The important part they and Luton were playing in the war was stressed to workers at the town's engineering works at a series meetings held at factories organised as part of a nationwide campaign by the Parliamentary Munitions Committee in 1915.

One of the principal speakers in Luton was Tom Wing, MP for Houghton-le-Spring in County Durham. His first call on Monday [July 19th] was at the Davis Gas Stove Co Ltd in Dallow Road, where he said this war had perhaps more than in previous war pointed out the close relationship there was between the men at the Front and the men in the workshop, factory and mine.

At war they must have men to fight, and when men had gone to fight they must understand that those at home were responsible for providing them with the materials for carrying out their great purpose. They also had to realise that this country had got to be kept going in order that the men at the Front might be maintained.

"All we have and are is at stake in this great conflict," he said. "So it behoves every man and youth to say, 'So far as I am concerned every job I have in hand I'll do as well as I can, as quickly as I can, and I'll earn all I can - and in that case you are largely helping the nation.

"Put in all you know, and yours will be a hand in the great triumph when the story of victory has to be told."

Next, he visited the Thermo-Electric Ore Reduction Corporation in Cobden Street, where workers were joined by those from the electric power station during a tea break.

There, Mr Wing said he had not come to grumble and complain but to thank them for the way in which they worked in relation to the great conflict.

The whole world wanted their class of output, he said. Their output gave the very best class of weapon to those engaged at the Front. His information was that they worked about 70 hours a week, and anyone who knew anything about the arduous character of their labour knew this was an exceedingly heavy task for any man to perform week after week.

He also wanted to thank the men of the power station, because they had had great difficulties to confront and they successfully overcame them. Manufacturers had told him the the Electricity Department were acting in a very creditable manner by rising to a great opportunity and discharging their liabilities in a way worthy of the highest form of patriotism.

This was the closest Britain had ever experienced to invasion in a thousand years, because of new instruments of war, new methods and new kinds of munitions. And therefore with all these things facing them he looked into their tired faces and said again, 'Thank you very much of behalf of ther whole of these islands'.

Tuesday's meetings [July 20th] began at half-past eight at the works of Messrs Brown and Green Ltd., Windsor Street. Mr Wing said he would be able to tell the Minister of Munitions how very much impressed he was with the loyalty of the Luton workmen and also of the Luton employers. From all firms in Luton he had the highest commendations of the men, and was told they were really putting in all they could, and they could not do more.

"When the war is finished we shall be able to say to the world, 'We entered into this against our will, we tried to prevent it, but they forced us into the fight and we came out of it with clean hands, with a clean record, and we can go down to posterity when our bodies are dust, and the boys and girls who follow us will say that their fathers put up a magnificent fight and did it clean-handed."

At Balmforth and Co, Pondwicks Road, the speaker after work on Tuesday evening was Frank Goldstone, a Sunderland MP. He told the workers this was a war of machinery as well as of men. In the individual qualities of the men they could beat the Germans, but the latter were better prepared at the bench at the start. But if they were doing their work in the same spirit as their pals on the roll of honour "we are going to win".

At the Vauxhall and West Hydraulic Co. Ltd., Kimpton Road, Mr Goldstone said he believed the task of the British soldier could be and must be lightened. To do so it was needed to link more intimately the bench and the trench. The part those present were playing at the benches was as important as the part the men in the trenches were playing. He wondered if by an extra hour they could get a few more rounds produced per man and so increase the chance of the men at the front coming back.

To trade unionists he said he could understand their concerns that the conditions under which they were now working should not carry on after the war ended. The Munitions Bill safeguarded them, and all pre-war conditions were to be restored at the end of hostilities.

Workers at Vauxhall Motors Ltd were addressed on Wednesday [July 21st] by MP Herbert Wild.

[The Luton News: Thursday, July 22nd, 1915]