In 1914 the coal output amounted to 253,195,000 tons. The value of metals, aside from iron, produced from British ores in 1912 was as follows: white tin, £1,116,738; lead, £349,561; zinc, £158,622; fine copper, £22,714; silver, £14,382; gold, £5103. FISHERIES. Wet fish (exclusive of salmon and shell fish) landed on the coasts of the United Kingdom in 1912 amounted to 24,092,862 cwts.; in 1913, 24,657,116 cwts. The values are stated at £12,779,717 and £14,229,311 respectively. The herring catch in 1913 was valued at £4,572,295; cod, £2,300,119; hake, £678,981; soles, £474,127. The value of shell fish landed in 1912 was £454,709, and in 1913 £463,642. COMMERCE. Returns of trade shown below * Other than machinery and telegraph and telephone wire. Including parcel-post goods not liable to duty. Some of the principal articles of import not shown separately in the table were valued as follows in 1913 and 1914, in thousands of pounds sterling: Wheat, 43,849 and 44,741; sugar, 23,067 and 32,988; butter, 24,084 and 24,013; beef, 18,874 and 23,265; bacon, 17,429 and 18,226; fruits, 15,886 and 16,000; maize, 13,770 and 11,763; mutton, 11,112 and 11,595; tea, 13,783 and 14,337. The domestic exports of cotton piece goods in 1913 was 97,776 thousand pounds sterling, and in 1914, 79,183; cotton yarn, 15,006 and 11,973; other cotton manufactures, 12,819 and 11,137; woolen tissues, 14,467 and 11,598; worsted tissues, 6186 and 6205; linen piece goods, 5969 and 5481. The table below shows the total imports consigned to and the total exports consigned from the principal countries, in thousands of pounds sterling: Imports Exports 1918 20,938 vessels, of 19,529,543 tons gross. In 1913, 909 steamers, of 1,170,107 tons net, and 338 sail, of 30,382 tons net, were built in the United Kingdom, exclusive of warships; the warship tonnage built was 193,785 for the British navy and 55,024 for the navies of other countries. COMMUNICATIONS. The length of railway open to traffic in the United Kingdom on Dec. 31, 1914, was 23,701 miles, as compared with 23,691 miles at the end of 1913, and 23,205 at the end of 1912. The paid-up capital, Dec. 31, 1914, was £1,421,848,000; total receipts during the year, £139,098,000; working expenses, £88,173,000; net receipts, £50,925,000 (£52,011,000 in 1913). The length of tramway and light railway at the end of 1913 was 2675 miles; paid-up capital, £77,198,680; net receipts, £5,588,121. A summary for the year 1914, with comparative figures for 1913, was issued during the year by the commercial department of the British board of trade and gave the following statistics 1912 1918 1912 of the railways of the United Kingdom, for the .134,579 141,652 64,637 59,453 calendar year 1914, with comparative figures 70,048 80,411 59,572 60,500 for the previous year. It was stated that on 52,149 48,420 59,775 71,670 account of the war no further statistics for the 45,505 46,353 37,532 40.882 40,808 42,485 21,325 23,437 year would be published. 40,539 40,271 21,786 27,694 26,881 30,488 27,320 27,307 36,112 38,065 38,281 37,829 Mileage of Lines Open for Traffic. 23,616 23,382 19,556 Running Lines: Belgium 20,660 1914 1918 Miles Miles Egypt New Zealand 25,790 21,395 11,186 14,552 14,394 7,678 13,236 14,213 8,104 10,627 11,790 8,631 9,235 11,070 4,753 5,088 Italy Austria-Hungary Straits Settlements*. 18,239 Japan + China Brazil 3,933 4,388 12,471 14,827 Authorized Capital: SHIPPING. The total net tonnage (exclusive of the coasting trade) entered at the ports, with cargo and in ballast, was 76,190,616 in 1912 and 82,148,569 in 1913; cleared, 76,266,429 and 82,661,012. The British tonnage entered in 1912 was 44,291,842, and in 1913, 46,602,920; German, 7,761,144 and 9,073,855; Norwegian, 5,523,796 and 5,883,316; Swedish, 2,991,136 and 3,400,660; Dutch, 3,027,243 and 3,169,375; Danish, 2,987,971 and 3,149,675; French, 1,888,246 and 2,248,981. In 1913, the British merchant marine consisted of 12,602 steamers, of 18,683,039 tons gross, and 8336 sail, of 846,504 tons gross; total, Shares and stock ...$5,046,116,500 $4,885,481,250 Total Paid-up-Capital. 1,989,110,520 1,979,521,740 .