The situation in which the British found themselves in 1917, the critical year of the war, as depicted by Mr. Churchill, was also, though to an even greater degree, the situation of the French, and, to a lesser degree, our own. Due to the gradual but increasing exhaustion of the world’s resources of raw material and skilled labor, the production of ordnance, at first merely a manufacturing problem, became more and more, as the limit of expansion was produced, a problem of securing raw materials, skilled labor, and transportation. The cumulative effect of the difficulties which I have enumerated produced a task of such magnitude as to be literally beyond the conception of the human mind. It involved the mobilization of science and industry and their co-ordination with the military establishment to an extent approaching the limits of human endeavor. Indeed, I am indulging in no mere peroration, no idle figure of speech, when I assert that the Army Ordnance effort represented the application of a greater physical effort than was ever directed toward the accomplishment of a single purpose in the history of mankind. Just as a track meet consists of various events—dashes, distance runs, broad jumps, high jumps, shot-putting, and pole-vaults—so there were numerous elements comprised in the ordnance problem. For Army Ordnance, the declaration of war was the starter’s pistol; the meeting of requirements by actual deliveries the goal. In estimating any accomplishment, whether it be the time in which a sprinter runs a hundred yards or a horse trots a mile, the altitude reached by an aviator or the speed of a transatlantic liner, it is necessary to take some accomplishment along the same or similar lines as a standard of comparison. It is generally admitted by athletes, for example, that for a man to run a hundred yards in ten seconds is an excellent performance; for him to run the same distance in nine seconds would be amazing. If, in view of this generally accepted standard of what constitutes a sprinter’s utmost exertion, a critic condemned a sprinter for not running a hundred yards in eight seconds, or in seven seconds, that critic would be branded by all intelligent persons as lacking in knowledge and judgment. So, in criticising the degree of success attained by the Ordnance Department during the war, it would be well for the critics to be quite certain that they have chosen just standards of comparison, and that they possess a sufficient knowledge of the problems involved in ordnance production to enable them to recognize a record-breaking performance if they saw one. Generally speaking, it may be said that those phases of the ordnance programme which had the shorter time limits were unqualifiedly successful. There was never a time when the production of smokeless powder and high explosives did not equal our own requirements and still leave us with a surplus sufficient to provide large quantities for both France and England.