A typical thing happened.  The working force of the Ministry grew by leaps and bounds:  already the hundreds of clerks were jam up against the confining walls of the old grey building.  Lloyd George sent for one of his lieutenants and said: 

“We must have more room.”

“We have already reported that fact and the War Office says it will take three months to build new office space,” was the reply.

“Then put up tents,” snapped the little man, “and we will work under canvas.”

Realising that his principal weapons were machines, Lloyd George took a census of all the machinery in the United Kingdom and got every pound of productive capacity down on paper.  He was not long in finding out why the ammunition output was shy.  Only a fifth of the lathes and tools used for Government work ran at night.  “These machines must work every hour of the twenty-four,” he said.  Before a fortnight had passed every munitions mill ground incessantly.

These machines needed adequate manning.  Lloyd George thereupon created the plan that enlisted the new army of Munitions Volunteers.  Nelson-like he issued the thrilling proclamation that England expected every machine to do its duty.  It meant the end of restricted output.

With the ban off restriction he likewise clamped the lid down on drink.  Munitions workers could only go to the public houses within certain hours:  the man who brought liquor into a Government controlled plant faced fines and if the offence was repeated, a still more drastic punishment.

Lloyd George began a censorship of labour which disclosed the fact that many skilled workers were wasting time on unskilled tasks.  Lloyd George now began to dilute the skilled forces with unskilled who included thousands of women.

Right here came the first battle.  Labour rebelled.  It could find a way to get liquor but it resented dilution and cried out against capacity output.  The Shell Master again became the Conciliator.  He curbed the wild horses, agreeing to a restoration of pre-war shop conditions as soon as peace came.  All he knew was the fact that the guns hungered and that it was up to him to feed them.

The wheels were not whirring fast enough to suit Lloyd George.  “We must build our own factories,” he said.  Almost over night rose the mills whose slogan was “English shells for English guns.”  In speeding up the English output the Welshman was also equipping England to meet coming needs, laying the first stone of the structure that is fast becoming an Empire Self-Contained.

Lloyd George realised that he could not run every munitions plant, whereupon he organised local Boards of Control in the great ordnance centres like Woolwich, Sheffield, Newcastle and Middleboro.  Each became a separate industrial principality but all bound up by hooks of steel to the Little Wizard who sat enthroned at Whitehall.

England became a vast arsenal, throbbing with ceaseless activity.  The smoke that trailed from the myriad stacks was the banner of a new and triumphant faith in the future.