president's address. 11 



during the war the size of guns and the efficiency of explosives and shell 

 increased immensely, and many new implements of destruction were 

 added. Modern Science and Engineering enabled armies unprecedented 

 in size, efficiency and equipment to be drawn from all parts of the world 

 and to be concentrated rapidly in the fighting line. 



To build up the stupendous fighting organisation, ships have been 

 taken from their normal trade routes, locomotives and material from 

 the home railways, the normal manufactures of the country have been 

 largely diverted to nmnitions of war; the home railways, tramways, 

 roads, buildings and constructions, and material of all kinds have been 

 allo^ved to depreciate. The amount of depreciation in roads and rail- 

 ways alone has been estimated at 400 millions per annum at present 

 prices. Upon the community at home a very great and abnormal strain 

 has been thrown, notwithstanding the increased output per head of 

 the workers derived from modern methods and improved machinery. 

 In short, we have seen for the first time in history nearly the whole 

 populations of the principal contending nations enlisted in intense 

 personal and collective effort in the contest, resulting in unprecedented 

 loss of life and destruction of capital. 



A few figures will assist us to reahse the great difference between 

 this war and all preceding wars. At Waterloo, in 1815, 9,044 artillery 

 rounds were fired, having a total weight of 37-3 tons, while on one 

 day during the last offensive in France, on the British Front alone, 

 943,837 artillery rounds were fired, weighing 18,0B0 tons — over 100 

 times the number of rounds, and 485 times the weight of pro- 

 jectiles. Again, in the whole of the South African War, 273,000 artil- 

 lery rounds were fired, weighing approximately 2,800 tons ; while during 

 the whole war in France, on the British Front alone, over 170 million 

 artillery rounds were fired, weighing nearly 3i milHon tons — 622 times 

 the number of rounds, and about 1,250 times the weight of projectiles. 



However great these figures in connection with modern land 

 artillery may be, they become almost insignificant when compared with 

 those in respect of a modern naval battle squadron. The Queen Eliza- 

 beth when firing all her guns discharges 18 tons of metal and develops 

 1,870,000 foot-tons of energy. She is capable of repeating this discharge 

 once every minute, and when doing so develops by her guns an average 

 of 127,000 effective horse-power, or more than one-and-a-half times the 

 power of her propelling machinery ; and this energy is five times greater 

 than the maximum average energy developed on the Western Front by 

 British guns. Furthermore, if all her guns were fired simultaneously, 

 they would for the instant be developing energy at the rate of 13,132,000 

 horse-power. From 'these figures we can form some conception of the 

 vast destructive energy developed in a modern naval battle. 



