§ I wish now to deal quite briefly with the low output of January and February, which I brought most prominently before the House in my recent statement. In January and February, 1917, which was shortly after the present Government came in, the output was 127,000 tons in the two months, and in 1918 it is 158,000 tons—not a very satisfactory increase, although the January figure in peace-time is always low. It is true that these are winter months—usually the worst of 1034 the year for outdoor work. This year the conditions, after the first week of January, were quite abnormally bad, and it must be remembered that this is very largely outdoor work. It is also true that the necessity brought about by war conditions of converting several standard cargo steamers, which were under construction and due for delivery during these months, into oil carriers to make up abnormal submarine sinkings, deferred delivery of a considerable amount of tonnage which would otherwise have fallen into these months. It is true that repairs undertaken have steadily increased and reached the remarkable increase I have mentioned in that month, namely, 500,000 tons per week repair.
These reasons alone, however—potent and important though they be—do not account for the drop in output from the average of 140,000 tons per month for the last quarter of last year to 58,000 tons in January and 100,000 tons in February. There was a sufficient and an increasing quantity of steel, and increasing numbers of men, and I do not think that any reasonable critic can maintain that a Department which gave the satisfactory results of the last quarter of last year in both building and repairing of all kinds could, in these circumstances, be held responsible for a sudden drop of this kind. If I was wrong in saying—and I do not think I was—that even now some masters and men have not realised the position, I am wrong in supposing that it will help us at all to publish the facts, and, if so, I err in very good company. My right hon. Friend opposite, and hon. Members in all parts of the House, the Press and the public, urged us to publish the facts. Why? Because publication was needed to dispel ignorance and to quicken imagination, so that the country—including the masters and men—should thoroughly realise the position. If my statement brings about that result, and I think it will, I shall be quite content.