Meanwhile, Lloyd George initiated in every town and village of the country a census of metal-working lathes, so that no tool of this kind should be employed on needless work. Coincident with these operations, huge national shell-factories were planned for erection in various parts of the country. To co-operate the work of the local committees with headquarters in London a department of the Ministry of Munitions was set up in each big manufacturing center, and through this department Lloyd George kept in touch with all local operations. Steps were taken to stimulate production by the recognized armament firms. It was six months after Lloyd George had taken control that I visited the Birmingham district, where I saw a new establishment for shell-work, a huge structure on the outskirts of the city planted where green grass was growing six months before, and under its one roof four thousand young women engaged in long lines at automatic lathes shell-making. This, as I said, was but one sample establishment. Hundreds of thousands of women were subsequently at the same work in various parts. The girls were drawn from all classes, and comprised school-teachers, domestic servants, shopgirls, stenographers, and the leisured daughters of the middle classes or of wealthy persons. Lloyd George established in London, in connection with the Ministry of Munitions, a department of labor, to advise him on matters affecting workmen, a department of factory health which would tell him the best way of safeguarding the strength and efficiency of factory workers, an inventions department to encourage and examine inventions of all kinds which might be useful in war. He called in some of the leading business men of the country to help him in arranging, not only technical matters in the actual manufacture of shells and guns, but also the transportation of them, and the material of which they were made. He soon had around him in Whitehall a co-ordinated little army of iron and steel experts, explosive experts, railway experts, medical experts, and financial experts. They were the cream of business and professional intellect of the country. Under their driving stimulus shells and munitions began to pour out at an enormous rate. It was a cumulative production, and the high-water mark was not reached for many long months, but when it had been attained the production rate of shells by Germany was well beaten.