CHURCHILL, Winston S.

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Typed letter signed, to David Lloyd George, on the need to prepare for war. A revealing and lengthy letter between the men who led Britain in the First and Second World Wars. Writing three years before the conflict, Churchill warns of the country's lack of preparedness.Behind only the Prime Minister, the two men held the most powerful offices in government: Churchill writes as Home Secretary, to Lloyd George as Chancellor of the Exchequer. They were close allies, and had led the Liberal welfare reforms of the 1900s and the campaign to curb the power of the House of Lords in the 1910 elections. Churchill writes after a summer that marked the beginning of the "Great Unrest", when Britain experienced a national railway strike and dockyard strikes in Liverpool, London, and Hull. "During the last few months circumstances, with which you are well acquainted, have forced me to consider the question of the country's food supply in the event of a general strike or of war". Churchill fears that in either event, as Home Secretary, he would struggle to maintain order across the country. "Nothing would more inevitably lead to riots and disturbances than a shortage of the food supplies".However great Britain's naval superiority, in war the enemy might seize a waterway and capture food ships - "if either of these events occurred in any part of the North Sea, it would cause alarm among shippers out of all proportion to the real danger, and insurance against war risks would be raised to a fig

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