instance and lighten it in the second. The objection, however, is really one of detail; it is recognized that in the long run rates must rise or fall with the general level of expenses, and one may trust to the common sense of the railways and of the business community not to use this recognition for the purpose of securing immediate and temporary advantages. The third great purpose of the Act is to provide conciliation machinery for the adjustment of all disputes between railway companies and their railway operatives and clerks. Government policy in Great Britain in regard to industry generally continues the policy which of recent years has been voluntarily applied in the chief national industries, that of settling all questions in relation to working hours, conditions of employment and rates of wages by negotiation between the organizations representative of the employers and those comprising the workpeople. That this policy should be extended and applied as widely as possible was the strong recommendation of the Committee usually known as the Whitley Committee appointed in October 1916. While in other industries the constitution of such joint committees is a matter of agreement, so far as the railway industry is concerned the Act of 1921 has put it on a statutory basis. Two sets of machinery are constituted, firstly, the Central Wages Board, which is to be a central wages board representative of railway managers and railway employees, and is to be the tribunal to which all questions of wages, hours and conditions are referred in default of agreement between the company and the unions. From the Central Wages Board an appeal lies to the National Wages Board representative not only of management and of unions, but also of the users of railways, with an independent chairman appointed by the Minister of Labour. The decisions of either Board are not enforceable by any process of law. Inside each railway group conciliation machinery, consisting of district and national councils with a railway council for the whole of the railway, is set up. The writer perhaps cannot more succinctly describe the nature and the purposes of these councils than in the following words: ' The Act provided that councils on the lines of the Whitley Councils should be established for each railway company on the general basis of schemes to be prepared by a committee consisting of six representatives of the General Managers' Committee of the Railway Clearing House and Labour Policy-False and True, p. 168. (London: Thornton Butterworth, Ltd., 1922.) six representatives of the National Union of Railwaymen, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, and the Railway Clerks' Association. These schemes, which have now been prepared, provide for: (1) local consultation; (2) local departmental committees; (3) Sectional Railway Councils, and (4) Railway Councils. At stations or depôts with a number of employees in a department or group of grades less than seventy-five, such employees are to be entitled to appoint representatives to discuss local matters with the company's local officials, At stations or depôts where the number exceeds seventy-five, a committee is to be set up, consisting of not more than four elected representatives of the employees in the department or group of grades concerned, and not more than four representatives of the company. The objects of the local committee are to provide a recognized means of communication between the employees and the local officials, and to give the employees a wider interest in the conditions under which their work is performed. A local committee is to discuss: (a) suggestions for the satisfactory arrangement of working hours, breaks, time-recording, etc.; (b) questions of physical welfare; (c) holiday arrangements; (d) publicity in regard to rules; (e) suggestions as to improvements in organization of work, labour-saving appliances and other matters; (f) investigation of circumstances tending to reduce efficiency; and (g) the correct loading of traffic to ensure safe transit and the reduction of claims. Before a matter is discussed by a local committee it must first be submitted by the employees to the officials of the company in the ordinary manner, but, failing a satisfactory reply within fourteen days, it may be reported to the secretary of the employees' side of the committee. The company in the same way must exhaust the constitutional machinery. Sectional Railway Councils will consist of not more than twelve elected representatives of the employees, and not more than twelve appointed representatives of the company, and not more than five Sectional Councils are to be established on any railway. Each side will have its own secretary, who will have the right to take part in the proceedings. If one takes a railway on which the whole staff of the company is divided into the usual five sections, viz., (1) clerks, station-masters, supervisors, etc.; (2) locomotive men; (3) traffic department men; (4) goods and cartage staff, and (5) permanent way department men, platelayers, etc., each section will elect representatives to the Sectional Council, and the number of representatives of each section will be according to the proportion of the employees in the groups of the grades in the section. In addition, the number of representatives elected to each group of grades will be distributed as nearly as possible by districts. Sectional Councils will deal with: (a) local application of national agreements relating to standard salaries, wages, hours of duty and conditions of service other than subjects submitted directly to the Central Wages Board by railway companies or the trade unions; (b) suggestions as to operating, working and kindred matters; (c) other matters in which the company and the employees are mutually interested, such as co-operation with a view to securing increased business, greater efficiency and economy, the well-being of the staff, recruitment and tenure of service, etc.; (d) subjects remitted by the Railway Council to a Sectional Council. For each railway a Railway Council is to be appointed consisting of not more than ten representatives of the company and ten representatives