The diminution of the purchasing power of the working people because of the restriction of the national wages bill, however, may be minimised by common action.  The National Relief Fund and the Women’s Employment Fund are intended really for this purpose.  The establishment of women’s training workshops and of maintenance grants on condition of attendance at schools and classes are steps in the same direction.  The Government has increased the disgracefully low payments made to dependants of soldiers on active service, and its scale of pensions for widows of soldiers and sailors and for those totally or partially disabled in the performance of military or naval duties.  Arrangements have been made for the payment of allowances of half wages up to a maximum of L1 a week to dependants of sailors employed on insured British merchant ships captured or detained by the enemy.  More important from the point of view of industry as a whole are the steps which have been taken to minimise the effects of a diminution in the volume of employment by the development of new openings.  The Government through the Board of Trade took the lead in the attempt to secure a share of the trade hitherto done by Germany and Austria.  Special efforts were made to develop the manufacture of toys, and other industrial experiments were begun by the Central Committee on Women’s Employment.  The Government appointed a Chemical Products Supply Committee with a view to stimulating the production of dyes and drugs at home.  These proposals are in the main an attempt to divert the trade of foreign countries, especially Germany, into British channels.  The second line of action is fuller provision of home needs which cannot be satisfied by foreign producers, but are essentially domestic.  Such needs are housing, public parks, roads, etc.  Between August 4 and September 21, 1914, the Local Government Board received over 600 applications from local authorities for powers to borrow money amounting in all to over L2,500,000.  About a fifth of this amount it was intended to expend on housing.  During this period the Board sanctioned loans amounting in the aggregate to more than L3,500,000, as compared with rather under L2,000,000 in the same period in 1913.  The Road Board arranged to put in hand the construction of certain new highways arranged for before the beginning of the war.  In addition, in the first seven weeks of the war, the Board arranged to make grants amounting to about L450,000 in aid of new road construction and road improvements in many different parts of the country, which will involve a total expenditure of about a million sterling.  The Development Commission began to consider schemes for the construction of light railways, for the improvement of the navigation of rivers, etc., in order that work of this kind should be ready to be put into operation when the necessity arose.  The Board of Agriculture has urged that where practicable the acreage under wheat should be increased.  This suggestion is,