BEHIND THE GUNS AT HOME

When the war broke out in 1914, Great Britain looked to Canada for a supply of munitions as well as men. Not a shell, cartridge, nor fuse had ever before been made by a Canadian manufacturer. A new industry immediately sprang into being, assuming quite large proportions by the middle of 1915, by which time there were approximately over 400 establishments in full blast. From a modest output in 1914 representing a value of $28,164, the Canadian munitions factories piled up a record of production which stood at over $1,000,000,000 in value with the war's close in November, 1918.

The Imperial Ministry of Munitions, which threw out its lines from London to obtain munitions whence it could, asked much of Canada and got much. "Who would have dreamed," said a member of the British Government in 1915, "that Canada would have produced more munitions than any country in the world except Germany prior to the war?" Of the projectiles used by all the British armies in the third year of the war, Canada was producing 55 per cent of the shrapnel shells; 42 per cent of the 4.5-inch shells; 27 per cent of the 6-inch; 15 per cent of the 8-inch; and 16 per cent of the 9.2-inch. In fact, when the Germans complained that the Allied armies were being munitioned by the United States, they lost sight—or did not know—of the fact that many of the shells they objected to as American really came from Canada. In addition to shells and fuses and related products, there were vast exports of explosives and chemicals, metals, and spruce and fir for airships and other purposes. The war contracts which started all this activity were spread over a thousand contractors and called for the employment of from 200,000 to 300,000 workers.

The table of achievement, as it stands in the Government records, was as under

VALUE OF MUNITIONS AND MATERIALS EXPORTED FROM CANADA

QUANTITIES EXPORTED

This table bears a little amplification, more especially as to the disposition of the huge volume of lumber logged. Much of it, as will be seen, went into the manufacture of aeroplanes. A plant at Toronto, financed with British capital, but organized and operated by Canadians, manufactured 2,050 complete machines, turning out 350 a month. The airships represented a value of $6,700,000, and required over 2,000 workers in their construction. The plant also provided a number of flying boats for the United States Navy.

Canada's shipbuilding record was no less notable. Her yards turned out 103 vessels (45 steel, 58 wooden) with an approximate dead-weight carrying capacity of 367,367 tons. In addition, the Department of Naval Service undertook to build a number of small warcraft for various Allied governments. These little vessels were produced at various points on the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. For the British Government Canadian yards supplied 12 submarines, 60 armed trawlers, 100 armed drifters, 550 coastal patrol motor boats, and 24 steel lighters for use in Mesopotamia; for the French Government, 6 armed trawlers and 36 coastal patrol motor boats; for the Italian Government, 6 submarines; and for the Russian Government one large armed ice breaker and some submarines.

The outstanding feature of all the munition making was, as the table shows, the production of shells. It needed nimble feminine fingers to turn out the very nub of a shell, namely, the fuse. Consider the record of a huge factory near Montreal, which engaged in loading and assembling time and percussion fuses, completing in all 8,400,000. The work involved the blending of fast and slow burning powders; forcing the powder into the time rings under a pressure of 68,000 pounds per square inch; assembling the fifty-two component parts which made up the complete fuse; the packing, checking, and shipping the completed product. Women became expert in the work of fuse making, which meant being careful even to the 1-1000th of an inch.

"A shell with a defective fuse," wrote one observer of their work, "is worse than no shell at all. It may fail to explode, it may explode in the wrong place, at the wrong time, or in the wrong way." Canadian women made fuses that made the perfect shell. Not only in fuse making did they excel; heavy work became easy when machines, at the suggestion of the women themselves, were changed in position. Finally there was no difference in the work done by men and women. Within five weeks of the time they first heard of a 9.2-inch shell 400 women in one factory were successfully turning them out, performing every operation from that subsequent to the fabrication of the metal to and including that of shipping.

Before October, 1916, no women had ever worked in Canada as producers in a metal plant. There was a prejudice against employment of women. The need of shells and the need of shell makers dissipated prejudice and put women into Canadian munitions plants. At first they were given the light work to do and were set to tending a machine; work that required little intelligence on the part of the operator, but was extremely trying on the nerves. It soon became apparent that women excelled in work that required accuracy and delicate handling.

