In the preceding chapter we have been able to digest a few of the more interesting facts and figures gleaned, in the one case from Sir Douglas Haig's final dispatch, and having reference to the task performed by the rearward services of the British Army in France; in the other, from the two reports issued by Mr. L. W. Horne, and dealing with the working of the London and North-Western Railway in the interests of the State, at home.

Most of us will probably retain some recollection of the scriptural parable of the virgins, five of whom were wise, and five foolish. Whilst hardly being perhaps quite fair to liken the rearward services of the Army to the latter five, who, lacking oil in their lamps, begged the necessary illuminant from the former, the London and North-Western Railway Company's locomotive department may nevertheless be said to resemble the wise virgins, in that, figuratively speaking, lamps were kept trimmed and full of oil, ready for any emergency; not only this, however, but going one better than the wise virgins, who, seemingly a trifle selfish and stony-hearted, turned a deaf ear to their foolish sisters in distress, the London and North-Western Railway locomotive department never hesitated to extend a helping hand to the rearward services of the Army, rendering possible in part that "wonderful development of all methods of transportation," which, as Sir Douglas Haig avers, "had an important influence upon the course of events."

We have noted the extent of the goods traffic which was dealt with at home during the fateful years of the world war, and of which the mileage rose from eighteen and a half millions in 1914 to no less a figure than twenty and a half millions in 1917, and it was during this period, when Mr. Bowen-Cooke, in his capacity as chief mechanical engineer of the premier British railway company, was concentrating his endeavours on the maintenance of a supply of locomotive power sufficient to cope with this ever-increasing figure, that he was called upon to assist in that other and extraneous supply of similar power, by means of which the rearward services of our overseas forces were enabled to solve the immense problem of transportation by rail in the various theatres of war in which we were engaged, a problem which as we know, ultimately involved on the Western Front in France alone the running of "a weekly average of 1,800 trains, carrying a weekly average load of approximately 400,000 tons."

Obviously the only method by which locomotive power could be made available for the rearward services lay in the transference of engines overseas, in other words, depletion of available stock at home, depletion which was effected in compliance with Government demands, and in spite of the many difficulties which presented themselves and were contingent upon so unprecedented a situation.

The first batch of recruits to be "called up" at Crewe was selected from that very stable little group, or "class," known as the "4 feet 3 inch, six wheels coupled coal engine"; these engines were specially fitted with tenders having a water-tank capacity of 2500 gallons, and nine were sent originally to serve on the Western Front, further recruits of this "class," numbering seventy-six altogether, seeing overseas service in Egypt, Salonica, and Mesopotamia respectively. These hard-working little engines, which in ordinary practice do not refuse a load of fifty-five wagons or approximately 600 tons, were nevertheless deemed incapable of contributing sufficient power in proportion as the size, or "feeding strength," of our overseas forces increased; the result being that the "power" limit was raised, and a sturdier form of recruit, found available in the well-known "G" class, or "4 feet 3 inch, eight wheels coupled coal engine," was summoned to the colours. These engines, of which a total of twenty-six found their way across the water, were fitted with tenders of 3000 gallons capacity, in addition to having (as was the case with the smaller engines) a special form of water lifter whereby water could be obtained from wayside streams or other occasional sources of supply. Capable of "walking away" with a load of eighty wagons, or approximately 900 tons, these powerful goods engines proved themselves a valuable asset, and so a determining factor in influencing the course of events.

Hand in hand with "running" goes the question of maintenance and repairs, and in this connection installations on a large scale were set up in France as elsewhere, Audricq, Berguette, and Borre, situated in the Pas-de-Calais and Nord districts, being the main depÔts for the repair of carriages and wagons, light railway engines, and locomotives, respectively; and in this connection Crewe once again was well to the fore in the provision of the requisite machinery and plant incidental to the fitting out of the modern railway repair shop. Briefly, a few of the outstanding features of this plant may be said to have comprised mechanical contrivances such as hydraulic pumps and accumulators, stationary boilers, electric motors, overhead travelling cranes, Goliath cranes, an hydraulic wheel-drop, a wheel turntable, a case-hardening furnace, a boiling bosh, levelling blocks, and a great variety of machine tools, details of all of which would in themselves suffice to complete an entire volume.

