CONTINUATION SCHOOLS

early in the roth century, it came to be recognised in great britain that the exist- ing elementary schools could no longer satisfy the national edu- cational needs, which had increased considerably through the immense social and economic changes brought about by the in- dustrial revolution: accordingly, attempts were made to sup- plement their work by that of night schools for persons fully occupied during the daytime. under the intluence of such men as dr. birkbeck and lord brougham, mechanics’ institutes were founded with the object of giving the new race of factory workers instruction in the scientific principles in workshop practice. early itistory.—these institutes at first attracted large num- bers of artisans, but their popularity amongst working men continuation schools quickly declined; one of the most important reasons for this was that the elementary education of the workman was in general not sufficient to enable him to profit by the instruction provided in science and mathematics. other organisations, including “ night schools ” taught by elementary teachers came into exist- ence and were carried on for many years without any public as- sistance. in 1851, however, the government decided to make additional! grants to elementary day schools which held continu- ation classes and the number of these increased steadily until 1870, when they had more than 80,000 students. elementary education became compulsory after 1876 and the attendance at night schools declined for a time; the attendance increased, however, after the removal by the evening school code of 1893 of the previous age limit of 21, and of the requirement that all scholars should be instructed in elementary subjects. the act of 1902.—side by side with these night schools, there were in existence from 1856 state-aided classes in science and art. there was, however, no definite connection between the two: the “‘ night schools’ were carried on by the managers of elementary schools and aided by the education dept.: the sci- ence and art schools were conducted by voluntary committees and aided by the science and art department. after the fusion of the education dept. and the science and art dept. into a single board of education, steps were taken in 1901 to secure some connection between the two groups of schools. when the education act of 1902 placed the responsibility for both ele- mentary schools and schools for “ further education” on the county and county borough authorities the continuation schools began to be organised in a definite relation to the technical schools, as the science and art schools had come to be called. the technical school and the continuation schools in a single area arc now commonly directed as an organised system by the principal of the technical school; and, even where this is not the case, the continuation schools exist partly, though not solely, for the preparation of children who have left the clementary school at 14 for entrance at 16 to the more specialised instruc- tion of the technical school. the course of instruction usually requires attendance at school for three evenings a week from sept. until easter. for boys who are in industrial occupa- tions, instruction is usually given in mathematics, technical drawing, science and english, since every boy to be engaged ina skilled occupation should be familiar with workshop calculation and workshop drawing, have some understanding of natural phenomena and be able to express himself readily and accurately either orally or in writing. for those in commercial! occupations, the instruction includes english and arithmetic, together with subjects of a more vocational character. lor those not needing vocational instruction, general and domestic courses are provided. statistics —during the year 1922—3—the latest period for which statistics are available—there were 118,974 boys and girls be- tween 12 and 15 years of age attending evening schools; during that year the number of children of the same age-range who left elementary schools on or after becoming exempt from school attendance was 491,592. © act of r918.—the education act of 1918 laid upon local authorities for higher education the duty of establishing and maintaining day continuation schools in which suitable courses of study, instruction and physical training extending over 320 hours a year were to be provided for all persons between 14 and 18 not attending other schools: attendance at these schools was to be compulsory and free. during a period of seven years from the “ appointed day ” for each authority attendance was, how- ever, to be compulsory only on children from 14 to 16 and fora period of 280 hours a year. a number of authorities, including the london county coun- cil decided to exercise their powers at once and proceeded to establish day continuation schools: accordingly in 1921-2 there were in the country 122 of these schools with 95,530 pupils. during the next year all the authorities except warwickshire (rugby) discontinued, for financial reasons, their compulsory schools, and replaced them, in some cases, by schools at which attendance is voluntary: the number of day continuation schools 709 during 1922-3 had diminished to 82, with 23,317 pupils. usually, the curriculum has no decided vocational bias, but resembles very closely that of the evening continuation school, even when, as sometimes happens, the pupils are nearly all engaged in the same industry or are employed by a single firm (see epuca- tion). (a. ab.) in the united states in the united states continuation (or compulsory part-time) schools are now (1926) found in more than half the states, the age of required attendance reaching 17 or 18 in several states, as new york, california, and wisconsin. generally, however, four to six hours of daytime attendance per weck is required for all employed young persons between 14 and 16 years of age. the first state to establish compulsory continuation schools was wisconsin (tg09). before 1915 massachusetts and new york had enacted legislation permitting any community to re- quire such attendance. all other state legislation has been enacted since rors, and very generally its application is now state-wide, leaving no option to local areas. american interest in continuation schools derives from several sources. as far back as the middle of the roth century the decay of apprenticeship as a means of superior technical training led 1o the foundation of ‘ mechanics’ institutes’ in many cities. these inspired the extensive establishment of public evening classes, especially in industrial centres. but evening classes, valuable as they might be for young adults, seemed poorly adapted and inhumane for juvenile workers. investigations made in massachusetts (1905), new york (ror9), and elsewhere very generally indicated: (a) excessive withdrawal from schools of poorly equipped juvenile workers between 14 and 16 years of age; (b) unsuitability of evening classes for their needs, and (c) possibilities of either full-time or part-time training, for industrial pursuits or for still much needed general education of part-time day attendants. the successful examples of bavaria, saxony, baden and scotland in providing such schools were carefully studied. the passage of the (english) education act of 1918 served as an additional stimulus. continuation schools are now generally administered by city and town school authorities, but with exceptional state and some federal supervision because of the fact that relatively large proportions of their support derive, not from local funds, but from state and (under the smith-hughes act) federal sources. a few cities (notably boston, milwaukee, new york and newark) have established central schools exclusively for con- tinuation-schoo] pupils. in some cases classes are maintained in commercial or industrial establishments employing large numbers of workers within the required attendance age. the difficulty of providing competent teachers for continua-' tion schools has heretofore prevented the public from having anything like a full realisation of their possible benefits. classes” or groups formed in continuation schools are necessarily more heterogeneous than are classes in ordinary public schools. fach teacher must meet from 150 to 300 pupils per week, with a consequent dispersion of personal contact and impairment of understanding. theoretically, at any rate, the subjects taught should be very differently organised from subjects of similar names in ordinary public schools, | the problems of appropriate curricula have been found still more complicated. doubtless many of the earlier supporters of compulsory part-time schools believed that these schools would solve problems of vocational training. in practice they have done so only in a limited number of instances. on the other hand, at best these schools have been found very efficacious in making more real and significant such kinds of general education as pupils had already had, and also in keeping them in touch with school procedures in such ways that many have returned to full-time schools. authorities still differ considerably as to the actual educational functions that should be made the primary objectives of these schools. one group favours a considerable range of studies, even though profound learning is not practicable within the 710 limits of the time available. another group favours much con- centration on the part of individual pupils according to bent, outside employment, possibilities ahead and the like. in the meantime, minority groups of dissatisfied employers or parents in certain states have made many attempts to repeal the legisla- tion establishing continuation schools. in practically no in- stance have+¢hese attempts succeeded. it is therefore reasonable to assume that continuation school education has finally been adopted as an integral and important part of the american public-school system. (d. sn.) contraception: see birth control. control, inter-allied.