* 
DYES AND THE SAFETY OF THE NATION. 
Thus, most of their plants were not used at the very commencement * 
of war as arsenals. It is interesting to note this, for they were a 
more dangerous and subtle thing. They were potential arsenals engaged 
between the commencement of the war and the Marne on their lawful » 
ayocations; from the Marne to the conclusion of the war they were an 
indispensable part of the German war machine, enabling the war to 
be prolonged for three whole years. Immediately after the Armistice 
they again became peaceful industrial concerns, and no one more loudly 
proclaimed their peaceful character than Dr. Duisberg’ himself. But 
the views expressed by Dr. Duisberg subsequent to the German defeat 
were very different from the answer he gave to the General Staff at the 
interview referred to by Ludendorff. 
Hiagn Expnrosives. 
The Leverkusen Works were erected purely for the manufacture of 
aniline dyes and pharmaceutical products. As Dr. Duisberg told us 
himself, they were at first considered far too valuable by the German * 
Government for them to be risked in the manufacture of explosives; 
yet, within six weeks of the interview, they commenced to deliyer ‘T.N.T. 
at the rate of many millions of pounds per month. Truly a satisfactory 
response from a perfectly peaceful works. I wonder what our High | 
Explosives Department at Storey’s Gate would have given at that-stage 
of the war to possess a factory which could, owing to its well- 
standardized plant, within six weeks produce sufficient T.N.T. to fill — 
millions of shells a week without calling upon their resources of oleum 
and nitric acid. 
The production of picric acid (lyddite) was just as simple for 
Leverkusen, for their dye-making plants provided them with the raw 
materials. What happened at Leverkusen occurred at the other great 
factories of the I.G. in similar measure, and, as the Hindenburg pro- 
gramme became more developed, and as the demands of the General 
Staff became greater, vast quantities of explosives were produced by the 
factories of the L.G. | " ah 
The Leverkusen Works of the Bayer Company form only a portion 
of the I.G. factories. There are others equaNy important at Dormagen, 
IIochst, Ludwigshafen, and Oppau, all situated on the Rhine, within 
ihe occupied territory, and smaller factories, for example, Weiler-ter 
Meer and Kalle and Company, who, as the war went on, produced 
enormous quantities of explosives. “ 
We, too, as the war developed, produced enormous quantities of 
high explosives, but not at the same speed, for great factories had to be 
erected for the manufacture of oleum and nitric acid, and our explosive 
plants, contrary to the German plants, have, generally speaking, only 
a war value. pie ; 
: Cremican WELFARE. 
But this meeting between the head of the I.G. and the Chief of 
the German General Staff has another significance, and a more sinister 
one. The war, from the German point of view, as stated above, com-. 
menced as a high explosive war. With the failure of their first surprise 
break through, the German General Staff began to look for some other 
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