Although, as I have shown, the Grand Fleet at the outbreak of war was, in effective battle power, of twice the strength of its German opponents, no time was lost in adding largely to that margin of strength. Mines, with which Germany recklessly sowed the seas whenever she could evade the watchful eyes of our cruisers and destroyers, and the elusive and destructively armed submarine, were perils not lightly to be regarded by our great ships. We took the measure of both these dangers in due course, but in the early months of war they caused a vast amount of apprehension. In addition, therefore, to dealing directly with these perils the whole power of our shipyards, gun shops, and armour-rolling mills was turned to the task of increasing the available margin of battle strength so as to anticipate the possibility of serious losses. And here we had great advantages over Germany. We not only had a far longer and far greater experience, both in designing and constructing ships and guns, but we had a larger number of yards and shops where battleships and battle cruisers could be completed and equipped. Throughout the fourteen years of the peace contest Germany had always been far behind us in design, in speed of construction, and in the volume of output. We built the first Dreadnought in little more than fifteen months—by preparing all the material in advance and taking a good deal from other ships—but our average time of completing the later models was rather more than two years apiece. The exalted super-battleships occupied about two years and three months before they were in commission. Germany—which so many fearful folk seriously look upon as superhuman in efficiency—never built an ordinary Dreadnought in peace time in less than two years and ten months, and always waited for the chance of copying our designs before she laid one down. It is reasonable to suppose that in the early days of war the German yards and gun shops worked much more rapidly than during the peace competition, but as our own quicker rate of construction was also enormously accelerated it is in the highest degree unlikely that our speed of war output was ever approached by our opponents. We had at the beginning far more skilled labour and, what is more important, far more available skilled labour. Since it was only by slow degrees that we enlisted a vast army for Continental service while Germany had to mobilise the whole of hers at the beginning of hostilities and to call upon the millions of untrained men, the drain upon our manhood was for a long time far less than the drain upon hers. As time went on labour became scarce with us, even for naval work, but it could never have been so scarce as with the Germans when after their immense losses they were driven to employ every possible trained and untrained man with the colours.