The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-01-11 00:00:00

mote this object. It was found, however, that this object
could not be carried out at present, and, although there was
a larger meeting of the men than usual, nothing was done
except to reaffirm the determination of the men in this
locality to carry on the strike.
"The authorities have filled up the places of the goods
guards and shunter' who are on strike at Brudtord. There
is no detention of traffic, the new men having had previous
experience of the work. A. large number of persons have
applied for engagements, and suitable applications will be
accepted for other places. The men on strike are -quite
firm and are not disposed to give way wiliout some con-
cersion on the part of the company. A. resolution to this
effect was passed at a meeting held yesterday morning
"The goods guards of the Midland Railway Company in
the Peterborough district have declined to join the strike."

The Special Reporter of the Standard, in an article on the
Strike, says The points in dispute are now tolerably well
defined. Nominally the reduction asked by the Company is
only a shilling a week in the ease of the shunter' and horse
drivers, both classes being, by the way, engaged in the same
operation. In the case of the goods guards, however, the
case is not so simple, and the reductions, according to their
statement of the case, is much more considerable. Six
or eight months since the Company introduced what
they call the ' trip system,' under which, instead of being
paid so much per week, the goods guards were paid a given
sum per trip. The system has not worked at all satisfac-
torily to the men, who declare that it is unfair to them. It
was nominal). based on the aveilige time taken by a large
number of journeys, and its object was said to be the pre-
vemiou of loiterinz. The ohjection of the men is, first,
that loitering is amply out of the question on a system with
so large an amount of traffic as the Midland, and
that a goods train travels under conditions which
make it impossible for the guards to shorten the
time of the journey. Indeed, while pointing out that,
in the interests of the public, it is not a wise policy to make
it to a man's interest to sacrifice prudence, they say that in
practice they find it impossible to shorten the period of the
Journeys, and their great grievance is that the trips take so
long that they are losers compared with what they would be
under the standing-wages system. Many of the men declare
that, under the trip system, they have not been so well paid
as labourers in the goods sheds."

The following letter from Mr. Allport has been sent to
the papers for publication :
Sir,—As there seems to be considerable misapprehension
as to the real questiog at issue between the directors of the
Midland RAlway and the goods guards now on strike, I
beg leave to state as shortly as possible the actual com-
plaint of the men as stated by them to the directors yester-
day and the facts upon which it is founded.
The demand of the men who attended at Derby yesterday
was simply for the absolute abolition of the trip system and
a return to the time system upon the same scale of payment
as existed before the 3rd inst.

The trip system was adopted in the spring of last year,
when a time system at the rate of sixty hours per week was
In operation, and the payment for each trip was carefully
adjusted by applying the scale of time payment to the
average time found to be occupied by that trip. Great care
was taken to ensure an equal payment to the men, whether
they worked by time or by trip. It was further provided
that extra remuneration should be made in cases where the
men were unreasonably detained from causes beyond their
own control.
This working of the trip system has proved the great
saving effected by the company silica the guards have had a
direct inter, at in shortening the time occupied in the transis
of the goods trains.
In December last the directors gave notice of a general
reduction in the wages of certain classes of servants, in-
cluding the goods guards; but in their case the reduction
consisted in diminishing the rate of payment by computing
the week's work at 66 hours, instead et at 60 hours, both the
time system and the trip system being equally affected
thereby.
No other change has been made; but the goods guards
have taken this opportunity of attacking the trip system as
a system. In support of their complaint they bring for-
ward certain instances where it has operat d hardly, either
by yielding too small a payment for the ordinary time
occupied or by occasionally keeping them out an excessive
numb r of hours from causes beyond their own control;
but they admit that they have never brought any of such
cases to the Superintendent's notice, and, in fact, the
manarzement now h-ars of them for the first time. The
men have been told that in the latter class of cases they
have all aTong been entitled to extra remuneration if they
had applied for it. As to the former class of cases, they
have been assured that on attention being called to the in
adequacy of the remuneration for any trip, the case shall
be inquired into and payment readjusted, if necessary.
•

- -
The directors, on the other hand, contend that the state
of trade and the condition of the labour market call for a
reduc,ion of wages, and that the return of the average
payments under tire trip syttem show that no injustice has
been done to the men by its adoption. .
I regret to se it stated that a strike awng the signalmen
Is cot sidered imminent, but I trust that the men will not be
so ill-advised as to take any such course. There is no ques-
tion cf principle involved in their case, but simply a reduc-
tion of Is. per week in their wages, which is certainly not
intended, as has been hinted, as a forerunner of a further
reduction.—l am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JAMES ALLPORT.

