closed, succeeded in replenishing the National war chest by something approaching £600,000,000. Its special feature was the encouragement of small investors to contribute through the Post Office sums ranging from five shillings upwards. The rate of interest was 4 per cent., and the loan was repayable in or after 1925 or in any event in 1945. It was followed by the appointment on July 20 of a Retrenchment Committee to inquire into and report upon possible savings of public expenditure.

The National Registration Bill, which was introduced by Mr. Long, the new President of the Local Government Board, on June 29, excited more attention than any other of the early measures of the Coalition. It had long been recognized that, so long as the Government abstained from a serious stocktaking of its available resources in the shape of labour, no complete mobilization of the country's industry was attainable. The effects of its inevitable groping in the dark were notorious. Men had been recruited for the Army who should never have left the workshops, while many others who were well capable of serving the country in some efficient way

were contributing nothing to the national effort, or were doing work which could equally well be done by women. At the same time many were offering themselves as workers, of whom, in the absence of any machinery for recording and acting upon their offers, no use could be made. The objects of the Bill were to discover what everybody in the country between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five (with certain exceptions) was already doing and whether he or she was skilled in and able and willing to perform any other than the work (if any) at which he or she was at the time employed, and, if So, the nature thereof. The Bill was not carried without opposition on the part of those who saw in it the thin end of the wedge of conscription," although, as Mr. Long explained, "it left the question of compulsory service exactly where it was; it did not affect it one way or the other."

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Incidentally, indeed, its operation rendered needless the haphazard harrying of men of military age, which had amounted, in practice, to compulsion in a particularly unfair and offensive form, while the ascertainment of the names of those doing no useful work enabled a methodical appeal for recruits to be made

on voluntary" lines.

On the whole the Bill so far as it went, was a useful preliminary to national organization which might have been carried with advantage many months before.

Among the miscellaneous signs of tardy recognition of the necessity of enlisting in the public service, irrespective of party or other grounds, the best available ability in the matter of expert advice, were the appointment of a number of Boards and Committees.

Of these perhaps the most important was the Committee on Food Production, appointed on June 17, which combined an exceptionally strong body of experts under the presidency of Lord Milner. Similar committees were appointed for Scotland and Ireland. An Inventions Board which was established in July to assist the Admiralty in co-ordinating and encouraging scientific effort in its relation to the requirements of the Naval Service comprised a central committee under Lord Fisher and a consulting panel composed of a dozen eminent members of the Royal Society. This was followed by a comprehensive scheme for the permanent organization and development of scientific and industrial research throughout the whole of the United Kingdom.

While these various plans for the better exploitation of the scientific resources of the nation were maturing, and while it seemed as if at last some real progress might be made to recover lost ground, the country was shocked by one of the ugliest of the many labour troubles which had occurred during the war. The South Wales coal miners had on April 1 given three months' notice to terminate the existing wage agreement. The employers refused to contemplate the making of any new agreement until the end of the war. Weeks of negotiation on the old-fashioned Board of Trade lines resulted in an ultimatum from the men threatening a strike in three days' time if their original proposals were not accepted. The Government, which had hitherto left Mr. Runciman (" alone," as he pathetically explained later) to deal with the men, now applied by proclamation to the South Wales coalfield that section of the brand-new Munitions of War Act which made it an offence to strike without invoking the machinery of the Act. But Welsh miners are not easily alarmed by proclamations. Convinced that the employers, while refusing to make a new wages agreement, were making enormous profits, and failing to recognize the change

effected by the Munitions Act itself in the relations of employers and employed, they simply ignored the proclamation, and the Governinent were impotent to enforce it. Finally, Mr. Lloyd George was dispatched posthaste to the scene of inaction, and succeeded at length, by a combination of exhortation and concessions, in inducing the men to return to work. No wonder he described himself as "sick at heart." It was a discreditable business all round. More discreditable still was the dispute which arose a little more than a month later over the terms of Mr. Runciman's award upon the points referred to him for settlement in connection with the new agreement. Again, after prolonged conferences, the men got their way, but the loss of hundreds of thousands of tons of coal at a time when every ounce of coal was of vital importance was sufficiently painful evidence of the want of organization of the country for war. Public opinion was far more inclined on the merits of the dispute to sympathize with the men, however misguided and irreconcilable might be the small section to which the disputes were primarily due, than with the Government who had failed in their duty to bring home to them the seriousness of the

war.

The chief lesson suggested by this survey of the political history of England during the first year of the war is the failure of the party politician to change his outlook and to rise to the greatness of the occasion. One cannot imagine a nobler opportunity for a statesman than to find, for the first time, an entire people united in a patriotic desire to sink domestic differences and work disinterestedly for the common good. Where the people looked for leadership they found the old inclination to "wait and see." While they offered themselves freely, willing for any sacrifice if only they might be told how best to, sacrifice themselves, the Government showed neither vigour nor courage in accepting their offers. It was the people, not the Government, which provided the motive power in nearly every display of energy -the supply of munitions, the imposition of fresh taxes, the inculcation of thrift, the "mobilization of science." Whenever the Government, after much hesitation and pressure, took a decided line they invariably met with unlimited public support. Every fresh demand for money, every new form of interference with the normal habits of the people, was not only met without a murmur, but criticized, if at all, for not going far enough.

The fact that the country was slow in realizing the seriousness of its task was the fault, not of the people, but of the Government which never realized their duty, and which had too

long been accustomed to regard ingenious oratory as an adequate substitute for simple if unpleasant truths. The new Cabinet was undoubtedly stronger than the old, but it was perhaps too much to expect that it would show itself permanently more efficient than its predecessor. For though some weak Ministers were dropped and some dangerous ones displaced, the type was limited to the politicians, and party considerations were still the basis of its composition. It was likely to suffer, even more than its predecessor, from its own unwieldy bulk, which necessarily hampered the swift decisions required of a Cabinet in time of war. But it rapidly proved itself completely free from differences due merely to the mixture of parties. If it was not (as the enthusiasts claimed) a true "National Cabinet" but a Front-Bench combination, it none the less marked a definite and most necessary stage in the process of replacing Party Government by a Government for War.

On August 6 closed the first year of the war between Russia and Germany; on the Eastern front it can be best described as the fight for the line of rivers of which Warsaw is the centre and the Vistula the main component part. For one short month, following on the first fall of Przemysl, this contest seemed to have been definitely settled in favour of our Allies; relying on the defensive power of their front facing west, they undertook an offensive across the Carpathians against the plains of Hungary. May 2 opened the Austro-German counteroffensive against the Dunajec-Biala line. However remarkable were their achievements during the first month of the Galician drive, they did not succeed during that period of their offensive in inflicting more than what we might call a flesh-wound on the body of the Russian positions. The districts between the San and Dniester in the north-east, and the Dunajec and Vol. V.-Part 61.

the Carpathian Mountains in the south-west, were the necessary basis for a Russian offensive against Cracow and Silesia or against Hungary; they formed, however, by no means an indispens able part or cover of the main defensive line, which stretched along the Vistula, the San and the Dniester. The Austro-German advance from the Dunajec to the San did not affect the Russian line north of the Pilica. This remained unchanged even after the fall of Przemysl and Lwow; yet from the moment when the Austro-German forces pierced the southern flank of the Russian system of defence it was certain that the outlying positions in Poland would have to be abandoned, as soon as any direct pressure was brought to bear against them. By June 22 the Austro-German armies had crossed the SanDniester line on a broad front of more than 100 miles, extending from the junction of the Tanev and the San to Mikolajow on the Dniester. The holding of the line of the San and the Dniester was, from the point of view of the Russian defence, indispensable for the safety of Warsaw. All Russian plans for the defence of Warsaw had, therefore, necessarily implied from the very outset the conquest and holding of East Galicia. Lwow had not yet passed back into the hands of the enemy when our Allies began