Women worked cheerfully and long. In the time of greatest need there were 35,000 women at work in the munitions factories of Canada; after the first call there was no shortage of women help. For various good reasons it was decided to give a badge without charge to any woman who worked for thirty days continuously. For each additional six months' service a bar was added. In all, 18,999 badges and 8,032 service bars were used in Canada. They were earned as follows: One bar, 4,003; two bars, 1,135; three bars, 447; four bars, 84; five bars, 16; six bars, 2.

In addition a commemorative badge was awarded to all workmen in the various plants who served continuously for a year or more. Far from disturbing labor conditions the entry of women into munitions plants aroused the most wonderful cooperation and enthusiasm and actually dispelled what might have been a serious drawback in "serving the man who serves the gun."

It began with a Shell Committee, composed of honorary members, which was formed when the British Government decided that Canada was a good field for producing shrapnel shells, especially as basic steel—the only steel Canada turned out—proved serviceable for shell making. The Shell Committee placed contracts on behalf of the British War Office, but the volume of business expanded to such a degree that the committee only gave place to a board directly responsible to the Imperial Ministry of Munitions. The work of this Munitions Board developed a number of auxiliary departments, directed by business men located in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Victoria, who handled enormous purchases of materials for use in munition making, supervised construction, conducted logging operations, and checked and rectified all engineering gauges. The forging of steel had to be arranged and the forgings and components distributed to the machining plants situated in the various Provinces. Shipbuilding required the acquisition of much timber and supplies for the hulls and the construction of engines and boilers.

These national plants were erected at Trenton, Renfrew, and Nobel for producing nitrocellulose, cordite, and T. N. T., with acid plants, and a factory for turning out acetone and methyl-ethyl-ketone. In the forging operations steel turnings had to be melted in electric furnaces, the steel thus subsequently produced being converted into forgings. The manufacture of aeroplanes for the Royal Air Force included a constructional section which built all aerodromes, machine shops, barracks, and officers' quarters at the various camps. The logging operations, which were conducted in British Columbia, produced spruce and fir for aeroplanes, and called for fleets of tugs which delivered the logs to cutting mills. Every kind of material that could be made available for war purposes was explored for by the Munitions Board in areas of natural resources hitherto undeveloped, with the result that industries new to Canada were established. One development was an extensive production of alloys used in the manufacture of high-speed cutting tools. Another achievement was the creation of the explosive and propellent industry.

The manufacture of munitions spread over the whole of Canada, with the exception of Prince Edward Island—which is exclusively agricultural—and even invaded the island of Newfoundland. From the first factory in the east to the last factory on the Pacific coast was a journey of 4,500 miles.

"Steel," it was recorded, "was purchased wherever it could be obtained. It was shipped 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000 miles to have it forged. From the forging plant it was shipped back again 500 or 600 miles or forwarded 2,000 miles to machining plants. Other component parts were purchased from manufacturers as far south as Florida. They were sent to remote points in order that every Canadian manufacturer engaged in munitions contract might sustain delivery of finished shells."

The policy pursued in all the complex operations thus briefly outlined aimed at the elimination of the middleman and dealing direct with those who performed the work. Raw materials of every description were purchased and passed on from one contractor to another, saving the contractor large investments of capital otherwise necessary to produce complete shells, and enabling a proper distribution of the materials available to insure maximum production. Subsequently the war munitions business was placed on a competitive basis.

All the work accomplished was due to the initiative of the Imperial Munitions Board, which was presided over by Sir Joseph Flavelle. There was, of course, a governing stimulus in all it did, namely, the needs of the war, which evolved the board's creation on broad lines when, in November, 1915, the British Government placed munition contracts in Canada amounting to $300,000,000. Manufacturers adapted their plants to munition making; thousands of men and women toiled at the lathe and in places of great responsibility and danger; patriotic Canadians freely gave their services when called upon with no other reward than the satisfaction of serving the state. The board's administrative staff numbered close to a thousand men and women, and of them Sir Joseph Flavelle declared that no body of men charged with serious duty ever received more loyal and efficient support. The same tribute was bestowed on the great home army of eager participants in munition making of all ranks, though, like the good workers they all were, they found duty its own reward.

An important factor in the manufacture of munitions was the work of the Canadian War Trade Board. Its functions braced the supervision and control of the Dominion's industries, and the direction of all essential trades, occupations, and materials to the conduct of the war. It was especially valuable in reaching outside of Canada for needed materials for munitions, particularly from the United States.

The War Trade Board was born of a crisis. Until the United States entered the war Canada had been able to obtain raw materials and half-finished products necessary in the munitions industry without difficulty from her southern neighbor. The situation changed when the United States began to conserve every raw material and product which could be used in the war. To present her case effectively Canada had to organize on national lines. The two countries were not independent, American industries needing nickel matter, asbestos, pulp, and power from Canada, and Canadians requiring pig iron, iron ore, steel sheets, coal, cotton, etc., from the United States. By both countries appointing a War Trade Board composed of outstanding business men in both countries, and by means of a Canadian War Mission established in Washington, the two countries were able to present a solid industrial front to the enemy and still preserve their respective national interests intact.

Drastic elimination of nonessentials was the first essential so that the railroads of the continent and the shipping of the world could devote their energies to carrying necessaries for sustaining the Allied war effort. The Canadian Board saw that no company imported any material when stocks in Canada could be utilized for its needs. This was not only to fulfill its obligations to the United States War Trade Board, but to keep down imports to the lowest possible figure so that Canada's trade balance with the United States should be as little adverse as possible. For the same reason a number of imports were placed on the restricted list.

Every day from all over Canada came anxious men and constant streams of letters and telegrams informing the board as to stocks of raw materials on hand, and explaining the needs. The War Trade Board undertook to see that the materials were forthcoming, if possible, and to secure them from within Canada or from the United States or elsewhere. It purchased and distributed tin plate in Canada, negotiated for the reopening of dormant blast furnaces and the construction of new undertakings for the production of pig iron, and obtained huge supplies required from the United States. It controlled the sale, purchase, and use of platinum. It financed the purchase and allotment through the Wool Commission of 46,208 bales of Australian wool weighing 15,573,542 pounds and valued at ten and a half million dollars, as well as five and a half million dollars' worth of tops and noils from the United Kingdom. It had power to pay bounties on the production of linen yarns in Canada. It also controlled the production and distribution of iron and steel and their products in Canada, and was empowered to take over and carry on the management of chrome ore-producing properties for a period of five years.

The Board also served as a clearing house for industrial information to manufacturers, keeping in constant touch with the various industries, either individually or through such bodies as the Imperial Munitions Board, the Canadian Wool Commission, the War Purchasing Commission, the Canadian Tanners' Council, the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, and the Canadian Wool Growers' Association.

Had it not been for the existence of such a body, there were many raw materials and products which Canadians could not have secured at all, as the British, United States, and Australian Governments would not have permitted their shipment but for assurances as to the use to which they would be put or of a substantial cash advance. The shortage of shipping made it necessary in some cases to secure a vessel to go to South America or some other country to get materials urgently needed in Canada, and only a government body could have induced the admiralty to permit it.

The securing of steel plates for Canadian shipbuilding industries was one of the board's most arduous and continuous tasks. Profiteering in steel-plate and boiler-tube stocks was sternly checked in the cases where complaints were well founded. Canadian steel companies were induced to make all the car plates necessary for the Government's car program. The pyrites exports were increased to meet the needs of the sulphuric acid makers in the United States. Nitroglycerine was conserved by restricting the content in commercial explosives.

The commandeering powers of the board were not often exercised, its authority to do so alone being amply sufficient to obtain the ends for which it was created. Most of the money made by the board was in connection with its wool purchases. The money obtained for the tops and noils from the United Kingdom it sent to the British Treasury. With the proclamation of peace the board passed out of existence.