—the national controls of shipping and commodities, especially foodstuffs, which gradually developed in each combatant country throughout the world war were, during its last years, linked together in a comprehensive international system. this international control was a counter- part of the unity of military command which was achieved at about the same period, and it was among the decisive factors in the issue of the struggle. it was different, not only in its enor- mous range and extent, but in the principles of its organisation from anything previously known in administration. and it has had a profound effect on the developments of the methods and machinery by which post-war world problems are now handled. for these reasons it deserves more attention from the student of political and economic science than it has yet received. a full account would need to describe not only the purely inter- national system but the national organisations in all the coun- tries concerned on which it was based, and through which its decisions were translated into action. the present brief ac- count will describe the international machinery, and it will give a short account of the national controls in great britain, with- out which the international system is scarcely intelligible. it will deal only with the arrangements designed to secure the supplies of the allies, and not with those designed to intercept the supplies of their enemies (see blockade). no consideration is needed of the system in germany or the countries allied with her, for her unchallenged predominance in her own system made any real international organisation unnecessary; nor of the con- trols in neutral countries which were separate and independent. controls before the war—before the war most of the organised and continuous international activities of the world were on a voluntary basis. when we turn from the sphere of voluntary to that of official action we find that international organisation was of the most modest and limited character. there were a few institutions devoted to scientific research and not involving executive action, like the institute of agriculture at rome, and some others with power of action, but of a very definitcly restricted or intermittent character, hke the danube commis- sion or the postal union. but the official organisation of the world was essentially national. except for such secondary and strictly limited tasks as those just mentioned, there was no permanent machinery of international administration or even consultation. where agreement between countries was needed negotiations were conducted through the foreign offices and their embassies. conferences were arranged from time to time, but these were improvised for special tasks, leaving no nucleus of permanent machinery when these tasks were finished. it is necessary to bear clearly in mind this almost exclusively national character of the official organisation of the pre-war world, if we are to understand the significance of the fundamentally different allied system during the war and the development of inter- national machinery which succeeded it. at the same time such bodies as the danube commission were, within their restricted limits, independent and autonomous authorities. once they had been established by agreement be- tween the governments concerned they were independent of those governments and of their administrations for the conduct of their current work. they possessed sufficient delegated au- thority to act without reference back to the governments by which they were originally constituted. this was only possible because of the narrow range of their task and the fact that its execution did not seriously affect national policies. contraception—control, inter-allied the war organisation was in the nature of the case fundamen- tally different from this. the essence of its work was to guide and direct the vital supplies system of the allies, which was a basic factor in the national policy of each country. no inter- national authority could, under these conditions, have been entrusted with delegated powers independent of, and over- riding, the national governments. the principle of the new sys- tem therefore was to link together the national systems. every international control was based on national control. it would indeed be more correct to say that the national controls were incorporated into an international system than that a new sys- tem was created. it is for this reason that we must begin by understanding the national controls, particularly in great brit- ain, which was the main centre of the allied supply organisation. i. the british system we are all familiar with the ordinary economic system by which supply and demand were adjusted before the war and which afterwards was being painfully and with modifications re-established. its essential characteristic, so familiar and yet so wonderful, is that it works itself. the equation is balanced without any human brain understanding it or needing to under- stand it. over the whole range of human activities and human need, production is adjusted to consumption by a process which is automatic, elastic and responsive. if the public demands more of any article than the market can at that moment supply, prices rise. those least willing or least able to pay the higher prices abandon or defer their purchases. a little later the higher profits encourage greater production. neither consumer nor producer need calculate by how much consumption need be reduced or production increased. each finds his sufficient guide in the changing price level. the adjustment is thus effected by a mechanism which registers and expresses the desires of myriads of consumers, not by the individual decisions of a few who judge between these desires and direct accordingly. but for the conditions of war needs and shortage this system, independent of deliberate direction and control, proved blind and wasteful. it produced too little, it produced the wrong things, and it distributed them to the wrong people. it produced too little. it had, it is true, the spur of individual enterprise and individual profit. but the exact adjustment to the individual taste of the consumer effected by the ordinary economic proc- ess involves the allocation of an enormous proportion of work to what may, in the widest sense, be called distribution as dis- tinct from production. marketing is as important, and as expen- sive, as making. in war, however, the state can make its own demands in mass. it can order direct, and without middlemen. and the commodities which the individual consumers need, and all that in a national crisis they should have, are the necessities of life for which the demand exceeds the supply. for these con- ditions, the economic system, surveyed from the central point of view of the country’s necessities, was seen to be swarming with middlemen who had suddenly become superfluous. under these special conditions of mass orders by the govt., and a pressure of demand from the civilian population, which transformed the problem of marketing into one of rationing, the economies of central control proved enormous. similarly the ordinary economic system, by the new standards of the country’s necessities, produced the wrong things and dis- tributed them to the wrong people. its criterion was not essen- tial need, but effective economic demand. under conditions of national shortage this criterion is no longer a tolerable one. with production reduced by recruiting, the manufacture of luxuries will compete with supplies to the front. with only bread enough for bare physical needs it will cause alternate surfeit and starvation. under the special conditions of the war the normal mechanism of the adjustment of supply to demand thus proved inadequate. it failed to respond to the imperative need for intensive produc- tion, for selection between the essential and the superfluous, for a tolerably fair distribution. within a year the delicate machine was smashed. in its place the constructive brain had to build control, inter-allied rapidly something to replace it; to survey needs and resources as a whole; to measure the relative importance of food beyond a certain amount, and of munitions beyond a certain amount, when more or both were wanted but, through shortage of produc- tion, of transport or finance, more could not be supplied. so, one by one, the necessities of life were brought under control, their purchase centralised, their transport allotted, their prices fixed, their consumption rationed. and, for the central problem of this huge task, there was no expert knowledge to draw upon. no one before had had to weigh the competing claims of munitions, of raw materials and of food; to decide up to what point each should be met at the expense of the others; and in accordance with his judgment to determine. for this new task the skill had to be developed, the experience acquired, the organisation improvised. the new system was not introduced full-fledged on any recog- nition of such general principles as have just been indicated. on the contrary it was applied piecemeal, gradually and often with obvious reluctance, to one commodity after another under the compelling force of a breakdown of the peace system. usu- ally, though the order varied from commodity to commodity, the first motive was to save the treasury the expense of inflated competitive prices for war materials, then to mitigate the public indignation at similar prices for their own purchases, and lastly the need of distributing equitably what had become a bare sufficiency of the necessities of life. sugar.—the first commodity to require action was sugar. over three-quarters of british supplies in 1913 were drawn from germany and austria-hungary. war therefore threatened immediate short- age. the govt. acted promptly, and within the first three weeks of the war had made large purchases and appointed the royal com- mission on sugar supplies. the loss from austria and hungary was made good from the west indies, cuba and java. the commission arranged distribution throughout the trade, allotting amounts and fixing prices. at first it was found sufficient merely to instruct the retailer to sell at a certain price under penalty of the stoppage of supplies. but later the distributing trade became in effect the agents of the govt. selling on public account at a fixed rate of profit. and ultimately the ministry of food rationed the individual consumer. wheat and flour.—for a time wheat was bought, and bread made, under the normal system. the problem was less urgent and morc in- tricate than that of sugar. for wheat was partly produced at home, and the balance was drawn, not from enemy countries, but from dominions or neutrals whose supplies were still available up to the limits of finance and sea transport. supply through private enter- prise continued, and on the whole successfully, though at rising prices, until 1916. in that year difficulties of supply and of transport com- pelled the royal commission on wheat supplies to undertake the complete control of purchase and importation on the same prin- ciples as the sugar commission. in the following year control was extended from the comparatively simple task of purchase to the infinitely more intricate task of distribution; and it included not only sugar and wheat, but all the prime articles of food, other cercals as well as wheat, fresh as well as frozen meat, oils and fats and the scores of subsidiary foodstuffs. in the same year most of the external arrangements were also put upon an official basis. the australian and indian governments already sold as governments, making their own internal arrangements with the individual producers. but hitherto the sellers in america had been the private trade. in june 1917, however, a canadian food controller was appointed and in aug. the amcrican food con- troller obtained power to fix prices. henceforth wheat was bought from canada and the states, from australia and india alike on the basis of bulk agreements between governments. the argentine was the only producing country of the first importance still outside the system of official control. munitions supply.—the same process of increasing control, each new step forced partly by the inadequacy or expensiveness of the private system and partly by the consequences of partial measures already taken, is to be seen in the sphere of munitions supply, which quickly absorbed practically all the metal imports and engineering resources of the country. when war was declared a few guns ancl rifles were being made at woolwich and enfield, a few explosives at the royal powder factory. but even the small expeditionary force was largely dependent on private manufacture, and neither public nor private factories could cope with more than the smallest fraction of the new requirements. gradually the ministry of muni- tions, created in june 1915, brought under its authority the manu- facture of munitions throughout the country, developing new re- sources, building its own factories and controlling in every detail the manufacture in private establishments. for the latter purpose an intricate system of “‘ costing "’ (afterwards a main feature of the food control) was devised, t.e., asystem of ascertaining the exact cost 711 of each operation under different conditions of manufacture. the price of the finished article was then limited to this cost plus an addition giving a sufficient margin of variable profit to encourage rapidity of output. the way in which the govt. was forced on from step to step is well illustrated by the ministry’s experience with steel. action was first forced by the necessity of limiting prices. the war office was buying for woolwich, enfield and the army repair shops, private firms were buying for public and private work. the state was thus directly or indirectly bidding against itself through hundreds of different agents. the ministry began by fixing a maximum price for shell steel. the immediate consequence was that ‘ commercial steel’? fetched prices more attractive to manufacturers and shell steel suffered. prices had therefore to be fixed for all classes of steel alike. it then became necessary to arrange the distribution of the steel available among all the many departments and factories who needed it, whether for military or civilian work, because, once prices had been fixed, the automatic regulator of the price level was gone, and nothing but deliberate allotment could decide who was to get the steel available. thus the ministry was forced to a general survey of all resources, both foreign and internal, and of all needs, both public and private. with an infinite variety of method the ministry extended its grasp over all the raw materials required for munitions, over the metals, both ferrous and non-ferrous and over the chemicals required for explosives: iron, ores, copper, zinc and spelter, lead, tin, platinum, aluminium, oils, nitrates, coal-tar, etc. by the end of 1917 the national system was practically complete for both metals and food, and the two great ministries ultimately brought under their ss authority 70% of the national imports. (see munitions of war. war office control of raw mfatertals—many of the remaining raw materials were being simultaneously dealt with by the war office. wool, flax, jutes, hides and leather were required for uniforms, for tents, for sandbags, for saddles and boots. if these raw materials had been left under competitive conditions, no firm contract could have been made with the manufacturer of the finished article, for he could not estimate within wide limits one of the main factors in his costs. the war office, therefore, purchased the raw materials in bulk. this, however, necessitated monopoly of purchase; other- wise private competition, under the conditions of shortage, would again have clriven prices to fantastic heights. but, monopoly once obtained, the responsibility was thrown direct upon the govt. to decide what quantities should be allotted for civilian consumption and under what conditions. the easiest method would, of course, have been simply to sell to the trade and let the trade deal with the different manufacturers. but, since the supplies available were far short of the full civilian demand, this would have meant exorbitant profits for the trade and intolerably high prices for civilian clothing and boots, etc. the war office, therefore, supervised in detail the supplies of the whole country. they fixed the prices at which the manufacturer obtained his raw material and sold to the retailer, and at which the retailer sold to the public. board of trade control of other commodities.—mcantime, more slowly, less completely and by more commercial methods, the board of trade brought under its authority the remaining imports: timber (through a timber controller), tobacco, cotton (through a committee formed by the trade at liverpool), paper and pulp (under a paper controller). ultimately over 90°% of the imports of the country were handled by the govt. or by committees acting for them, and through them the uses to which they were devoted were directed in the public interest. the system, with an enormous variety of method and expedient, was uniform in its main principles and, before the war ended, astonishingly complete and effective. the home gavt. bought in bulk from foreign countries, often from their governments or at prices fixed by them, and requisitioned at fixed prices the home sup- plies. with the raw materials thus in their hands they directed the uses to which they should be put, the distribution and the price of the finished article. the great bulk of the producing and distribut- ing trades of the country, while working under their normal proc- esses and methods of internal organisation, had become agents of the govt., selling on public account on the basis of commission. so much for the british control of commodities. with vary- ing methods and varying efficacy national control was similarly established in allied countries. these separate national controls were, as we shall sce, the essential foundation of the joint allied control which developed from them. merchant shipping.—but, if we are to understand the process of this development, we must first consider one more control, which the submarine made the centre of the whole system, the control of merchant shipping. a few statistics will show in a moment why shipping became the centre of the international supply organisation, and why london was its inevitable headquarters. before the war the communications of the world were maintained by some 8,000 ocean-going ships. of these over one-third were destroyed by 712 the submarine. new building could make little compensation for these losses till 1918, when the immense increase in american building, combined with the successful protection afforded by the convoy system, began to redress the balance. and while the supply of shipping was thus recluced, the need of transport, for troops, for munitions, for the raw materials of the armies’ sup- plies, was immensely increased. the result was that the total supplies of great britain and her allies depended upon how much they could transport, and the character of these supplies on the way in which the available ships were allocated. and of the 8,000 ships the british empire owned over 4,000, france, italy, belgium and portugal owning barely 1,000 between them. at the outbreak of war the govt. at once requisitioned, at fixed prices, the ships it needed for its own direct requirements: liners for the transport of troops and colliers for the conveyance of coal to the fleet. outside such requirements, however, the market was for the time left free. the way in which those en- trusted with this power of requisition were gradually forced to extend their control over all shipping, and through it over all supplies, first national and then allied, the expedients by which, with legitimate reluctance, they attempted to escape or postpone this immense responsibility, and the mechanism of control which was at last developed, form one of the most interesting tales in economic history. it can be only briefly summarised here. the withdrawal of requisitioned tonnage for the transport of troops and army and navy supplies caused an immediate short- age and drove up freights. the higher freights drove up all prices; and comparative luxuries began to outbid necessitics. attempts were made for the first two years or so to meet this difficulty without controlling all ships and supplies, by a system of prohibiting or limiting certain classes of less necessary im- ports. this system, however, failed as the submarine became more successful; for the extent to which whole categories of imports can be classed as unnecessary is very limited. moreover, as one commodity after another was controlled by the govt., it was natural that transport should be arranged in requisitioned tonnage. with every such new extension the area of compctitive chartering became reduced; and within the area of requisitioned transport the regulator of freight rates had necessarily disap- peared. when sugar and cereals and munitions were all govern- ment commodities, when all were carried in requisitioned ships, and when there were not enough ships to go round, the govt. alone could decide how much tonnage should go to each. and if the govt. as a whole did not decide, the responsibility necessarily fell on those entrusted with the allocation of the ships, a respon- sibility for which they felt unfitted, which they were reluctant to assume, but which they could not escape. the years 1915 and 1916 saw a series of expedients designed to mitigate or share this responsibility. a ship licensing com- mittee, a counterpart to the prohibition of imports committee, restrained some ships from obviously unnecessary work. this was useful so far as it went, but it was not far. the shortage remained. when the shortage bore hardly on wheat imports, ships were directed into the wheat trade. the wheat trade was thus helped, but other essential trades only suffered the more. finally in 1916 a shipping control committee was formed, with lord curzon as chairman, to case the burden on the shipping department. they attempted to increase enormously the list of prohibited imports. but their programme was too summary, too much based on purely shipping considerations and too little on a detailed examination of all the uses for which the imports they proposed to prohibit were needed, for which neither they nor anyone at that time possessed the necessary knowledge. they felt unable to undertake the detailed survey of all requirements without which allocation of shipping was a mere groping in the dark. and this expedient, too, failed with its predecessors. shipping control the pivot of other controls —meantime the extending control of commodities by a few great government departments was preparing the way for the real solution. in all the big supply departments, as we have seen, specialised experts were incorporated in the official machine. day by day they were testing the requirements of each industry by the criterion, not control, inter-allied of market prices (which control abolished) but of intrinsic impor- tance in the general scheme of national policy. all under the daily pressure of insuflicient finance, or of available resources, or of transport, were becoming more expert in distinguishing the essential from the merely useful. and the whole system was becoming centralised. the separate controls were soon nearly al! grouped under four central authorities: the war office, the ministry of munitions, the ministry of food and the board of trade. the ministry of shipping, therefore, no longer had to deal with innumerable demands from hundreds of private indus- tries, nor even directly with a score of government controls, but only with a few great ministries, which presented comprehensive programmes covering between them almost the whole range of imported supplies. a new committee, the tonnage priority committee (feb. 1917), presided over by sir l. c. money, the under-secretary in the ministry of shipping, included the exccutive officials from each of these great departments and ad- vised the ministry in the allocation of ships. the milner committce-——the problem of organisation as a national one was now near its solution. it needed one further development. after the intensive submarine campaign of 1917, the allocation of tonnage became the crucial factor in the policies of the great supply departments, particularly those of munitions and food. the decisions involved in modifying programmes of supply exceeded the authority of the officials of whom the ton- nage priority committee was mainly composed. by the end of the year, therefore, a standing cabinet committee was formed under the presidency of lord milner, on which both the great supply departments and the ministry of shipping were alike represented by their ministers, attended by their chief officials. at this committee the competing claims for tonnage were fought out and in main principle decided. there was at last a mech- anism, a central committee of supreme authority, and behind it centralised and co-ordinated commodity controls, by which the nation’s requirements as a whole were surveyed, adjusted and directed. the problem of national organisation was solved; and with it was secured the foundation of the wider international organisation which was to follow. il. the international system for, from the beginning, the real problem was international as well as national. and the need for common action developed as the stress increased. france and italy were buying supplies in the same neutral markets, and they needed transport from the same interchangeable pool of tonnage under british and allied control. we must now follow the steps by which the in- ternational machinery necessitated by these conditions was built up. shipping was the centre of the final organisation, because in the end shipping was the ‘ bottle-neck ”’ of the whole supply system. but it had little to do with the early first efforts at allied co-operation, because in the early part of the war the allies wanted many things which great britain could best supply —guns, shells, uniforms, equipment of every kind, more than they needed ships. above all they needed money, for money could buy all these things and, in 1914, most easily of all the use of ships to carry them. allicd purchases in london.—the first trouble to deal with was that the arrival of hundreds of allied agents in england placing orders with private manufacturers in competition both with each other and our own war office meant confusion and waste of every kind. to prevent this a body known as the com- mission internationale de ravitaillement (c.i.r.) was established in london in ro14. it included representatives of the allied purchasing departments and distributed their demands among british manufacturers with due consideration of similar british orders. it served a useful purpose in restraining prices, and to some extent in pooling knowledge and experience. it was, how- ever, an essentially british organisation to help allied purchasers. it was formed to co-ordinate purchases in great britain. it was under british direction, and obtained its effectiveness from the fact that the purchases were made with british credits. at the control, inter-allied same time it was already a notable step in allied co-operation. in ordinary times if the french ministry of commerce needs to arrange something with the british board of trade, e.g., about shipping, it transmits its request through the british embassy in paris, or the french embassy in london, to the british foreign office, who in turn send it on to the board of trade. the reply comes by the same channel, so that the com- munication between two specialised departments passes four times through the hands and pens of non-specialists—or to be more exact of those who are specialised not in shipping but in the foreign relations of the two countries. the principle of the system, and a natural one for ordinary times, was that if british and french departments needed to discuss shipping the primary fact was, not that shipping was the subject, but that it was france and great britain who were discussing. it was often a convenience to set off, say, a shipping concession on the one hand against a concession of quite another kind, perhaps political. this could only be done by those dealing with the general foreign policy of their countries. but in war this procedure was obviously unsuitable. the intricacy of detailed administrative arrangements required direct contact between specialised ministers and officials of the different countries and the common interests of allies clearly outweighed their divergences. we shall sce, as we follow the development, how these two dominant facts gradually com- pelled the creation of quite a different system, of which it was a principle that a french official wanting british ships was pri- marily a person wanting ships from someone who could supply them, and not primarily a frenchman negotiating with an ing- lishman. the common interest made it unreasonable to make arrangements about food or munitions or ships mere items in general policy between great britain, france and italy, and their technical and complex character made it impracticable. the differences of interest remained, but they were fought out each in their own sphere between the appropriate specialists. the c.i.r., although still on a national basis, already began the inevitable development towards this end. at first the british representative in the c.i.r. would collect allied demands, cen- tralise them and then himself deal with the british officials in the supply departments. then he would bring the allicd supply specialist with him. then he ceased to come himself. ‘ direct contact,” the principle of the final system, was established in individual cases. it still needed to be developed and organised into a system. shipping assistance from great britain to the allies was in 19ts5 and 1916 rather improvised than organised. great britain managed her own shipping programme. if appealed to for help she did her best to deal with the case on its merits. it was a hap- hazard method of emergency assistance not unjustified in the earlier part of the war, when shipping was among the least of the allied problems. but as the pressure increased, more regular methods became necessary under much the same compelling forces as we have seen operating in the establishment of national controls. the allies were for example all chartering neutral ships. at first they competed against each other. an inter- allied chartering executive, formed to prevent competition, was successful in preventing the allies from rushing up the rates against themsclves and each other, but it did not touch the question of how they should be allotted and employed. the british shipping control committee, formed jan. 1916, tried to establish principles to guide the allocation of brit- ish ships to the allies. it failed for the same reasons which made it unsuccessful in dealing with the internal british problem. it knew too little about british needs and less about those of the allies. a year later (jan. 1917) an advance was made by the creation of an inter-allied shipping committee, which included representatives of great britain, france and italy, and attempted to survey the shipping needs of the three coun- tries. this experiment again failed, partly because it was still not fully recognised that, in allocating shipping in time of serious shortage, knowledge of shipping is the least of the difficulties. ‘the important thing, infinitely more intricate, is a knowledge 713 of the supplies which require transport and the uses for which these supplies are needed; and at this date the national work in organising supplies in the different countries was insufficiently developed to enable a central committee to make an adequate survey. but the committee was also constituted on a wrong principle. it included neither ministers with power to bind their governments, nor the officials responsible for the daily work of arranging ships. an effective system required both. though nominally “ inter-allied’”’ it was essentially a committee of allied representatives negotiating for the grant of british ships, not a body bearing a common responsibility for a task examined as a whole. like most of the earlier experiments it had some limited and temporary utility, but was chiefly useful in suggesting by its own failure the principles on which a true allied organisa- tion must be built. meantime the path of real progress was being suggested more positively by some international developments in the system of controlling not ships but commodities. inter-allied allocation of supplies—the british royal com- mission on wheat supplies, established as we have seen in 1916, found itself at once faced with all the evils of competitive pur- chase in the same markets by france and italy. a most effective allied committee, the ‘‘ wheat executive,’ was therefore formed to arrange for the wheat supplies of all three countries and their allocation by agreement. the benefits of co-operation were at once apparent. combined purchase restrained the rise in prices, and there were other and greater advantages. the cereal specialists of the different countries settled among them- selves the proportion of the total supplies each country should have. henceforth those dealing with shipping could deal with cereal demands in the mass. they had no longer to weigh france’s claim against italy’s, but only the competing claim of cereals as a whole against munitions, other food, etc. the next development to follow on the same lines was the creation of a body (ultimately developing into the allied muni- tions council) to survey allied munitions requirements as a whole. this body not only dealt with the question of purchase and claims for transport of all the raw materials required for the manufacture of munitions, but with the allocation of manufac- turing facilities and the finished product. allied purchases in the united states—with the entry of america into the war in 1917 a new authority was created which, but for the continuing destruction by the submarine, might have occupied the central position in the international control system, ihe ‘‘ inter-ally council on war purchase and finance.”’ this was a council formed to co-ordinate the demands of european allics for american credit. so far as america wished to restrict credit to less than the full amounts asked for, this involved an examination of the rival claims for the different supplies. had therefore finance been the limiting factor, as on the whole it was until america’s entry, this body must have dominated the whole supply arrangements. apart from what their own re- sources could produce, the allies would have had just such sup- plies as they could persuade america to give them credits for. but in fact, with america’s entry, finance ceased to be a funda- mental factor in the allicd position. for the new alliance as a whole was almost self-sufficient, and finance in such conditions is a matter of national legislation and inter-allied arrangement. within a country, or within an alliance of which every member is determined upon victory, finance can be created in a moment by a vote of coxgress or parliament. ships, however, cannot be so hastily improvised. shipping was already desperately short and the immediate effect of amer- ica’s entry was rather to increase than to relieve it. till the end of the war the total number of american ships in war service was indeed less than the number required to carry amcrican troops and supplies. under these conditions it was only for the most vital supplies that transport could be found, and for such supplies it was certain that american credits would not be refused. the real struggle was therefore to squeeze supply de- mands within the limits of available shipping, not within those of available finance. this meant that the shipping organisation was the centre of the system. the inter-ally council on war 714 purchase and finance, though in principle of co-ordinate author- itv, in fact accepted the results of the decisions fought out on shipping. we now come to the final impulse, deriving from the shipping scarcity and directed by the shipping authorities, which linked all the highly developed national controls and the more partial allied organs into one comprehensive international system trans port crisis of 1917.—by the autumn of 1917 the pressure on shipping was greater than it had ever been; 17,000,000 tons dead-weight of the world’s shipping had been lost, and less than half had been replaced. more shipping had been lost in the first 1o months of this year than in the previous 30 months of the war. american building had not yet seriously begun. the prospect of her vital contribution to the armed forces meant further de- mands on transport. and, apart from this, the demands were constantly increasing. all the distant expeditions, except to the dardanelles, were fully maintained, and both troops and supplies were being sent to salonica, mesopotamia, palestine and east africa. drafts were still required from canada, south africa, australia and new zealand. the scale of the war in france grew constantly, and the development in the character of warfare involved a larger expenditure of munitions. the navies were at their maximum strength. and serious food trou- bles throughout the winter and spring were anticipated in great britain, france and italy alike. the strain on the shipping authorities, while there was still no comprehensive inter-allied organisation fitted to determine priority between the different supplies, was in these conditions an intolerable one. at any moment the allocation of a batch of ships to food might mean a shortage of vital munitions, an allo- cation to munitions might entail starvation. but by this time, as we have seen, the national organisation in the several countries, which was the indispensable condition of the inter-allied system, was at its full development, and in wheat and munitions partial international arrangements were already working. in great britain the ministry of shipping had full and effective control over every voyage and every cargo, and the whole system supply was centralised under the milner committee. a standing committee under m. clementel, min- ister of commerce, played a similar rele in france. italy’s problem resolved itself practically into coal and cereals, and she had both of these as well as her shipping under complete control. except, however, for consultation between munitions experts and the more fully developed allied action of the wheat execu- tive, these national supply systems were working with little knowledge of each other’s needs. as regards most commodities there was still no means of judging fairly whether the standards of sacrifice and restriction were approximately equal or not. the allied maritime transport council.—those who realised the desperate position of shipping were convinced that it was now essential to develop and complete the system by extending allied committees like the wheat executive over the whole range of supplies, and linking them up by dependence for their transport upon a supreme allied shipping council. on their proposal the necessary decisions were taken at the important allied conference which met in paris in nov. and dec. 1917; and the allied maritime transport council, consisting of two ministers of the three principal european allies and two delegates, was constituted and furnished with an executive organisation. what was the nature of this new council and of the allied supply organisation which now developed rapidly round it? it is essential to realise that it was not a supreme authority acting with a delegated power enabling it to override the governments which created it. no body of men could have been entrusted with such power, and those who at this time proposed either the appointment of a council with supreme executive power or a single economic dictator, were misled by the military analogy or ignorant of the realities of the supply situation. a single decision of such an authority, a reduction in sugar or in wheat imports for example, would penetrate in its effects every civilian household in the countries concerned. no cabinet could abdi- control, inter-allied cate responsibility for such decisions and for their effects. the paris conference rightly therefore rejected the proposal of an “international board with complete executive power over a common pool of tonnage.” “it would,” they explained, “ be difficult for any country, and particularly for america or great britain, to delegate absolute power to dispose of its tonnage british tonnage french tonnage tonnage ge itt, lopnage: outsid a the contren oth “mt cor dmlied 7, : ciag paments yy italien u.s.a. tonnage allied tonnage @ under vontroler a.m.t.cor allied governments neutrai tonne importing services and local trade of principal allies military and naval service of allies fic. 1.—a. extent of allied shipping control, at the armistice. 6. employment of world tonnage, at the armistice. (n.b. tonnage covered by these diagrams consists of sea-going vessels of 500 g.t. and over.) ; (which is the basis of all its civilian and military requirements) to a representative on an international board on which he might be outvoted. under such conditions executive authority, even if conceded in principle, would certainly have broken down in practice.” its constitution.—on the other hand, if the allied maritime transport council was not in principle executive, it was in prac- tice much more than advisory. if the first was impracticable, the second would have been useless. how could the need for urgent and desperate decisions be met by a body which, when control, inter-allied it had itself decided, could only make recommendations to four governments and wait for their assent? the solution of this dilemma, and it ts the fundamental prin- ciple of the whole of the new allied system, was found in ap- pointing as members of the council the ministers who in their own countries had the right to decide, and in forming the execu- tive organisation of the officials who in their own countries actu- ally directed, or could effectively influence, the execution. this principle practically destroyed the distinction bet ween the execu- tive and the advisory. in principle the council was aclvisorv. but, if the british shipping controller agreed as a member of it to a decision involving orders to british shipping, he gave effect to it as a minister in his own department. so, too, if the french minister of commerce agreed as a member to a decision involv- ing a change in french supplies. 715 influence in the italian supply departments, while the american was one of the american members of the council. the head- quarters were in london, and the staff was grouped in four national divisions under the direction respectively of the four members of the executive. the council itself met only three times before the end of the war. but the executive met fre- quently, and in the long intervals between the council meetings was the instrument through which allied co-ordination in the direction of shipping was secured. in close association with this shipping authority, the supply authorities were linked together in “ programme committees ” created on a similar principle on the model of the wheat execu- tive, and the more important of these were grouped under two great ministerial councils, the munitions and food councils, formed on the same principle as the a.m.t.c. . supreme war council (prime ministers) foad council allied allied military allied munitions council p = blockade noval council trans- real es council council portation war purchases amt executive —— connell & finance council a a (railways) {for purchases in , “a \ sy usa.) /aonnage imports stat- chartering es al rk ra istics execute ai “ a - 37 c programme committees {> nitrate chemical aircraft explosives non- stee! mechanical / ferrous transport. metals “~ committee of representatives programme committees d de e | wheat oilseeds meats sugar leather jute flax wool cotton timber poper coal tobacco petroleum executive executive & committee & hides & hemp ad fats oke executive fic. 2.—diagram of allied war organisation. straight lines inclicate direct dependence. broken lines=-=2=—=-— indicate de- pendence for sea transport. councils underlined were composed of ministers. executives and committees not underlined were composed of officials. the ministers were usually those responsible for the departments entrusted with the relevant national control, ¢.g., the british member of the munitions council was the minister of munitions. the officials were also usually officers of these departments, e.g., the british members of the ‘‘a'’ committees were officers of the ministry of shipping; of ‘6'’ committees, of the ministry of food; of ‘‘c "3 committees, of the ministry of munitions; of ‘‘d'’ committecs, of the war office, and of ‘‘e’’ committees, of the board of trade. had this principle been confined to the ministerial councils it would have represented some advance, but a quite insufficient one. departmental conferences of ministers had often taken place before. to develop these into councils with a regular con- stitution and periodical meetings would have been useful, but not decisive. ministers meet for a day or two and return. on matters of such intricate and detailed daily administration as are involved by arranging supplies in war, no such occasional meetings can resolve the difficulties of diverging national interest. if ministerial decisions, often conveyed in ambiguous or over-simplified formulae dictated by the necessity of hurried agreement, are referred to different national adminis- trations to execute, the old difficulties will recur tn detail. the novelty of the new system consisted in the extension of this new principle, so far as was materially possible, to a series of com- mittees of officials covering the whole range of shipping and supplies and responsible to the a.m.t.c. and two similarly formed munitions and food councils. immediately under the a.m.t.c. was the first of these bodies, the allied maritime transport executive, of which, on the prin- ciple described above, the british member, who was the chairman, was the director of ship requisitioning in the ministry of ship- ping, the french member the influential chef du cabinet of the french minister of commerce, the italian an official of great ultimately the whole range of imported commodities was covered by the following committees:— under the (allied) food council: 1. cereals (the wheat exec- 3. utive). 4. 2. oils and seeds. under the (allied) munitions council: sugar. meats and fats. 5. nitrates. 9g. non-ferrous metals. 6. aircraft. 10. mechanical transport. 7. chemicals. ir. steel. 8. explosives. and (without being grouped under a similar ministerial council): 12. wool. 17. paper and pulp. 13. cotton. 18. timber. 14. flax, hemp and jute. 19. petroleum. 15. hides and leather. 20. coal and coke. 16, tobacco. it had been intended to group these last nine committees under a raw materials council, but this council had not been formed when the armistice brought the development to a end. the organisation may be shown in diagrammatic form (see fig. 2). these committees secured combined allied plans on all ques- tions within their respective spheres on which combined action was necessary. their character, authority and the range of their duties varied greatly from article to article. the most important had duties independent of arranging agreed demands control, inter-allied table showing the organisation of inter-allied controls 716 2. 3. 4. s. 6. c perel err inter-allied method of purchasing body | represented in represented in certain other ee body purchase or bodies united states by countrics as follows: i. wheat. wheat executive. wheat export|canada: wheat exporters. inclia: company of| controlled firms. argentine: con- america. trolled firms. brazil: controlled firms. russia: french commis- sion. royal commission on wheat sup- plies (british). single buyer, 2. sugar. 3. meats and fats, covering inter-allied sug- ar programme committee. inter-allied meats and fats single buyer in lon- don and from [n- ternational sugar committee in usi7k purchasing organ- isation in each pro- royal commission on sugar supplies (british). various, representatives} in addition to purchases made as in of royal com- mission on the international sugar commit- tec. allied provisions export com- through the column 3, the produce of some small british colonics was secured british colonial british colonies and also argentine by the british government. many food-| [:xecutive. curing country mittee. stuffs. aimed at. 4. o11 and o1b-) ol) and oil-seeds) purchasing through} the executive. a. pce.c. british and french colonies by the seeds. i-xecutive. a.p.e.c. or the respective governments. brazil by governments con- agents of wheat commission. cerned (see col- umns 4 and 6). 5. copper. copper sub-com-} by the governments] see column 3. purchase in u.s.| purchases in spain by british mittee, allocat-| requiring supplies. a. by govern-| government. ing powers only. ments from pro- ducers at con- trolled price, in account with al- location by cop- per committee. 6. tin, tin executive. supplies for france} tin executive. the executive generally repre- 7, nitrate ot soda, 8. rubber. 9. wool, hair and products of wool and hair. nitrates txecu- utives, allied rubber committee. wool programme committee (ad- visory ). and italy through british ministry of munitions. agents on com- mission, generally by gov- ernments con- cerned. australian and n.z. clip bought by british (govern- ment, otherwise trade channels. director of pur- chases under the lexecutive, bulk of trade in hands of city merchants. sented in the producing countries by controlled firms. special agreement with the govern- ment of chile. france partially controlled pricesand quantities through inter-depart- mental wool committec. 10. cotton. cotton pro-} usual trade chan- egyptian crop bought by british gramme com-| nels except for and egyptian governments. mi.tee. i\gyptian crop. ir, jute, hemp|jute, iyemp} purchase by british ; : 33 and flax:— and flax} government from (a) jute. programme] _feading jute firms. committee. (6) hemp. jute, hemp} british government ; controlled firms in manila. and lax} purchase for euro- programme! pean allies, | committee. (c) flax jute, hemp local allied repre- os informal inter-allied buying ar- and flax|_ sentatives at arch- rangements at archangel. programme! angel. committee. 12. hides and) hides and leath-| british government] great britain and ; leather. er programme] purchase in india] united states con- committee (an executive un- through buying committee of trol the market (chiefly india andl der considera-| british firms in) argentina). tion.) calcutta. 13. timber. timber pro-| purchase’ cen-| c.la.b. purchase in ig gramme com-| tralised in italy, united states mitteeandcom-| france, gt. bri- through war mission interna-|_ tain, c.i.a.b. con- missions. tionaled’achats| trol purchasing policy. de bois. control, inter-allied table showing the organisation of inter-allied control—continued 2. 2. ae i . * * gs inter-allied method of purchasing body commodity body purchase or bodies 14. coal. coal programme] british govt. controls the mines and committee. works them through existing channels on basis of profits over period of pre- war years. 15. paper. paper and paper-| central purchase of] centralized pur - woodpulp in each country. making materi- als programme committee. inter-allied pe- troleum con- by central purchase in united states of 16. petroleum. chase through 717 - represenied in certain other ae represented in countries as follows: united states by france. —office national des char- bons, buying in united kingdom through existing channels on a fixed basis. italy.—all_ purchases made on italian government account. italy.—italian paper commission. france.—office national de la british controller presse. for european al- lies suggested, united states es fuel adminis- tration. america at fixed price. usual trade channels in other countries, subject to allocation by conference. ference {advis- ory). 17, tobacco. matches pro- gramme com- mittee. for shipping. the wheat executive, for example, as we have seen, arranged common purchase in foreign markets, as well as distribution. the munitions committees discussed allocation of manufacturing facilities and of the finished munitions. [tor such duties they acted under the authority of their respective councils (munitions or food) or, in their absence, with the con- sent of the different governments obtained through the national members of the committees. it was only so far as their pro- grammes needed shipping that they needed the approval of the a.m.t.c. but as the allocation of shipping was the crucial factor in all the main supply arrangements, the a.m.t.c. and its executive acquired the dominant position. working of the machine—as an example of the working of this system let us look at the duties of the most important of the supply committees, the wheat executive, say in the spring of 1918. the committee is working within a general programme agreed for the cereal year 1917-8. it has arranged through common agents for the provision of supplies in the united states of america, canada, the argentine and elsewhere. in con- tact with the shipping authorities, shipping has been sent to the loading ports. the ships are provisionally allotted for discharge in great britain, france and italy; but the stocks, port facilities, etc., in each of these countries are watched daily, and the ships directed where desirable by orders sent to the ports of loading or even on arrival on the eastern side of the atlantic. meantime, the wheat executive is negotiating with the trans- port executive as to the new programme for 1917-8. the latter, conscious of the competing claims for munitions, etc., is urging reduction. the wheat executive makes efforts at reduction and tries to distribute this reduction among the three countries. the margin of difference between the two executives is dimin- ished, but not removed. an attempt is made by negotiations with the other food committees, and under the general authority of the food council, to balance the respective claims of cereals and other food stuffs. the final food programme put forward by the food council is still in excess of what is likely to be ob- tained, but the difference is reduced to manageable dimensions. and the final issue is presented to the a.m.t.c. when it is prac- tically simplified to a decision between the competing claims of allied food as a whole and allied munitions. the concluding stages of this process are best illustrated by the decisions taken at the a.m.t.c. meeting in sept. ror8. the council, at that meeting, reviewed the whole of the pro- spective shipping position for 1918-9. they had before them estimates carrying the authority of the shipping experts of all. tobacco and no purchasing arrangements between the allies, price control being purely national through medium of the state monopolies in france and italy, and the tobacco and matches control board in great britain. the countries concerned to the effect that, after allowing for ships allotted to military expeditions and the fleets, the total imports could not exceed for coal raw materials for great britain 72,500,000 tons fad france munitions italy. they decided, on the advice of the transport executive, that 25,200,000 tons must be allowed for coal, and 7,500,000 tons for raw materials, leaving 39,800,000 tons for food and muni- tions; against demands of 49,000,000 (27 for food and 22 for munitions). finally, after difficult negotiations, they allowed 20,000,000 for food and 17,800,c0c0 for munitions. the con- clusion of the armistice a few weeks later robbed these decisions of the practical importance they would otherwise have possessed. but they illustrate the way in which the whole allied system was, by the end of the war, linked together and dominated by the supreme shipping authority. it must be borne in mind that the new allied mechanism was developing in authority and efficacy throughout 1918 until the armistice. the centre of gravity shifted slowly from the na- tional to the international administration. at the point of execu- tive action the machine was always the national one, though more and more this action was determined by the comprehen- sive surveys and recommendations of the international bodies. but the new system was still not fully and equally working when it was brought to an end by the armistice. it was tested and working fully for food and beginning to work for munitions; but was still in its preparatory stages for miscellaneous raw materials for civilian use. | imperfect as it was, however, and having to build up its elaborate organisation and carry on its work simultaneously, its achievements were very striking. though the shipping available for european supplics was some 2,000,000 tons less, the import services of france and italy were, in 1918, for the first time put on a substantially satisfactory and substantially equal basis. food stocks were raised to a much safer level. the belgian relief requirements, previously in a desperate condition, were acle- quately met and the american trooping needs substantially assisted. these results were obtained partly through shipping economies effected by the pooling of tonnage and partly by supply economies effected by the common examination of needs and resources by the programme committees. » # essential characteristics —belore we follow the subsequent 718 history of the system, let us consider again its essential char- acteristics. the fundamental principle is the direct contact of specialised ministers and officials of different countries effected through a regular organisation whose members are grouped according to their special experience and authority and not according to nationality. we have seen how three great ministerial councils were formed on this principle; and how twenty allied programme committees formed on the same principle covered the whole range of imported supplies. the members of these bodies were essentially national ministers or officials uniting for international work. the agreement they arrived at in allied discussion was thus carried into practice in their own departments. thus the new allied principle did not override or replace the national organisations—it penctrated them. it linked them together. in fact the instrument of allied action consisted of the national administrations themselves thus linked together and in union acting for a common end. the new mechanism was essentially a “coupling ’’ between them. thus was co-operation between the allies at last shifted from a diplomatic to an administrative basis. we have followed the steps by which the pre-war system of negotiations through foreign offices and embassies was gradually transformed. more and more frequently, and then as members of regular councils, department ministers dealt direct with each other and not through their respective foreign offices, and departmental officials met first for special transactions and then, as the need compelled, in more regular and constant contact to make ship- ping and wheat arrangements. then, as the stress increased, the final stage was reached; the supply departments of the differ- ent countries were themselves linked together from within by programme committees composed of their own officials. the national administrations now touched each other, not at one point (the foreign offices), but at scores (the officials en- gaged in the different controls) and the contact was no longer occasional but continuous. any divergence of national interest was settled within its own sphere, and independently of differ- ences elsewhere. agreement once reached within each specialist committee, the further issue was not between nation and nation but between supply and supply. the allied munitions demands were pressed as a whole with the support of the representatives of all countries against the claims of allied food demands sup- ported by all theirs. these principles, of direct contact between specialists, and of forming an instrument of international action by linking together national departments through committees of their officials, are the necessary basis of all international administration that touches vital interests. a specific picce of limited technical work may be entrusted to a danube commission or a postal union acting with permanently delegated powers. but where the work seriously affects national interests the necessary authority will rarely be given, or if given will be withdrawn, as in practice it was from the reparation commission. the international adminis- tration which has vital work to do will supplement its own per- manent organisation by specialised committees composed of those who represent not only the special knowledge required, but the special interests, both public and private, affected. the transition to peace.—but before we follow these later developments, we must glance at the immediate history of the war system we have described in the interval between war and the re-establishment of normal peace conditions. it was the view of those who had built up this system that it should, with the necessary modifications, be continued for the scarcely less urgent tasks of the armistice period. the british govt. pointed out immediately after the armistice that allied discussion was still essential as to the assistance re- quired for the reconstruction of devastated territories, as to food supplies, and in general as to the acquisition and distribution of commodities of which there was a shortage. they proposed the transformation of the transport council into a general economic council, controlling, with some changes, the same subordinate organisation. control, inter-allied the american govt., however, took the view that the termina- tion of the war should at once be marked by the disbandment of specifically war organisations, and that appropriate new machin- ery should be created if required. this, under the diminished impulse to co-operation that attended the cessation of hostilities, proved to be a long and difficult matter. after months of dis- cussion anew council, “ the allied supreme council of supply and relief,’ was formed in jan. 1919. too restricted in its functions, and without the assistance of a personnel accustomed to work together, it proved entirely ineffective. it was replaced by the supreme economic council which in personnel, in func- tions and in the principles of its organisation was almost exactly the same as the ‘‘ general economic council’ proposed two days after the armistice. this council, and an allied system of committees responsible to it, though handicapped by the loss of three vital months, made rapid progress in the armistice tasks of removing the blockade, bringing the german ships into use, re-allotting ships for the repatriation of troops and prisoners, for the import of raw mate- rials required for reconstruction, arranging relief to the starving countries of europe, and re-establishing railway transport and communications. the supreme economic council, under the chairmanship of lord robert cecil, remained in existence for some years. but its main work was finished, and the greater part of the connected allied organisation disbanded before june 1919, when the treaty with germany was signed. the league of nations.—the experience gained in the war system, however, proved of great value in the construction of the great and permanent organ of international action which was then brought into being under the covenant of the league of nations. the task of the league was indeed very different in character from that which the allied councils and committees had to carry through in the war. there was no longer the need of urgent executive action, no longer the same subordination of national interests in the face of a common enemy. its organs of supreme authority, the assembly and the council, were composed of members representing their respective governments on all questions dealt with. there was no series of co-ordinate minis- terial councils divided by function. but the system built up was in fact very different from the pre-war national one, in which every case was worked up from the beginning by purely national specialists till fully formed and opposing national policies con- fronted each other in international negotiations. for under the assembly and council an intricate, varied and elastic system of technical and specialist committees and commissions has been built up on the same essential principles which we have seen in the war system. before a question is settled by the council (consisting of 1o national representatives) it will have been worked at by a per- manent technical body, for finance, economics, transit, mandates, opium, etc., or a specially appointed commission. the members of such a committee regard themselves primarily as specialists in their particular subject-matter. at the same time, as they are in fact of differing nationality and know the tendencies of opinion and interest in their different countries, they afford just the kind of bridge between opposing views which we have seen were provided by the programme committees. it was perhaps useful that all three of the european members of the transport executive joined the secretariat of the league and had a part in building up the new machinery. but essentially that machinery was constructed as it was because it is among the fundamental principles of the league itself, first that the common interests of nations are no less important than their differences, but secondly, that these common differences must be resolved by agreement and not by the overriding decision of a superior authority. with some difference of emphasis these were the principles which determined the allied system; with some difference of application the international system follows the same principles. with this system the real instrument of the league’s action is not merely its permanent staff but the national organisations, public and private, which are linked together through its spectalist committees and commissions. its real executive is located not converter—con voy in one city but in sections, in all the main capitals of the world. its central staff is the ‘‘ coupling’ which unites this intricate mechanism and enables it to achieve an international task. geneva is not a centre of controlling power but an instrument to co-ordinate activity which is world-wide in its influence and means of action. it isan instrument, not for governing the world, but for assisting the world to govern itself in agreement and in co-operation. it permeates and transforms the policy of the world as the allied organisation permeated and transformed, without an overriding authority, the policy of the allies. (see also industry, war control of; raw materials.) bibliography.—-most of the documents concerned with the inter-allied control of shipping and commodities were secret, and remained unpublished. a selection of the more important papers are printed in j. a. salter, ad/ied shipping control (oxford, 1921), in the british series ‘‘ economic and social history of the world war" (carnegie endowment for international peace). this book covers control of commoditics as well as shipping, and the national and international system. the full bibliography is very voluminous. the following english books may perhaps be specially mentioned as giving a good picture of the general principles and actual working of the control system. j. l. garvin, economic foundations of peace (1919); sir l. chiozza money, triumph of nationalisation (1920), written from the point of view indicated in title but includes much first-hand information not otherwise available; hl. d. hender- son, the cotion control board (oxford, 1922); e. m. h. lloyd, experiments in state control at the war office and ministry of food (oxford, 1924); f. h. coller, state trading adventure (1998). aa. or, converter: see dynamo.