Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1920-02-09
HINES EXPLAINS
|NCREA SED COST
RAIL OPERATION
lump Not Due to Errors Of
the Administration; No
Decrease Expected When
Roads Are Transferred.
Especial Correspondence to The Journal.

Especial Correspondence 70 The Jnurnai0
Washington, Feb. S.-As the fed
eral administration of railways
ends in a few weeks, Director Cen
eral Hines has just issued over his
signature what might be considered
as either an apology or explanation
of the failure of government man
agement to work out as promised
by his predecessor or, who passed
the buck to Hines when failure
was already evident to the nation.
In analyzing, Mr.. Hines says that
many are wrong in concluding
that increased cost of railway
operation is all due to errors of the
administration, for the governme IT
has had to pay higher for material
and labor just as have private en-
terprises and the people are de-
viewed If they think it will be
otherwise after the roads are re-
leased.
The largest element in the in
creased cost, he says, was labor.
The pay rate per hour at the end
of 1919, showed an increase of bus
100 per cent, average, according to
the director general, while the rate
of pay per ton to employees of the
steel industry increased l19 per
cent, compared with 1913 compen-
sation.
Mr.. Hines foes on to say, in part
as follows
Employees who work for the
railroads are confronted with the
increased cost of living just like
other people, and increased wages
for railroad employees have been
not only necessary, but just. Con-
trary to the popular impression.
the increases to railroad labor have
not been out of line with increases
to labor generally.
1.-THE government could not escape
the policy of reasonably uniform
treatment and the result of this
policy operated to produce numec-
Gus individual cases of abnormally
large wage increases, but the mat
ter, from the standpoint of its total
cost to the railroads and the pub
lie, must be considered as a whole.
and the average increase per hour
been no more than was responsive
to the conditions which have forced
heavy Increases upon all Industrial
enterprises and has not been out of
line with what other enterprises
have done.
THE increase in the number of
employees has been due principally
to the adoption of the eight-hon'
day. The public should not be led
to think that the mere substitution
of private control for the temper
airy federal control will bring
about the decrease in the number
of employees to the pre-war basis.
Such decrease viii not come in
any general sense except through
a return to the longer working day
which obtained in 1917.
Increase in the number of en-
ployes on account of the eight
hour day does not involve in gem
eral an increase in the payroll be-
cause generally the pay is based not
upon the number of employees but
upon the number of hours worked.
The rate of increase in pay per
hour above referred to completely
reflects the increased wage"
After referring to the higher
cost of labor and material, the di-
rector general says of the defici-
ency in receipts
"The real explanation of the
deficit is that the rate increase of
1918 could not be made effective
soon enough and that perhaps rates
were not increased quite enough to
pay all of the necessary increases
in cost during the period of the
war and readjustment.
IF increases could have been
made Elective at the very beginning
of federal control there would have
been no deficit whatever from
railroad operations up to and in
the end of October, 1919.
The entire deficit on the Class
railroads for that period of twenty
two months of federal control of
$3.50, 100000 would have been more