. It is going to be fought in the workshops of France and
Great Britain; and it must be fought there under war conditions. There
must be plenty of safeguards and the workman must get his equivalent,
but I do hope he will help us to get as much out of those workshops as
he can, for the life of the nation depends on it. Our enemies realize
that, and employers and workmen in Germany are straining their utmost.
France, fortunately, also realizes it, and in that land of free
institutions, with a Socialist Prime Minister, a Socialist Secretary of
State for War, and a Socialist Minister of Marine, the employers and
workmen are subordinating everything to the protection of their
beautiful land.

I have something more to say about this, and it is unpleasant. I would
wish that it were not I, but somebody else that should say it. Most of
our workmen are putting every ounce of strength into this urgent work
for their country, loyally and patriotically. But that is not true of
all. There are some, I am sorry to say, who shirk their duty in this
great emergency. I hear of workmen in armaments works who refuse to work
a full week's work for the nation's need. What is the reason? They are a
minority. The vast majority belong to a class we can depend upon. The
others are a minority. But, you must remember, a small minority of
workmen can throw a whole works out of gear. What is the reason?
Sometimes it is one thing, sometimes it is another, but let us be
perfectly candid. It is mostly the lure of the drink. They refuse to
work full time, and when they return their strength and efficiency are
impaired by the way in which they have spent their leisure. Drink is
doing us more damage in the war than all the German submarines put
together.

What has Russia done? [Cheers.] Russia, knowing her deficiency, knowing
how unprepared she was, said, "I must pull myself together. I am not
going to be trampled upon, unready as I am. I will use all my