of the employees. The representatives of the employees will consist of two members of each Sectional Council; each side will have a secretary with power to take part in the proceedings. The Railway Council will deal with all matters with which a Sectional Council can deal, and which are of common interest to two or more sections, but it can deal with no matter before a Sectional Council has had an opportunity of considering it. If a Sectional Council is unable to agree on any matter, the employees' side may refer it to the trade unions concerned, or the Council may, by agreement, refer it to the Railway Council. If a Sectional or Railway Council cannot agree on any question of the local application of national agreements in regard to rates of pay and conditions of service, the matter of difference may be submitted by the employees' side to the trade unions concerned, who take it up with the company, and, failing agreement, may refer it to the Central Wages Board. Before employees can submit any question to a Sectional or Railway Council they must first submit it to the company to consider in the ordinary way, but, failing a satisfactory answer within twenty-one days, the facts may be reported to the employees' secretary of the Council concerned, and the company itself must proceed in the same way. The working of the Railway Councils and Committees will be followed with the greatest interest by all concerned in the development of industrial conciliation machinery. It cannot be doubted that this conciliation machinery if loyally worked both by companies and unions, and there is no reason to fear that such will not be the case, ought to be productive of the greatest harmony and co-operation in the railway industry. Experience of its operation up to the present time affords good augury for its future success. But further experience will probably show that additional organization, not necessarily requiring statutory enactment, will be necessary. Mr. Wedgwood, in his article in Reconstruction in Europe, is of that opinion: Two things are wanting to complete the new structure-first, a principle in accordance with which the broad general movements of wages may be regulated, and secondly, a procedure for linking the decisions of the Rates Tribunal with the findings of the National Wages Board. It is evident that the two bodies will deal with two sides of the same problem; other things being equal, increased wages can only be met by increased rates, and a reduction of rates will entail a corresponding reduction of wages. If this were all, the problem would be relatively simple; it would be a mere question of addition or subtraction. But it is common knowledge that you may increase charges without increasing revenue; the manufacturer and the traveller have the last word after all, and no tribunal can compel them to use the railway if the charges are more than they are willing to pay. The old principle of "what the traffic will bear" provides a very efficient maximum limit, which cannot be disregarded either by the railways or by the tribunal. And at the other end of the scale contrary forces come into play. Wages may be reduced to a point where the reductions no longer give reduced costs. To fix charges and wages in harmony with these two opposing forces will be the joint task of the two tribunals; and it is not likely to be discharged to the best advantage of the public, the railways, and their employees unless some procedure is evolved which will enable the two tribunals to take full counsel with one another. Happily, no Act of Parliament is necessary to make good these deficiencies; one may reasonably hope that the logic of circumstances will in due course supply what is wanting. Such, in broad outline, is the effect of the Railways Act, 1921. Except in regard to a transitory provision dealing with railway statistics, the Act does not apply to railway companies in Ireland. The working of this great experiment, for it is a radical amendment, in fact reversal of the principles of English railway legislation, will be scrutinized carefully by most members of the community, for all have a direct and personal interest in its successful operation. INTERNATIONAL CONDUCT DURING THE WORLD WAR. [Contributed by ARNOLD D. MCNAIR, Esq.] Pre-war Prophecy. In a passage which has now become classical, W. E. Hall foretold the recent Armageddon : 'It would be idle also to pretend that Europe is not now (1889) in great likelihood moving towards a time at which the strength of international law will be too hardly tried. Probably in the next great war the questions which have accumulated during the last half century and more will all be given their answers at once. Some hates, moreover, will crave for satisfaction; much envy and greed will be at work; but, above all and at the bottom of all, there will be the hard sense of necessity. Whole nations will be in the field; the commerce of the world may be on the sea to win or lose; national existences will be at stake; men will be tempted to do anything which will shorten hostilities and tend to a decisive issue. Conduct in the next great war will certainly be hard; it is very doubtful if it will be scrupulous, whether on the part of belligerents or neutrals; and most likely the next war will be great." In 1903 the late Professor Westlake, in giving evidence before the Royal Commission on the Supply of Food in Time of War, was asked: 6963.-MR. CHAPLIN: Have you formed, and can you give to the Commission any opinion of your own as to how far you think it probable that International Law would be observed, generally speaking, in the event of war between this country and one or more of the Great Powers? -I think it would be observed in what I may call ordinary wars, by which I mean to exclude great political convulsions, such as those which attended the French Revolution and Empire. What arises also in my mind is that any serious war with a civilized Power in which England might be engaged would probably be one of the great convulsions, and we should have not merely one, but more than one of the bigger States allied against us. 1 International Law (3rd ed.), Preface. August 1889. |