It was entirely thanks to the provision and installation of this machinery and plant that during the year 1917, for instance—as we learn from statistics published in the issue of Modern Transport of September 20th, 1919—143 heavy and 675 light repairs were carried out on locomotives; and in the following year, 1918, these figures were increased to 246 and 809 respectively; while the number of ordinary shed, or "running," repairs amounted to no less a figure than 5,487.

The complex and duplex task of maintaining simultaneously both the home and the overseas rail services was further augmented by the acceptance within Crewe Works, for general repairs, of numerous engines doing duty in the various military camps which sprang up in different parts of the country, namely those situated at Kimmel Park, Oswestry, Prees Heath, Cannock Chase, Milford and Brocton, etc., etc.

Heavy repairs were also effected in the case of two massive Belgian engines, which were sent to England, and in addition to this superabundance of work which was undertaken conjointly with the repair programme incidental to the London and North-Western Railway Company's own requirements, there was a continuous demand for the supply of locomotive spare parts incidental to the working of the overseas services.

In yet another respect was Crewe in a position to hold out a helping hand to that friend in need, the overseas rearward services. Enemy aircraft activity necessitated special precautions being taken to ensure the maintenance of communications, precautions which involved the construction of certain "deviation" lines of railway. Further, additional permanent way was required for sidings, and for double and quadruple tracking: and during the final Allied offensive many miles of new line were laid for the purpose of following up the enemy, and of bringing relief to the civilian populations left destitute in the districts which the enemy had evacuated.

The London and North-Western Railway Company claims, and is renowned for, the finest permanent way in the world, and the rails are for the most part rolled in, and supplied from, Crewe Works.

During the war the customary relaying of track was considerably curtailed, as may be gathered from the fact that, whereas during a normal year an average of 32,500 tons of rails are supplied, approximately half that tonnage only was supplied per annum while the war lasted. Consequently the average relaying of track during a normal year was reduced from roughly 140 to about 54 miles per annum. At the same time, rails sufficient for 56 miles of track were taken from stock and sent for use overseas.

The rail-mill in Crewe Works was, however, kept busy in other directions as well, turning out in the four years 1914-1918, partly for British railway companies, partly for use overseas, 38,844 tons of rails, equal to a length of 260 miles, besides which were supplied a considerable number of points and crossings complete.

Certain crises of the war will surely never fade from the memory of living man or woman, crises during which it may be said that—

the while the fate of the Empire, of the whole civilised world, hung in the balance.

Such a crisis, and one that had far-reaching effects upon the organisation of the rearward services, occurred in the spring of 1918, consequent upon the collapse of Russia. Dwelling on the issues at stake, devolving the necessity on the German people to give "all it had," General Ludendorff claims [cp. "My War Memories," 1914-1918, page 600, Vol. II.] that their (the German) offensive was a brilliant feat, and will "ever be so regarded in history." Such it may have been, "for a time," backed as it was [cp. page 577, Vol. II.] by "twenty to thirty batteries, about 100 guns, to each kilometre (eleven hundred yards) of front to be attacked," which were "figures such as no man had ever credited before." But "the battle was so vast that even these quantities of steel," which the German guns discharged, "did not destroy all life" and although the effect on the Borre locomotive repair Works in the end was crushing to a degree, there as elsewhere, as Ludendorff finds himself forced to confess, "the infantry always found far too much to do," the result being that, thanks to the heroic resistance put up by our own men, and in spite of the fact that the Boche was within 1,500 yards of the place before the evacuation of the shops was commenced, nearly the entire plant and machinery were safely got away, and forthwith installed in some newly erected shops at Rang-du-Fliers, a tiny hamlet situated on the main Paris-Boulogne line, a few miles south of Étaples.