$7,035,227,020 $6,865,002,990 (The figures preceded by *show the nominal additions to capital included in the figures above.) Ordinary Preferential Guaranteed Loans $2,399,824,260 $2,396,291,040 * 453,520,620 * 451,134,360 173,990,430 1,724,308,560 213,703,920 * 213,752,520 604,268,100 84,384,180 58,820,580 * 216,513,000 Total 1,711,536,480 1,699,605,180 216,517,860 The The first application in the British Isles of electric locomotives for heavy goods traffic was inaugurated on the North-Eastern Railway on the electrified section from Shildon to Newport. This electrified line has no steep grades, and the traffic consists of heavy freight for the blast furnaces at Erimus sidings, Newport, near Middlesborough. An overhead system is employed with two bow collectors on each locomotive. There were 10 locomotives, which are eightwheeled, with a motor driving each axle, and capable of hauling a load of 1000 tons. power is supplied at 1500 volts to the overhead conductors, which will be about 17% feet above rail level. The first section of the London and South-Western Railway's newly electrified lines from Waterloo Station, in London, to Wimbledon (through East Putney), was opened for traffic on Oct. 25, 1915, while the second portion of the electrified system, which includes Waterloo, Barnes, Richmond, Kingston, Wimbledon, Clapham Junction, Waterloo, was nearly ready for operation at that time. Up to Aug. 31, 1915, 92,658 employees of the railways of the United Kingdom had enlisted in the British army, this being not less than 14.9 per cent of the total 621,588 men who were employed at the beginning of the war. On March 31, 1913, there were 75,042 miles of state telegraph and telephone line, with 2,661,378 miles of wire. Post offices, March 31, 1914, 24,447. FINANCE. The monetary unit is the pound sterling, whose par value is $4.86656. Ordinary revenue (actual receipts into the exchequer) and ordinary expenditure (actual issues out of the exchequer chargeable against revenue) have been as follows, in years ended March 31st: in 1900, £129,804,566 and £143,687,068; in 1905, £153,182,782 and £151,768,875; in 1910, £131,696,456 and £157,944,611; in 1912, £185,090,286 and £178,545,100; in 1913, £188,801,999 and £188,621,930; in 1914, £198,242,897 and £197,492,969. The table below shows receipts into the exchequer, under the principal heads thereof, in the fiscal years 1913 and 1914: Property and income tax. Tax revenue Postal service. Telegraph service shares and sundry loans Total revenue Exclusive of fee and patent stamps. Receipts into the exchequer in 1914-15 and the estimates for 1915-16 are as follows: Revenue * Estate, etc., duties. Property and income tax. Land value duties. Tax revenue Telegraph service Postal service Receipts from Suez Canal Miscellaneous 1914-15 42,313,000 28,382,000 630,000 1,930,000 69,399,000 412,000 1915-16 £38,950,000 56,250,000 28,000,000 6,500,000 660,000 1,990,000 103,000,000 350,000 £189,305,000 £235,700,000 .£ 20,400,000 6,700,000 530,000 £20,600,000 3,000,000 3,100,000 6,250,000 545,000 1,277,000 2,002,000 It will be seen that in 1914-15 the issues out of the exchequer, £206,924,000, aggregated less than the revenue, £226,694,000; but between the outbreak of the war in August, 1914, and the end of the fiscal year, Mar. 31, 1915, votes of credit were taken amounting to £362,000,000. The war budget submitted by the chancellor of the exchequer on Sept. 21, 1915, shows estimated revenue for the fiscal year 1916 amounting to £272,000,000, a sum a little larger than the total given in the table above. The expend1913-14 iture was estimated at £1,590,000,000, the esti£35,540,000 39,590,000 mated deficit being £1,318,000,000. See para27,359,000 graph The Budget under section History. 9,966,000 On Nov. 15, 1915, the prime minister moved a 700,000 2,000,000 vote of credit for £400,000,000, this amount rais ing the total of the five votes taken up to that time during the fiscal year (that is, since April 1st) to £1,300,000,000. Add to this sum the total of the votes of credit between August, 1914, and March 31, 1915, and the total votes of credit during the war up to Nov. 15, 1915, are seen to be £1,662,000,000. And the fiscal vote of credit was expected to carry the war only to the middle of February, 1916. The nominal amount of the funded debt on March 31, 1914, was £586,717,872; estimated capital liability in respect of terminable amenities, £29,552,219; unfunded debt, £35,000,000 (including treasury bills temporarily paid off, but renewable not later than June 30); total "deadweight" debt, £651,270,091. The net increase of the debt during 1914-15 was £457,546,985, so that on March 31, 1915, the "dead-weight" debt was £1,108,816,076. And it was expected that a sum about double this amount would represent the "dead-weight" debt on March 31, 1916. ARMY. See MILITARY PROGRESS, passim. NAVY. Additions to the navy since the beginning of the war in August, 1914, cannot be stated. The following statement issued by the Office of Naval Intelligence at Washington relates to July 1, 1914. Number and displacement of warships of 1500 or more tons, and of torpedo craft of 50 or more tons, built and building: Dreadnoughts (battleships having a main battery of all big guns, that is, 11 or more inches in calibre): built, 20, of 423,350 tons; building, 16, of 421,750 tons. Pre-dreadnoughts (battleships of about 10,000 or more tons, whose main batteries are of more than one calibre): built, 40, of 589,385 tons; building, none. Coast-defense vessels (smaller battleships and monitors), none built or building. Battle cruisers (ar mored cruisers having guns of largest calibre in main battery and capable of taking a place in line of battle with the battleships): built, 9, of 187,800 tons; building, 1, of 28,500 tons. Armored cruisers: built, 34, of 406,800 tons; building, none. Cruisers (unarmored warships of 1500 or more tons): built, 74, of 382,815 tons; building, 17, of 67,000 tons. Torpedo-boat destroyers: built, 167, of 125,850 tons; building, 21, of 21,770 tons. Torpedo boats: built, 49, of 11,488 tons; building, none. Submarines: built, 75, of 30,362 tons; building, 22, of 17,236 tons. Total tonnage: built 2,157,850; building, 556,256. Excluded from the foregoing: ships over 20 years old from date of launch unless reconstructed and rearmed within five years; torpedo craft over 15 years old; ships not actually begun or ordered although authorized; transports, colliers, repair ships, torpedo-depot ships, and other auxiliaries. The active personnel, July 1, 1914, was reported at 150,609 officers and men. See also NAVAL PROGRESS. GOVERNMENT. The executive authority is vested in the King, acting through his ministers. The legislative power devolves upon the Parliament, which consists of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The peers entitled to sit in the House of Lords in 1915 numbered 654, including the lords spiritual and temporal, and three princes of the blood royal. The second Parliament of George V, which convened Jan. 31, 1911, had 670 members in the House of Commons. England is represented by 465 members, Wales 30, Scotland 72, and Ireland 103. The King in 1915 was George V, born June 3, 1865; he succeeded to the throne May 6, 1910, as the second but only surviving son of Edward VII. He married July 6, 1893, Princess Victoria Mary, only daughter of the late Duke of Teck. Heir-apparent, Edward Albert, Prince of Wales, born Dec. 14, 1895. HISTORY THE GOVERNMENT'S TASK. The endeavors of the government to find money, men, and munitions for the prosecution of the war constituted the outstanding feature of British politics during the year 1915. It was comparatively easy to supply the money, although the increasing burden of the war debt might well give rise to solicitude for the future. Guns and ammunition were less readily obtained: the construction of new munition factories and the organization of the industry entailed painful delay, and the rules of the trade-unions hampered the work. Even more arduous was the task of suddenly creating an enormous army without doing violence to the cherished traditions of the people by establishing compulsory military service. These three great problems--finance, the supply of munitions, and the recruitment of the army-are separately discussed in the paragraphs that follow. THE COST OF THE WAR. Providing the huge sums required to defray her own and part of her allies' expenses in the war was the least of Great Britain's difficulties. In his budget speech of May 4th, the chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. David Lloyd George, informed the House of Commons that the daily cost of the war to Great Britain, not including the sums advanced to colonies and allies, then stood at about £2,100,000 a day. The total expenditure for the year 1915-16, if the war continued, would amount to about £1,322,654,000-more than double the expenditure for 1914-15. About one-third of this sum would be raised by taxation; the deficit would be no less than £862,322,000, and would have to be raised by internal loans. The estimate of the war's cost made by Mr. Lloyd George in May was soon exceeded in fact. Hardly a month after Lloyd George had stated the daily expenditure to be £2,000,000, Mr. Asquith announced that the daily cost had risen to an average of £2,660,000, and that during the next three months at least £3,000,000 a day would be expended. At the request of the government, Parliament authorized an issue of securities up to a maximum total of £1,000,000,000, at 42 per cent interest. In order to induce the middle and lower middle classes to invest, five shilling shares of the new loan were offered on sale at post offices. The effect of the war expenditure upon Great Britain's economic life was explained by Mr. Asquith in a speech in the Guildhall June 27th. Before the war, the annual income of the nation had attained a figure somewhere between £2,250,000,000 and £2,400,000,000; the annual expenditure of the nation was estimated at about £2,000,000,000. Thus there was a surplus of from £250,000,000 to £400,000,000 which could be saved or invested, and which would ordinarily be available for the purchase of government loans. But the amount needed for the war was now £1,000,000,000 a year. The balance of trade, moreover, had turned against Great Britain. Comparing board of trade statistics for the first five months of the year 1915 with those for the same period a year ago, it appeared that imports had increased by £35,500,000 while exports and reëxports had fallen off by £73,750,000. These figures signified, the speaker went on to say, that in five months nearly 110 millions sterling had been added to Great Britain's foreign obligations, "and if that rate continued until we reached the end of a completed year, the figure of our indebtedness would rise to over 260 millions." In order to correct this balance of trade, imports of luxuries must be rigorously curtailed; tea, tobacco, wine, sugar, and petrol must be used sparingly, if at all; and the nation must learn thrift and save money to invest in the war loans. In this connection it may not be amiss to remark that the need for economy was hardly less pressing in England than in Germany, for although the seas remained free to British trade, the cost of living had increased at an alarming rate. In London the price of wheat had risen from 348. 11d. just before the war to 45s. at the beginning of the year 1915. KITCHENER'S ARMY. The result of Lord Kitchener's labors as minister of war, in raising, drilling, and equipping a vast volunteer army to reënforce the puny original expeditionary force of three army corps, was indicated in April when the chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. David Lloyd George, speaking in the House of Commons, revealed the fact that altogether 36 divisions or about 750,000 men had been sent to the front. "Kitchener's army" was a wonderful achievement, in the face of almost insuperable obstacles, such as the difficulty of raising a large army on a purely voluntary basis, and the absence at the outset of any organization or equipment adequate to deal with such numbers of men. Nevertheless when "Kitchener's army" was compared with Joffre's army, and the length of the battle line held by British troops was compared with the length held by the French, it was patent that Great Britain was not doing her full share. Two or three million men were needed. Hints of conscription were heard. Newspaper correspondents asserted that complaints were being raised in France at England's failure to furnish a larger contingent. On May 18th Lord Kitchener issued a call for 300,000 new recruits. In June Premier Asquith announced that the total number of men for army and navy sanctioned by Parliament-3,200,000-would not be exceeded without the authority of Parliament. Meanwhile enlistment continued