alone we can depend if we are going to build up a vigorous and class conscious fighting force. Having that to strengthen our morale, to impart courage, and to emancipate our minds from the subtle influence of middle-class thought and prejudice, let us see how the events of the last few years have affected "the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange," which, Marx said, "will inevitably modify every other branch and department of human life, political, ethical, religious, moral, etc." Let us study the vast improvements in the technique of production and in the mobilisation of manufactures which have been stimulated and expedited by the organisation of the nation's industries for war and for war preparations. Thereby may we bring home to the world how their conditions have been changed and what part they may and must play in the emancipation of themselves as individuals and as a class.
Naval Armaments and Industry.
There has all along been the closest connection between experiments and devices for weapons of war and invention and improvement in industrial processes. Gun manufacture in the 14th and 15th centuries gave to the world the method of casting iron, and in 1856 Bessemer, in endeavouring to produce a stronger iron for cannon, hit upon the converter process of making steel on a large scale, thereby rendering wrought iron almost obsolete for heavy engineering work, and laying the foundation of the modern steel industry with all its wonderful achievements and its unforeseen social and political consequences. This invention brought together the artillery maker and the steel producer. The use and improvement of armour plate called for great research into metal alloys, stimulating new metal manufactures, such as nickel, phosphor-bronze, tungsten, etc., and combining these with the original iron and steel trade. Then, the introduction of tougher steel, made available by reason of this blending of metals, necessitating the construction and use of powerful forging machinery, presses, heavy machine tools and high-speed tool steels. All this resulted in alliances and combines and amalgamations between ironstone and other mineowners, ironmasters, steel producers, tool makers, metal manufacturers and others. Steel works made railway material, girder work, pipes, tubes and boiler plates, whilst railway contractors, bridge builders, locomotive and marine
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