Following  on  the  creation  of  the  Ministry  of  Munitions  and  the
immense  activities  it  developed,  the  railway  output  underwent  a  great
impetus,  notwithstanding  the  strict  adherence  by  the  companies  to  the
principle  they  had  laid  down — that  they  were  to  do  only  such  work  as,
on  account  of  urgency  or  for  some  other  reason,  could  not  be  provided
for  elsewhere.  Munition  factories  were  springing  up  all  over  the  land,
and  it  might  have  been  thought  that  the  railway  companies — which,
as  we  have  seen,  had  started  on  their  patriotic  task  of  helping  to  provide
for  the  rieeds  of  the  Army  more  than  nine  months  before  the  Ministry
of  Munitions  was  created — would  now  be  able  to  reduce,  if  not  to  dis-
continue, their  own  munition  wOrk,  and  revert  to  their  repairs  and
renewals  of  rolling  stock  and  plant,  left  more  or  less  in  abeyance.
Demands  upon  the  railway  workshops  for  war  manufactures  were,
however,  now  being  made  upon  a  larger  scale,  if  not,  also,  with  greater
urgency,  than  before.  Not  only  did  the  Orders  from  the  Ministry  of
Munitions  supplement  those  previously  given  by  the  War  Office,  but
there  came  a  time  when  the  former  were  fourfold  greater  than  the  latter.
There  were  received,  also,  still  more  numerous  requests  for  assistance
from  munition  firms,  ^themselves  being  pressed  to  deliver  with  a  speed,
and  to  an  extent,  beyond  the  capacity  of  their  works.