It was about this time that the warrior War Lord, flushed with momentary success, saw fit to dispatch what was probably destined to be the final of his many "victory" telegrams. "My victorious troops," so he wired to the Empress at Berlin (cp. the Times, March 26th, 1918), "are pressing forward from Bapaume westwards.... The spirit of the troops is as fresh as on the first day. Over 45,000 prisoners, over 60 guns, 1000 machine-guns, and enormous quantities of ammunition and provisions, have been taken. May God be with us!" (signed Wilhelm).

Whether this royal and auspicious message, when published officially, had the desired effect upon a war-weary and demoralised people, it is hard to say; but even Wilhelm, the would-be Conqueror, must surely have begun to realise at long last that even if "you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

Getting down to solid facts then, the battle, in Ludendorff's opinion, "was over by April 4th," and although "thereafter there was bitter fighting ... our (the German) war machine was no longer efficient" [cp. page 684, Vol. II.].... "The Entente began the great offensive, the final battle of the world war, and carried it through with increasing vigour as our decline became more apparent."

It is not uninteresting to note the second-in-command, or, as some believe him to have been, the actual commander-in-chief, of the great German fighting machine paying a tribute to the energy of the foe, the one foe hated and feared of all others by the entire German people, namely England; and this energy was at the time in question very properly brought to the notice of a representative gathering of Colonial, American, and English journalists by Mr. Winston Churchill, who, speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Munitions (cp. the Times, March 27th, 1918), told these gentlemen of the Press that they must "recognise that the strength of the British armies rests not only on the superb courage of the soldiers, but on the gigantic output which their countrymen at home are contributing from week to week, and from hour to hour, after all these years of strain, never at such a pitch of efficiency and energy as at the present time."

Few people there are, probably, who have ever realised what "the years of strain" have meant to the workers in mine, factory, and shipyard; it is in fact the exception rather than the rule to find in public utterances reference to the drudgery, the monotony, involved in the manufacture, frequently of a repetition nature, hour after hour, week after week, month after month, of all those countless mechanical contrivances of which the diverse component parts are essential to the whole. The tendency has been rather to decry these people as shirkers, money-grubbers, worthy only to be labelled with epithets unsavoury to the palate. In every branch of a profession or trade, in every walk in life, there are of course bound to be exceptions, but in common fairness to those innumerable and genuine "indispensables" who perforce remained at home, let us not forget that to the many of these who would gladly have gone was denied the experience, the excitement, the novelty, attaching to the open-air life of movement incidental to an overseas campaign.

Obviously enough, closely allied to, in fact interwoven with, production is the question of cost, a question which in war as in peace could not fail to afford a loophole for difficulties and disputes, either of a minor character, or aggravated perhaps by the continued years of strain and monotony.

Mr. Churchill, however, was undoubtedly on the right tack when he went on to insist that we should "not assume that because from time to time they (the workmen) put forth their sectional aims, these aims were the only things they care about. They have a sort of feeling," he declared, "that they have to push forward their class interests, and I am not blaming them for it, but in the main our strength rests upon their loyal, resolute support, and we can count on that."

As a single instance of the reliance which could be placed in the work-people's resolute support, we have only to note the loyal adherence by the men in Crewe Works, which they maintained to the bitter end, to a resolution which they passed themselves, to the effect that "We, the working men of Crewe, will do all that is humanly possible to increase the output of munitions, and stand by our comrades in the trenches"; and this resolution was the outcome of a series of meetings organised and held in the summer of 1915, in the various shops within the Works, when Mr. Cooke, having emphasised the paramount importance of keeping up the great railways, "which have to deal with the transport of soldiers and munitions, that keep together the life of the country," went on to remind his hearers that "it is to those who produce the material for the making and repairing of locomotives who have this all-important matter in their hands."

