This new aspect of the war only serves to illustrate and to emphasize the truth that the gravity and the magnitude of the task which we have undertaken does not diminish, but increases, as the months roll by.  The call for men to join our fighting forces, which is our primary need, has been and is being nobly responded to here at home and throughout the empire.  That call, we say with all plainness and directness, was never more urgent or more imperious than today.  For this is a war not only of men but of material.  To take only one illustration, the expenditure upon ammunition on both sides has been on a scale and at a rate which is not only without all precedent but is far in excess of any expert forecast.  At such a time patriotism has cast a heavy burden on the shoulders of all who are engaged in trades or manufactures which directly or indirectly minister to the equipment of our forces.  It is a burden, let me add, which falls, or ought to fall, with even weight on both employers and employed. [Cheers.] Differences as to remuneration or as to profit, as to hours and conditions of labor, which in ordinary times might well justify a temporary cessation of work should no longer be allowed to do so.  The first duty of all concerned is to go on producing with might and main what the safety of the State requires, [cheers,] and if this is done I can say with perfect confidence the Government on its part will insure a prompt and equitable settlement of disputed points, and in cases of proved necessity will give on behalf of the State such help as is in their power. [Cheers.] Sailors and soldiers, employers and workmen in the industrial world are all at this moment partners and co-operators in one great enterprise.  The men in the shipyards and the engineering shops, the workers in the textile factories, the miner who sends the coal to the surface, the dockyard laborer who helps to load and unload the ships, and those who employ and organize and supervise their labors are one and all rendering to their country a service as vital and as indispensable as the gallant men who line the trenches in Flanders or in France or who are bombarding fortresses in the Dardanelles. [Cheers.]

I hear sometimes whispers, hardly more than whispers, of possible terms of peace.  Peace is the greatest human good, but this is not the time to talk of peace.  Those who talk of peace, however excellent their intentions, are in my judgment victims, I will not say of wanton, but of grievous self-delusion.  Just now we are in the stress and tumult of a tempest which is shaking the foundations of the earth.  The time to talk of peace is when the great tasks in which we and our allies embarked on the long and stormy voyage are within sight of accomplishment.  Speaking at the Guildhall at the Lord Mayor’s banquet last November I used this language, which has since been repeated almost in the same terms by the Prime Minister of France, and which I believe represents the settled sentiment and purpose of the country.  I said: