On This Day, 23 November 1918

Birmingham Mail

Saturday 23 November 1918

HOW THE MIDLANDS HELPED TO WIN THE WAR

PREMIERS’S TRIBUTE

In the afternoon Mr. Lloyd George received the Freedom of Wolverhampton, and in reply said he felt that their welcome requited him for the very hard and anxious work he had undertaken. How anxious it had been they had not revealed at the time, but there were moments of intense anxiety, though, however intense there never was any moment of doubt. (Hear, hear.) He knew we should win.

The Premier referred to the great services which the Midlands had rendered is the course of the last four or five years. We had to depend very largely upon the skill and industry of the Midlands for the equipment of our great Army, he said. Wolverhampton played its part, Birmingham played its part, and all other cities, towns and villages had contributed materially to the product on of that equipment which left the British Army after a year or two about the best equipped army in the field. Everybody in the country had felt that he must do something. He had never seen anything like it; they were all anxious to do things. That was the way to make the country go. “Keep that spirit alive for four or five years and you won’t know this country. If we can keep going that sort of spirit of  everybody wanting to do something to help the old land, it will be a great achievement.” As a citizen of Wolverhampton he appealed to them, and through them to the surrounding country, to keep up this effort that won victory until we had put England right.