"Apart from selling our liquid capital assets in return for foreign goods, and apart from borrowing from foreign countries for the same purpose, our power to provide our own army and navy with all they want and have any surplus over for our Allies has indeed depended entirely on our extraordinary efforts in production--not in normal production, but in war production--and also on the extent to which we have been able to reduce our civil consumption of all kinds. I put production first because, while economy in consumption is exceedingly important, increased productive capacity devoted to war material, in my opinion, is still more important. Our increased productivity has, as I say, been devoted entirely to war requirements. We have had to turn over our whole industry from a peace to a war basis. We have both voluntarily and compulsorily cut off the production of goods which are unnecessary for war purposes. Many trades have been actually shut down and the labor taken from them and handed over to war industries. Labor itself has been subjected to restrictions which would have been wholly impossible before the war. Labor may not leave its employment without government leave; salaries and wages may not be increased without government approval. Measures for the control of industry which were unheard of and, in fact, absolutely impossible before the war have been imposed upon all industry. "Fixed prices had been placed on the most important materials; the government now has the absolute control of the use of steel, copper, lead, wool, leather, and other materials for which the war demand is insatiable, and also of all materials manufactured therefrom. No use may be made of most of these materials for any purpose whatever without a certificate being first obtained, no buildings of any kind may be erected without leave of the Ministry of Munitions. The whole of industry may now be said to be directed according to the requirements of the government, its regulation is an enormous task. In the head office of the Ministry of Munitions alone there are more than 10,000 people. Mr. R. H. Brand, who is responsible for these statements and used them in an address to the American Bankers' Association, showed how these regulations had resulted in a decline of British imports from peace conditions of 55,000,000 tons annually to war conditions of 20,000,000 tons. The imports were nearly all foodstuffs. England exported large amounts of munitions and supplies to her Allies. In the year 1916 alone we supplied them with 9,000,000 pairs of boots, 100,000,000 sand bags, 40,000,000 yards of jute, millions of socks and blankets, and in addition several thousand tons of leather; also cloth, foodstuffs of every kind, portable houses, tools, hospital equipment and so on.