Problems of the Home front, the Prime Minister continued, were not very dissimilar from those they had had to meet in the Great War, but there were important new factors.
There was the same need for relent less economic pressure on the "enemy," and the same necessity to secure imports essential to Great Britain's needs, stated Mr. Chamterlain.
The armed forces already mobilizer were huge, he said, and would eventually be equal to if not surpass those of the last war. As a result of increasing mechanization, however, he went on, the task of equipping them had become vastly more expensive and complicated.
All that extra expense, in its turn, raised new problems in the field of foreign exchange.
It was not surprising, the Prime Minister continued, that it was found necessary to impose a large measure of control over the manufacture and supply, including some restrictions, on exports in order to preserve the articles Great Britain could not do without and to prevent goods that Germany wanted from falling into her hands.
"Compare our smooth transition from peace to war finance with what happened in 1914," Mr. Chamberlain said, "when moratoria were in force for monetary reasons. This time, owing to careful preparations, one bank holiday was sufficient,"
The institution of exchange control, said Mr. Chamberlain, represented a complete revolution which, though not perfect to begin with, had yet, with the help of the banks and other financial institutions, speedily attained an efficiency which other countries had taken years to reach, The Prime Minister continued:
"And do not let us overlook the fact that our resources in shipping and exchange, vast as they may be, are not without limit.
"We do not know how long the War will last, but we must be ready to fight it through to a victorious conclusion,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.