Midland Railway, General Manager's Office,
Derby, Jan. 7.

The Times of Tuesday published the following leader

commenting upon the etrike

The struggle between the Midland Railway Company and
an important section of their servants is, without doubt, a
very serious affair. The railways are now our great lines of
national communication, and to have them obstructed or
Imperiled by a stake would be nothing leas than a public
calamity. It would be almost criminal to incur the risks of
such a conflict "with a light heart," and we hope it can be
shoe n, for the credit of the country, on the one hand that
the directors of the atidland Company had the most impera,
tive reasons for acting as they have done, and, on the other
band, that the men who are now on strike did not refuse the
terms offered them with selfish and incons' derate levity. But
white we fully recognise the moral responsibility to which
both railway companies and railway servants are subject in a
matter involving the interests of the whole community, it
is only just to set proper limits to current criticism. It is
impossible to refuse to the Midland Company, or any other
association of capitalists having pe.uniary profit as a i rimary
object, the right to revise from .ime to time the rate of
a aces paid to the men employed And the concession of
this right implies the admission of a correlative freedom of
choice on the part of the men. if the directors of the Mid-
land Railway are of opinion that trey cannot consistently
with the interests of the shareholders continue to pay the
same wages they paid in more prosperous times, and it their
guards, signalmen, and pointsmen refuse to accept the re-
duced rates, neither side can be charged with unfairness.
But it is nevertheless incumbent upon the company and the
company's servants alike to exercise their strict rights so
that there may be the least possible Inconvenience to the un-
offentiing pubLic. it would be discreditable if the one party
or the other were to reckon upon the pressure of public dis-
satisfaction caused by general embarrassment, and possibly
danger, to snatch a victory from their antagonists. All con-
tracts between railway companies and their servants ought
to be so framed as to allow any change in the relations of
the parties to be effected without needless friction. This
does not appear to be the case at present. The Mid.
land Company assure the public that complete arrange-
ments have been made for carrying on the traffic in spite of
the defection of the goods guards who have refused to
accept the new terms. The advertisements, however, issued
by the company inviting the services not only of men em-
ployed in the same sort of work before, but of others "wil-
ling" to be" trained for such duties," show that inexperienced
men must be to some extent relied upon. It will be ob-
served that the period of notice provided for is only a fort-
night, though during that time no guerd or signalman could
be thoroughly trained for his wora. We are justified, there-
fore, in say tog that the relations between the companies and
their servants in this respect require amentimeut, and that,
whatever may be the issue of the present struggle, it will
not be fruitless if it leads to a change for the better.

