and copper, regiments of working carpenters and masons, whole brigades of brawny navvies delving and draining and digging out foundations and laying and levelling engine-room beds and machine-shop floors. I was, in fact, more keen to discover and make sure of what is to be done rather than what has been or is being done, and this because I know, and the Front knows, how we stand out there for munitions now, but not how much lay behind our daily needs, how we are to fare when, or if, all the scattered fronts get busy together, when one big battle is to tread so close on the heels of another that it will be hard to sort out one from the other and issue us the right clasps to our medals. Well, I confess myself satisfied; and I’ve a strong fancy that by next summer the Front is going to be satisfied, and the Germans also are going to be satisfied after quite another fashion. Just now I’m writing about munitions, and I’m not going to wander off into war strategy, or compete with the prophet experts in guessing when the War is going to finish. But, after all I’ve seen and heard, it is impossible to get away from this happy thought--if last winter and spring and summer we could hold the enemy, could even on occasion beat back a long and desperate assault, break in and grip and stick to a mile or two of country, a few lines of trenches, if we could do what we have done with a small army and a desperate lack of munitions, what are we going to do this year with a fresh and big army, with lavish supplies of every arm and equipment we require, with a flood of munitions pouring in as fast as ever we can pelt them out? It looks pretty good, doesn’t it? And now I’ll go on to a general description of some of the proofs I have had of just how good it really looks. II THE MUNITION MACHINE