"Orders placed before the formation of the department were delivered with an increase of 16 per cent. on previous deliveries. The number of new orders placed increased by 80 per cent.
"The state regulation of the metal market resulted in a saving of from 15 to 20 million pounds sterling.
"The present output of shells for a single week is three times as great as the entire output for May, 1915, which means that the rate of production is twelve times as great.
"The enormous quantity of shells consumed during the offensive of September, 1915, was made good in a month. The time will soon come when a week will suffice.
"The output of machine guns is five times as great; that of hand grenades is increased forty fold.
"The production of heavy artillery has been accelerated, and the heaviest guns of the early days of the war are now among the lightest.
"An explosive factory in the south of England, which on October 15, 1915, started to fill bombs at the rate of 500 a week with a staff of 60, was in March, 1916, turning out 15,000 a week with a staff of 250.
"An entirely new factory which started work at the end of October, 1915, with one filling shed and six girl fillers and an output of 270 a week, was in March, 1916, employing 175 girls and handling 15,000 bombs a week.
"The Ministry of Munitions has built, or is building, housing accommodation for 60,000 workers, and canteens and mess rooms in munition works now give accommodation for 500,000 workers a day.
"All the workmen were assigned either to the works already in existence—which in many cases were short of hands and unable for this reason to fulfill their contracts—or else they were allotted to the new factories.