This country has never before beerr the scene of a railwil
strike, a fact which must be remembered to the credit of
the railway servants. Nor, at present, though there •is
much irritation of feeling, are there any signs of the violent
spirit which was rampant in the United States a year and a
half ago, and which showed itself in a milder form some
time afterwards in Ireland. The quarrel between the Mid-
land Company and Ls elms/oyes is net of a complicated
kind. A couple of years ago, It is stated, the company
lowered the wages of its servants, alleging, what could
not be denied, that in bad times it was necessary
to cut down expenditure. This reduction was accepted
by the men, but, as they contend, on the understanding
that no further reduction should be enforced without a
conference. The directors do not acknowledge that any
such understanding existed, and on the 16th of December
they issued a notice that a reduction of one shilling a week
all round should be carried out; and that in the case of
goods guards, who are paid on a different system from the
rest, their "time" should be calculated on the basis of 66
hours a week instead of 60, thus reducing the payment for
"overtime," and involving an average loss to the men, as
they calculate, of three shillings a week. It appears tnat
the goods guards had already another grievance; they were
required to work, at the option of the company, under
either the " time " system or the " trip " system. The
trip 83 stem was introduced, not long ago, with a view
to miaimize waste of time by making it the interest
of the goods guards to get through their work
smartly. A guard is paid, not for the actual time occupied
in a journey, but for the averige time, and if he loiters he
does so at his own loss. Of course, if he is unavoidably de-
layed by some palpable cause, as the breaking down of an
engine in front, he is not made to suffer; but in cases where
mere prudence compels slow travelling the men contend that
they lose heavily by this system in comparison with the
regular payment by overtime. At a meeting in Sheffield on
Sunday, where some interesting speeches were made by the
men, it was stated that in one case a guard who had worked
over 102 hours in the week—that is, four days and two hours
overtime—had been paid only six shillings awl ninepence
for this extra work. Statements of this character
may be contradicted or qualified by official testimony;
but there can be no doubt that the guards have
been disappointed at the working of the trip system, and
were glad to seize the opportunity which the directors
offered them of practically protesting against it. In reject-
ing the lower terms offered by the directors, and in refusing
to re.new their contracts for reduced wages, the goods guards
have left a large part of the traffic of the Midland line in a
disorganised state. They declare that they will not return
to the service of the company, except upon certain condi-
tions, the first cf which is the abolition of the trip system.
Their remaining claims might probably be dealt with by way
of compromise, and more than one of their spokesmen have
stated that it they kid been offered the rate of payment by
time which the directors offer to outsiders they would have
gladly accepted it. But the abolition of the trip gyrate re,accord-
Ing to the men, is as desirable in the public interest as in that
et the guards themselves. To make it a man's interest to
get his geods train from one place to another in the shortest
possible nine is not the way to cultivate either ha prudence
or his good temper. Unless the company can show the over.
whelming advantage of the trip system, we should be in-
clined to think that the men have a claim to be listened
to onthis point. But whatever attempts may be made to
evade the real issue, the questiou of wages opines to the
front, and here it is that public opinion will feelentitled to
pass judgment on the expediency as well as the justice of
the course taken by the Midland directors.
Unless under the pressure of very strong reasons, no rail-
way company would he justified in tail g sms re rict right of
reducing wages, end in parting on this ground with a con-
siderable body of old and tried servants. It would certainly
be improper to incur all the risks of an interruption of rail-
way traffic, not without considerable inconvenience or even
danger, for the sake of being able to add a fraction to a divi-
dend of respectable amount. It the Midland Railway were
losing largs:y, it would doubtless be the duty of the
directors to protect the interests of the shareholders
' even at some hazards. But the Midland is not one
of the unprosperous companies. Its traffic receipts
during the latter half of 1876 showed a consider-
able increase over those of the same period of 1i77.
During the last live weeks of the year the aggregate increase
was not less than £lO,OOO Thus on the face of things there
Is no urgent reason for the reduction of wages of which
notice was given three weeks ago. Mr. Ellis, the chairman
of the company, in an interview with the goods guards of the
Leicester district a day or two ago, admitted the increase of
the company's receipts, but complained of the expenses
incurred for renewing permanent way and rolling stock, and
for introducing the block system and continuous breaks.
But these are the first charges on the property of the
, company; they must be always provided for, however
either wages or dividends may rise or fall, and it was not a ,
very effective answer to the protests of the men against the
reduction of pay to point to these elements of settled ex-
pendisure. We should be glad to learn hew far outlay or
unreinunerative extenstons has cut into she apparent in-
crease of the Midland traffic receipts. It would hardly be
fair to reduce wages unuecessanly in order to keep up
cavidends stud to prevent shareholders from protesting
twainst a policy that does not really pay. Of course. it the
Midland directors can obtain the services of equally efficient
men fer less money, they oneht not to lose an op i or amity
of doing so. But it
.inay he doubted whether the , wages
offered in theirsadverasemeets are such as -attract
first-class men. The pay of under-gusrds ranges from
20s. to 235. a week, with uniform; and for this sem a
remarkable combination of mental, moral, and phystcal
qualities is expected. A railway guard most not only be
strosg and active, quick-sighted and alert, but he must have
presence of mind and fertility of resource ; he Mina be a man
of some education as well as of natural intelligence, wig=
hardly believe that such servants are to be imp-100144 in any