170 
of munitions before their eyes. It should be in- 
structive to see what conclusions have been 
reached by a people with a genius for reducing 
everything to machinery, from.the production of 
motor-cars to education. 
The first step, in a democracy, was to bring 
home to every citizen the importance of the 
problem. Some of us may have smiled at the 
picture of the President of the United States, clad 
in a straw hat, a navy-blue jacket, and cream- 
coloured duck trousers, marching at the head of a 
great “Preparedness” procession, and waving a 
flag with the best of them. But Mr. Wilson knew 
what he was about. The Americans are incom- 
parable advertisers. No other device could have 
so instantly focussed the attention of the whole 
mass of heterogeneous populations between the 
two coasts. This having been effected, the plan 
evolved by the Naval Consulting Board’s Com- 
mittee on ‘‘ Preparedness ” was set out in a series 
of articles written by leading Government officials 
and business experts, and introduced by an open 
letter from. the President himself. Which of the 
great political journals was entrusted: with this 
weighty national ‘publication? The shocking 
truth cannot be concealed that it was not to the 
editor of anything analogous to our Times that 
the President wrote his letter with full confidence 
that it would reach the people. It was to the 
Scientific American—as it might be our own 
Engineering—and there the articles appeared 
during the late spring of the present year. 
They start with what seems to them an 
axiom, though it is still so difficult for many of 
our fire-eaters to realise it; ““The one great lesson 
of the European conflict is that defence is not ob- 
tained to-day by fighting men alone, but by fight- 
_ing industries. Behind every man in the firing 
line in Europe, from three to five persons are 
employed to supply him with food, ammunition, 
and other needs.” Their experience of the first 
year of the war convinced them that the people 
will never reach the right point of view till they 
realise ““what a mess we have made of our 
attempts to supply munitions to the Allies.” So 
an article is devoted to the initial difficulties, A 
large firm in the West is instanced, which cheer- 
fully took on a contract for 250,000 3-in. high- 
explosive shells. 
It seemed a simple and profitable job. But the firm 
soon realised that by turning their plant—a first-class 
machine shop—on to it they might hope to accomplish 
it in eight months, and then it would only be one 
day’s supply for one of the Allies. But so many diffi- 
culties intervened that after eighteen months they had 
only 130,000 shells accepted, which still had to be fitted 
with fuses and loaded and put through other processes. 
None had yet reached the battlefield. 
Before production can be started am enormous 
number of measuring tools and gauges must be 
provided. The three famous firms engaged in 
this manufacture—the Brown and Sharp, the 
Pratt and Whitney, and the Greenfield concerns— 
found, on-comparing estimates, that to produce 
200,000 shells a day, the amount under contract 
NO. 2453, VOL. 98] 
NATURE 
[Novemper 2, 1916 
for the Allies, would require in gauges and 
measuring tools alone an investment of from 
seventeen to twenty million dollars. Many of the 
best-known firms in the U.S» had been at work 
a year on the provision of this preliminary outfit 
without turning out sufficient finished product to 
be worth inspection. They have ‘made up their 
minds that if they are ever to be called on for the 
service of the nation they have to learn a great 
deal more about this business of making muni- 
tions, or in the event of war they would prove to 
be liabilities to the nation and not assets.” 
The plan worked out by the Naval Consulting — 
Board is then expounded. It involves three 
steps :-— 
The first step consists in the taking of a com- 
plete census of the producing resources of the 
country, to be tabulated on a card index. This is 
to include an inventory of industrial manufactur- 
ing establishments which, it is thought, will cover 
eighty thousand firms. 
The index will show the ground area, floor space, 
number of stories, housing accommodation, and pos- 
sibility of increase in emergency ; sources of heat, light, 
water, power; tool equipment idle in slack season; 
limits of precision in machine work, principal mate- 
rials used and where purchased, and principal pro- 
ducts manufactured; number of men, skilled and un- 
skilled, number of toolmakers, of women, and of men 
who could be replaced by women; percentage of em- 
ployees who are not American citizens; means of 
transport, trucking distance, and quality of street ser- 
vice to shipping point, trucks owned and hired, and 
shipping facilities by water. 
The census is to cover the resources of the 
country in minerals and materials, with special | 
stress on petroleum supplies and the utilisation 
of water-powers. To prepare it President Wilson 
invoked the aid of the five great engineering 
societies—civil, mechanical, mining, electrical, 
and chemical. In every State a member of each 
of the five societies has given his services 
gratuitously to form a board of five directors for 
the State, and under the supervision of these 
boards the 30,000 members of the societies have 
been at work. The Chambers of Commerce have 
given their aid, private firms have provided offices 
and furniture free of cost, and the newspapers 
have given advertisements and articles to boom 
the movement. It was expected that the bulk of 
the work would be completed by the end of May, 
1916. 
The second stage of the plan will consist in — 
placing small educational orders for munitions 
with large numbers of selected firms annually in 
time of peace. 
It is felt that’ while the Government must have its 
own factories distributed throughout the country to 
act as educational centres and clearing-houses, they 
would in any important war have to rely on privately 
owned plants. Everything connected with these orders 
will be done exactly as it would be were the order a 
war order of one hundred times the magnitude, The 
work will be educational. The purchasing department 
of the company will learn where to buy materials; 
the manufacturing department how to handle them and 
make the necessary jigs and tools; the inspection de- 
