Between 1906 and 1908, output of the Clyde shipbuilding industry declined by 50 percent. At the time, the steel and engineering industries were also depressed. These were ominous signs for an economy based on eight staple industries (agriculture, coal mining, shipbuilding, engineering, textiles, building, steel, and fishing) which accounted for 60 percent of Scotland's industrial output. With 12.5 percent of the UK production output and 10.5 percent of its population, Scotland's economy was a significant part of the overall British picture. Despite economic hardship, Scotland participated in World War I. Initially enthusiastic about the war, with Scotland mobilising 22 out of the 157 battalions which made up the British Expeditionary Force, concern about the wartime threat to an exporting economy soon came to the forefront. Fear that the war would lead to disastrous conditions for industrial areas, with increased unemployment, abated as the German offensive on the Western Front came to a halt. In the "Glasgow Herald", MP William Raeburn said: