Changing conditions of national defence have long rendered Woolwich and other Government armament depots obsolescent and the decision of the British Government to establish an ordinance factory on the site of the Beardmore yards at Dalniuir, on the Clyde, is designed to meet these conditions. The Government's decision has many advantages. Transport facilities are good. a highly developed engineering industry with abundant skilled labour has been established there for decades and, what is more important within the geographical limits of so small a country as Britain, it is about as safe and distant a point as could be found. Not possessing the specia! immensities of the United States or Soviet Russia, Britain is in no position to chose inaccessible sites but must make the best/ of a restricted area to find points where armament production may be concentrated with the minimum vulnerability from enemy air attack. The West Coast of Scotland has long been favoured for the new policy of buted armament factories and the tendency obviously will be to trans r' production from the more vulnerable bases in the South of England Woolwich Arsenal has served its purpose for two centuries but factors which made it of paramount importance during the k the Dutch in the seventeenth century and f supplies in subsequent wars vanish before the range of the modern bombing plane. Its prox-Jimity to the capital is another danger to London while its manufacturing capacity collapses before the colossal armament consumption of modern warfare.
During the Great War. this tendency towards a wider distribution of armament depots developed, first on account of the limited production of Government arseno and secondly on the appearance of aircraft Other industrial centres were drafted into service and factories built where conditions were suitable. On the assumption that the enemy aeroplane can cover the country in a matter of minutes, the West Coast of Scotland is the only possible solution to ensure supplies with the greatest degree of security Bury Them In Russian politics, they don't bury the hatchet; they just bury the opp jon.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.