Appropriately enough, Mr. Craig, M.P. for the constituency, having already wired the terms of the resolution to Mr. Lloyd George, was able on behalf of the latter to "thank you, the men of Crewe Works, for the splendid efforts you have put forward in the past;" adding, that he had peculiar satisfaction in so doing, for "never either in the House of Commons or out of it have I heard a word of reproach levelled against the men of Crewe. Their patriotism has never been impeached."

That this outspoken tribute contained nothing from which could possibly be construed anything in the nature of what is commonly known as "gush" is easily apparent from the fact that Mr. Craig had only just previously appealed to the men to "allow nothing to interfere with the production of munitions of war. You are asked," he said to them point-blank, "to relax for the time being all trades union rules and regulations, and to compete with one another in order to produce the largest possible amount of munitions."

With the exception, then, of an insignificantly small minority of juvenile and inexperienced would-be firebrands, who in nine cases out of ten could not boast of ever having ventured beyond their native shores, if indeed beyond reach of their mothers' apron-strings, the attitude of the men of Crewe was, throughout the protracted struggle, loyal to the core, and that this was so must ever redound to their undying credit.

Let us compare for a moment the condition of things prevailing at the time in Germany, for although "other countries possessed an army, in Prussia," as we know, "the army possessed the country," and probably because of this inflexible rÉgime, possibly in spite of it, everything was not exactly "couleur de rose." In order to sustain the rearward services of this ruthless "juggernaut," Ludendorff "went nap" for universal conscription, industrial as well as military, for all persons between the ages of fifteen and sixty. Another point he was always striving to enforce was the raising of the pay of the fighting man, and a corresponding reduction in the pay of the workman. "The enthusiasm of the moment passes," so Ludendorff argues (cp. page 331, Vol. I.), "it must be replaced by discipline and understanding." But the law which the German Government resolved to introduce in November, 1916, for conscripting auxiliary labour was in his opinion, (cp. pages 332, 333, Vol. I.) "neither fish nor fowl. We wanted something wholesale. The bill departed, too, from the principle of universal liability to service, and gave no security that the labour power obtained would be so employed as to produce the maximum results. It was not merely insufficient, but positively harmful in operation. It had a bad effect on the soldiers;" for "troops withdrawn from the heavy fighting at the Front saw auxiliary workers and women workers working in peace and safety for wages far higher than their own pay. This was bound to embitter the men who had to risk their lives day by day, and to endure the greatest hardships, and of necessity increased their dissatisfaction with their pay." In the circumstances, can anyone marvel that:—

The war-profiteer, too, was "a repulsive phenomenon," who (cp. page 342, Vol. I.) with the "corruption of his influence has done us incalculable harm."

That our own Government of the day adopted and pursued a policy, if not exactly of killing, at least of spoiling, the goose that laid the golden egg—a policy, moreover, which could not fail, here as in Germany, to have the effect of discrediting the fighting man in the eyes of his mate privileged to remain at home—was certainly no fault of the railway companies or of their own employÉs; in fact one branch at least of the railway service, the staff of which had no particular reason to bless the Government, or indeed the war at all, was the locomotive accountants' department at Crewe; for those who were employed in this particular department, that is to say those of them who were left at home—and the fact should never be overlooked that the percentage of clerks who joined the Forces was not surpassed by that of any other grade of employÉs on the railways—were involved in the few years of the war in hard work, changes, and readjustments of one kind and another, such as ordinarily would not have been their lot to experience, in the whole course of a lifetime.

It is true that at the commencement of the war efforts were undoubtedly made to curtail office work as far as possible, the Board of Trade assisting in this direction by suspending Statistical Return 12 of the Railway Companies' Accounts and Returns Act. Statistics, too, relating to shunting, extraction of mileage in districts for rating purposes, and certain sub-divisions of mileage, were discontinued.

