There can be no question that one outstanding reason for the high level of loyalty and patriotic effort which the people of this country maintained w… - David Lloyd George

The hope of the future would be found in a party of sane progress. The present danger was to identify progress with the Socialist Party... It was important, therefore, that they had revived a party which represented sound, sensible, rational progress.

I felt as I reviewed all the circumstances of the national situation, and realised beyond a shadow of doubt the supreme and vital importance of a proper supply of munitions for our success in the war, and remembered the insistence with which I had urged this upon the Government, that I was in honour bound to accept if the Prime Minister thought I was the man best fitted for this post. I made my decision; and I never had cause to regret it. As I look back today upon the problems which were then presented to me, the extraordinary difficulties that surrounded the work which I took in hand, my own inexperience in that kind of work, the chaos and tangle with which I was confronted, I feel that in many ways the creation of the Ministry of Munitions was the most formidable task I ever undertook.

I have had many friends—Conservatives, Liberals, yes, and multitudes of those who hold no attachment to any party. I cast myself on the people whose cause I have never betrayed during the thirty-two years of a strenuous public life. They are a just and generous people, and to those who have done their best to render them service, and I claim to have rendered them service, they will see fair play. I am not afraid of the future.