THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



289 



reform. It is calculated that 1,000,000 

 new houses must be provided as fast as 

 possible after the war. Very well ; mu- 

 nicipalities will build them, using their 

 own credit, backed by the national gov- 

 ernment's. The government has set a 

 splendid example of how to improve 

 housing and sanitary conditions wherever 

 it has built for war workers. 



Out of the United Kingdom alone, 

 with its 46,000,000 population, have been 

 drawn 6,000,000 men for military and 

 naval service; 1,250,000 have come from 

 the dominions and colonies and 1,150,000 

 more from India. 



A MIIXION BRITISH LIVES GIVEN TO THE 

 CAUSE 



A million British lives, it was recently 

 stated, have been given to the cause ; yet 

 this sacrifice will only slightly affect the 

 Kingdom's population, because improved 

 living conditions of the civil population 

 have effected so great a compensatory 

 saving of life at home. 



Only recently has the birth rate been 

 appreciably depressed, while the saving 

 of infant and adult lives has been aston- 

 ishing. With all its boasted efficiency and 

 talent for organization, I venture to say 

 that Germany has been outstripped in 

 these regards by war-time Britain. 



Alongside the military mobilization 

 that produced the gigantic British army 

 and approximately doubled the navy has 

 gone a civil reorganization that has made 

 it possible not only to create and contin- 

 uously expand the war industries, but to 

 keep alive the world commerce by which 

 the nation lives. In bulk the exports of 

 Britain have indeed greatly decreased ; in 

 value they have been amazingly main- 

 tained ; which means support of British 

 credit throughout the world. 



And not only have the exports main- 

 tained British credit and upheld the 

 pound sterling; they have been so di- 

 rected and handled as to lay a foundation 

 for British trade after the war, whereon 

 will rise a structure that will be more 

 than ever the despair of German compe- 

 tition. 



Although America has gathered in half 

 the world's monetary gold, we have not 

 borne the sole responsibility of directing 

 the war's finances. In truth, we have 



loaned money to the world, while Britain 

 has both loaned money to it and — far 

 more important — financed it. British 

 credit and world-reaching banking organ- 

 ization have accomplished amazing re- 

 sults with bills of lading and commercial 

 acceptances that we are just beginning to 

 realize. 



CARRYING HUMANITY'S BURDEN 



On the afternoon of the coldest day 

 of the bitter winter of 1916-17 I landed 

 in London, after shivering through the 

 ride from Liverpool. A robust Jehuess 

 hoisted our bags atop her taxi and drove 

 us to a hotel where we got quarters. 

 That night we were refused coal for the 

 grate in our room ; there was no coal save 

 for invalids. 



But that same week a convoy of vessels 

 laden to the last pound with coal for suf- 

 fering Norway had cleared from a Brit- 

 ish port and been safely escorted by 

 British destroyers and cruisers to its 

 northern destination. That awful winter 

 Britain did without coal in order that 

 Scandinavia, France, and Italy might 

 have it. Britain — that is, except the mu- 

 nition works ; they must have their allot- 

 ment, because the armies of Britain and 

 her allies must be equipped. 



All the way through, it has been for 

 Britain to carry burdens, supply de- 

 ficiencies, provide means, perform the 

 tasks that were neither spectacular nor 

 heroic. The British navy, working al- 

 most in secret, has been the backbone of 

 the Entente cause. Without it the war 

 would have ended, as Germany planned, 

 before the close of 1914. Germany was 

 throttled from the beginning by a fleet 

 whose very location, in the far northern 

 Orkneys, was not known to the world 

 till months after Germany was sealed 

 tight. 



It was for Britain to send the heroic 

 first army that died in the first hundred 

 days — but saved the Channel coast. Eng- 

 land must needs provide the hopeless ex- 

 pedition to relieve Antwerp — a maneuver 

 that failed in its immediate purpose, but 

 saved Belgium to the Entente. 



Britain bore the horror of Gallipoli 

 without wincing. When the hour came 

 for the tables to turn, when glory and 

 victory were at length among the possi- 