Then again, the Government having guaranteed the nett receipts of the railways, although charges affecting capital and stock still operated, the Railway Executive Committee decided to put in abeyance the practice of rendering accounts as between one railway company and another, for work or services rendered on revenue account, whether on personal account or at joint stations, junctions, etc.

As against all this, however, obligations commenced, increased, and multiplied in other and different directions. At the very outset of the war, for example, in order to separate the Government control period from the pre-control period, extensive stock-taking was necessary, as well as a complete making-up of accounts as from midnight August 4th, 1914.

Then, as can easily be imagined, no sooner did the Government issue their appeal to the railway companies for assistance in the manufacture of munitions of war, than an immense amount of clerical work followed suit, the clerks responsible having immediately to conform with Government requirements. Again, owing to scarcity of raw materials, which were placed under Government control, numerous statistics had to be prepared in regard to actual requirements; reports, too, had to be sent in periodically as to scrap metal, especially copper, and particulars furnished in regard to the output of iron and steel.

On the top of all this came the introduction of the war-wage with its periodical increase to meet the increasing cost of living; and the subsequent inauguration of the District rate of wages, accompanied as it was by the regrading, according to their duties, of every single workman, skilled or semi-skilled, entailed an enormous amount of clerical work; the timekeepers were almost incessantly occupied in dealing with arrears of payment under the National awards, this necessitating many hours of overtime, Saturdays and Sundays not excepted. In fact, so great did the pressure of work become throughout the department that, in order to counterbalance the depletion of staff occasioned by so many clerks joining the colours, recourse was had to the employment of females, who, to the number of 162, assisted materially in easing the burden which devolved upon that section of the permanent male staff who remained in harness and without whose expert knowledge and experience an interregnum of complete chaos must inevitably have supervened.

Sir Douglas Haig in his final dispatch does not neglect to extend his thanks, which were "especially due," to those "responsible for the efficient work of the various rearward services, and administrative services and departments" of the British Army in France, amongst whom may be noted "my Financial Adviser," and "my Pay master-in-Chief"; and in direct proportion as the nation at large owes a debt of gratitude to those prominent personalities, incidentally, too, to the members of their subordinate, but none the less loyal and devoted, staffs who gave their services, and in some instances their lives for their King and Country—so, too, must the public in general ever remain indebted to the heads of the administrative departments of the great British railway companies—the Financial Advisers, the Paymasters-in-Chief—amongst whom may be cited the Chief of the Accountants' department of the London and North-Western Railway Company's locomotive department, Mr. T. Ormand, together with the members of his subordinate, but none the less indefatigable, staff at Crewe.

The studied opinion of Sir Douglas Haig, when he comes to summarise his views in general, certainly compels our attention. "It is hardly too much to assert," so he writes, "that, however, seemingly extravagant in men and money, no system of supply except the most perfect should ever be contemplated."

Perfection, it may reasonably be argued however, need not necessarily entail extravagance; and certainly the system of supply in operation at Crewe, efficient as it undoubtedly was, was productive of saving rather than of waste. The fact that the cost of labour, on the cessation of hostilities, showed an increase of 135 per cent. over and above that which was prevalent at the commencement of the war, cannot by any manner of means be laid at the door of the railway directorates, who, in regard to questions of wages and discipline, were controlled by the national agreements which from time to time came into being. Neither could the railway companies be classified even in a minimum degree amongst those "repulsive phenomena," the war-profiteers; for, the railways having become, as it were, part and parcel of the Government, it resulted as a natural corollary that work carried out in railway workshops whether for railway or munitions-of-war purposes became ipso facto Government work, and the bill for all such work when presented was made up simply and solely of the actual cost of materials, wages, and workshop expenses, plus 12-1/2 per cent. for supervision and establishment charges. The only profit with which the coffers of the railway companies were replenished in return for their war-time energies was in respect of munitions manufactured for private firms, and even then the profit never exceeded 10 per cent. over and above the actual cost of production.