regularly, but without the alacrity and spontaneous enthusiasm which might have been desired. It was necessary for eloquent speakers to tour the country, addressing mass meetings, to urge young men to enlist. Still recruiting lagged. On August 15th a National Register or census was taken of all persons, of both sexes, between the ages of 15 and 65, so that the government might have exact information of the numbers available both for service in the army and for labor in munitions factories. On the following day, August 16th, the journals owned by Lord Northcliffe opened a campaign in favor of compulsory "National Service." The London Times published a manifesto in favor of National Service, signed by a number of prominent men, including Sir F. G. Banbury, Lord Charles Beresford, the Bishop of Birmingham, Lord Denman, Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Rider Haggard, Sir Starr Jameson (author of the "Jameson Raid"), Lord Northcliffe, Sir Arthur Pinero, and Sir William Ramsay. The Daily Mail published the same manifesto, accompanied by a furious editorial attack upon voluntary service, and a suggestion that local committees organize mass meetings to demand compulsion. From the middle of August to the end of the year, the campaign for National Service increased in intensity, and the hot debate between advocates of compulsion and defenders of free enlistment loomed larger and larger upon the political horizon. More serious THE SHORTAGE OF MUNITIONS. than either the question of finance or the difficulty of recruiting was the shortage of munitions. According to a statement made by Mr. David Lloyd George in the House of Commons, Great Britain had made wonderful progress in manufacturing artillery ammunition: if 20 be taken as representing the output in September of 1914, in October the output was 90; in November, 90; in December, 156; in January, 186; in February, 256; in March, 388. Still the supply was insufficient, and the shortage of munitions was undeniable. On March 15th Lord Kitchener gravely warned the House of Lords that "the work of supplying and equipping new armies depends largely on our ability to obtain the war material required." Armament firms, to be sure, and most of the employees had responded nobly to the demands laid upon them, but still the minister of war was obliged to admit that "the output is not only not equal to our necessities, but does not fulfill our expectations." Orders had not been filled on time. The lack of labor was hampering the munitions factories. Idleness, slack work, drunkenness, and trade-union restrictions were responsible for the dire plight in which the nation found itself, in so far as they hindered work on munitions orders. Perhaps the laboring classes were misled by the fatuous confidence in Great Britain's ability to win the war without half trying, Lord Kitchener suggested. His only comment on such confidence was this: "I can only say that the supply of war material at the present moment and for the next two or three months is causing us very serious anxiety, and I wish all those engaged in the manufacture and supply of these stores to realize that it is absolutely essential not only that the arrears in the deliveries of our munitions of war should be wiped off, but that the output of every round of ammunition is of the utmost importance and has a large influence on our operations in the field." A new Defense of the Realm Bill, which was being submitted to the consideration of the House, would help, Lord Kitchener hoped, to expedite the manufacture of munitions. As for the complaint of the laborers that they were unjustly treated, Lord Kitchener observed, "Labor may very rightly ask that their patriotic work should not be used to inflate the profits of the directors and shareholders of the various great industrial and armament firms, and we are therefore arranging a system under which the important armament firms will come under government control, and we hope that workmen who work regularly by keeping good time shall reap some of the benefits which the war automatically confers on these great companies." The new Defense of the Realm Act, submitted to Parliament in March, to which the war minister referred, gave the government power to |