[2] "I saw a statement the other day _that the operations not only of our Army but of our Allies were being crippled, or at any rate hampered, by our failure to provide the necessary ammunition_. There is not a word of truth in that statement. I say there is not a word of truth in that statement which is the more mischievous because if it were believed, it is calculated to dishearten our troops, to discourage our Allies, and to stimulate the hopes and activities of our enemies. Nor is there any more truth in the suggestion that the Government, of which I am the head, have only recently become alive to the importance and the urgency of these matters. On the contrary, in the earliest days of the war, when some of our would-be instructors were thinking of quite other things, they were already receiving our anxious attention, and as far back, I think, as the month of September I appointed a Committee of the Cabinet, presided over by Lord Kitchener, to survey the situation from this point of view--a Committee whose labours and inquiries resulted in a very substantial enlargement both on the field and of machinery of supply.... "No, the urgency of the situation--and, as I shall show, the urgency is great--can be explained without any resort to recrimination or to blame. It is due, in the main, to two very obvious causes. It is due, first of all, to the unprecedented scale upon which ammunition on both sides has been, and is being, expended. _It not only goes far beyond all previous experience, but it is greatly in advance of the forecasts of the best experts_."--Mr. Asquith at Newcastle, April 20, 1915. [3] There has certainly been no lack of appointments either of committees or individuals. So lately as the 7th of April the newspapers announced a War Office Committee "to secure that the supply of munitions of war shall be sufficient to meet all requirements." About a week later came the announcement of a still more august committee--'The Output Committee'--with Mr. Lloyd-George as Chairman and Mr. Balfour as a member of it. If war could be won by appointing committees and creating posts, victory ought long ago to have been secured. [4] Since this chapter was printed (May 1915) public opinion has been somewhat distracted by a sensational wrangle as to whether or not the right kind of ammunition had been supplied. These are technical matters upon which the ordinary man is no judge. The main point is that--certainly until quite recently--enough ammunition was not supplied; nor anything like enough; and this was due to the failure to look far enough ahead in the early days of the war; and to organise our industrial system to meet the inevitable requirements. {364} CHAPTER VI METHODS OF RECRUITING