Those were indeed "the times that try men's souls," and it was the Government policy throughout—a policy which, as happened to be the case in Germany, was "neither fish nor fowl," in that whilst inflicting untold hardship, loss, and suffering on some, it relieved others, saddling them with a minimum of inconvenience, and removing from them all "conception of the duty of universal service"—to which was attributable that extravagance "in men and money" referred to by Sir Douglas Haig.

On the occasion of the introduction of the first post-war Budget, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Chamberlain, suggested (cp. the Times, May 1st, 1919) that it would be of "interest to divide the year into the period before the armistice and the period since the armistice was signed, and to see what the average daily expenditure was in each of those two periods," Mr. Adamson (Fife W. Lab.) expressed a desire to temper his criticism with sincere commiseration for the Chancellor, whose task was to find the first instalment of the terrific obligations imposed upon the country by the extravagance, and in some respects the incredible folly, of spending departments during the war period, which had resulted in a daily average expenditure during the earlier of the two periods mentioned by Mr. Chamberlain, namely from April 1st to November 9th, 1918, of £7,443,000; in the later period, namely from November 10th, 1918 to March 31st, 1919, of £6,476,000.

It is doubtful whether the explanation adduced by the Chancellor, in regard to this extravagance, this incredible folly, afforded any real degree of solace to Mr. Adamson or to any other honourable members, who inclined to view the financial outlook with such marked concern.

"The National Debt proper, exclusive of what we call other capital liabilities, was," as Mr. Chamberlain pointed out, "on March 31st this year (1919), 7,435 millions," or 6,790 millions more than it was at the outbreak of the war; and "of the actual debt incurred, internal debt accounts for, approximately, 6,085 millions, and the external debt, approximately, 1,350 millions." There were, it is true, "certain assets, such as obligations of our Allies and Dominions, votes of credit no longer required, and payments in respect of indemnities from our enemies." But when all was said and done, "when every proper allowance is made for these assets—the amount and value of which as well as the date at which we may expect to receive payment for them is necessarily uncertain—the burden of debt left to us is still very formidable."

The tone predominant throughout this outline, indicative of the manner in which the taxpayers' millions were being used or misused for their especial benefit, was undeniably pessimistic. On the other hand, every cloud has its silver lining, and the occasional gleams, which illumined the lowering trend of Mr. Chamberlain's forebodings, become intensified a thousandfold when we reflect upon the horrors which we, in our insular position of security, escaped, and when we ponder over the fate that would most assuredly have been ours had the Warrior Warlord won the day.

Writing to the New York World in April, 1915, Mr. Gustav Roeder throws some light upon the state of mind of the German women alone. "Talk about your so-called atrocities which our men are said to have committed in Belgium," they said to me, "it would be nothing in comparison with what our men would do in England, and we women want to be there too."

As a sample of the treatment accorded to the unfortunate inhabitants of those portions of the fair land of France which the invader succeeded in over-running, we may take this deposition of the Times' special correspondent with the French Army as being sufficiently convincing. Writing under the date of March 21st, 1917, he says, "when the Germans left Noyon on Sunday, they took with them fifty young French girls, who, they said, were to act as officers' servants. When he (a distinguished French officer) was on a part of the Somme front now taken over by the British, he saw with his own eyes photographs, taken from German prisoners, of German officers sitting at dinner and being waited upon at table by naked women."

Even during the earliest days of the war, evidence was not wanting in proof of the fact that German Imperialist greed was in no way to be denied. "Heavy ransoms on French towns" was the heading to a paragraph in the Times of September 7th, 1914, and edifying to a degree was the subjoined list of towns from whose impotent inhabitants the jubilant Hun was setting to work to exact sums of money varying in proportion to their size and population.

Thus we learn that having imprisoned the PrÉfet du Nord, the Germans demanded from the town of Lille "a ransom of 7,000,000f (£280,000). At ArmentiÈres they were content with a ransom of 500,000f. (£20,000). At Amiens they have demanded 1,000,000f. (£40,000) and 100,000 cigars. Lens has been ransomed for 700,000f. (£28,000)." On yet a previous occasion (cp. the Times, August 22nd, 1914), the Press Bureau having obligingly announced that out of £15,000,000 of Treasury bills, for which the Treasury had invited tenders to be sent in, £10,000,000 was required for a loan from the British Government to Belgium, the Germans promptly decided that this good British gold might be turned to far more profitable account by themselves than by the Belgians for whom it was ostensibly intended, and proceeded forthwith to impose upon the city of Brussels a war contribution of eight million sterling. The All-Highest is credited with having expressed himself as being convinced that "the German people had in the Lord of Creation above an unconditional ally on whom it could absolutely rely." He must have felt, too, that his faithful subjects had in the British Government below a purblind benefactor whom they could regard as an unfailing source of revenue.

Some idea as to the aspirations and intentions which the Germans were keeping up their sleeves as concerning ourselves may be gathered from certain observations which were drawn up by the Allied Ministers at Jassy, with regard to the conditions imposed upon Rumania by the Central Powers, and which in their own words "demonstrate in the best possible manner the insatiable greed and hypocrisy of German Imperialism."

The actual terms of the treaty (of Bukarest) required, inter alia (cp. the Times, August 10th, 1918), "the entire male population of the occupied territories, that is to say of two-thirds of Rumania, between the ages of fourteen and sixty, to carry out such work as may be assigned to them. The penalties for disobedience include deportation and imprisonment, and in some cases, which are not expressly defined, even that of death. This treaty," as the Allied Ministers observed, "is a fair example of a German peace. We should consider it all the more closely inasmuch as the German delegates informed the Rumanian delegates, who were appalled at being required to accept such conditions, that they would appreciate their moderation when they knew those which would be imposed on the Western Powers after the victory of the Central Empires."

For the fact that "this England never did," and for the determination that she "never shall, lie at the proud foot of a conqueror," we owe it entirely to the grit of succeeding generations of British fighting men. "Wars may be won or lost," in the opinion of Sir Douglas Haig, "by the standard of health and moral of the opposing forces"; and because "the feeding and health of the fighting forces are dependent upon the rearward services, so it may be argued that with the rearward services rests victory or defeat."

In the same way, since, as we have already seen, the rearward services of the overseas forces depend for their sustenance upon the continued and successful operation of the home services of supply and transport, so it may be argued that upon the feeding and health of these latter services does the final issue hang.

Realising then, from the very outset, the import of the task devolving upon the great railways, appreciating, too, the truism that you cannot maintain an A1 engineering community any less than an "A1 Empire with a C3 population," Mr. Cooke determined on the course of inaugurating, in the immediate vicinity of Crewe Works, a canteen, which, rivalling similar establishments set up in well-nigh every Government-owned, or controlled, munition factory throughout the length and breadth of the land, was built and equipped with the most up-to-date cooking apparatus and utensils, at a cost of £3800, and this thanks entirely to the spontaneous generosity of the directors of the company, who further expressed their readiness to bear the cost of all maintenance charges, such as heating, lighting, and salaries of the kitchen staff. As a result, the men were enabled to purchase all commodities at actual cost price, at the same time finding that the meals provided were of that excellence which inclines one to "forgive anybody, even one's own relations."

There is not a shadow of doubt but that, as regards the rearward services both home and overseas, "our supply system has been developed into one of the most perfect in the world," and after being so largely instrumental in frustrating the aims of the common enemy, the only danger against which we had to guard was lest "the Ministers of the Allied Powers should lose by their pen what the Army had gained by the sword"; in which case the peace we had striven to secure—to quote the words of that great littÉrateur and statesman of a former generation, to wit George Canning—"would be the mere name of peace; not a wholesome or refreshing repose, but a feverish and troubled slumber."