There is a nonmilitary aspect of the administrative developments of the
year which it is important to note. In themselves these developments
have been the result of the determination of the people to leave
nothing undone which could contribute to the winning of the war. None
the less they are bound to produce lasting and far-reaching effects on
the social and economic life of the community. No record of the year
would be complete which did not point out the changes which have been
wrought in the structure of society by the experiences of the war.
In the first place, the organic life of the community has been greatly
strengthened. On the one hand, not only have enormous numbers of men,
and latterly of women also, been mobilized for military and naval
purposes, but the vast majority of the people are now working directly
or indirectly on public service. If they are not in the army, the navy,
or the civil service, they are growing food, or making munitions, or
engaged in the work of organizing, transporting, or distributing the
national supplies.
On the other hand the State has taken control for the period of the war
over certain national industries, such as the railways, shipping, coal,
and iron mines, and the great majority of engineering businesses. It has
also made itself responsible for the securing of adequate quantities of
certain staple commodities and services, such as food, coal, timber, and
other raw materials, railroad and sea transportation, and for
distributing the available supplies justly as between individual and
individual in the national interest.