HC Deb 24 April 1893 vol 11 cc1089-106

As amended, further considered.

SIR JOHN GORST (Cambridge University)

The new clause which I have to submit to the House upon this Bill embodies the principle of a Bill which is now before the House, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Hull (Sir H. S. King), and I have to apologise to my hon. Friend for having appropriated the idea of his Bill and modified it into a new clause in the Bill of the Government; but, inasmuch as there is no reasonable probability of my hon. Friend's Bill being carried this Session, I dare say, in his zeal for the interests of the railway servants, he will have no objection to the principle of his Bill being discussed upon this clause. In submitting the principle of this clause to the approval of the House I labour under great difficulty, because the Bill of the Government has never been considered or discussed at all in the House. If there had been the discussion which a very important question of this kind demands on the Second Reading of the Bill, I would have appealed to the views and opinions the House then expressed, and my task would have been much shortened, as I could have pointed out how this clause dealt with the principle the House on the Second Reading affirmed; but by some extraordinary proceeding on the part of the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Mundella) this Bill was smuggled through a Second Reading and referred to a Grand Committee, and therefore I am under the necessity of troubling the House with some reasons and principles on which the clause I have proposed is based. In order to defend the principle of a clause of this kind, I must establish the right and expediency of an interference by the state with the hours of labour of adult railway servants. I am not under the necessity of establishing the principle that it is either right or expedient for the State to interfere with the hours of adult workers generally. I know there are a very large number of Members in this House, and of people in the country, who hold that it is the duty of the State Legislature to prescribe what are reasonable hours of labour for all trades in the country. Whenever that question comes up for discussion in this House I shall be quite ready to give my views upon it, and to discuss in the House this very important and to some extent very novel proposition. But we are not to-night under any obligation to either consider that general question or to express any definite opinion upon it, because the right of the State to interfere with the hours of labour of railway servants is based upon exceptional principles. There are two principles which would justify legislation of this kind, and one of the misfortunes of having no discussion of the Second Reading of this Bill is that the House is in the dark as to which of the two principles the Government have accepted in the Bill they are asking us to consider upon Report. The two principles to which I allude are these. In the first place, the State has a right to interfere with the hours of labour of railway servants on the same principle it prescribes the hours of labour of dockyard men and people employed in the Public Service, because the railway servants are really servants of the public. The Railway Companies possess a monopoly; they have extraordinary and extensive powers conferred on them by Parliament, and though in that it is convenient to leave the great work of railway transport to private companies and not undertake it on the part of the State, yet private companies in carrying out this work are really the agents of the State, and the State has the right to see that the persons so employed in the service of the public are not unreasonably worked. That is one principle on which the State may interfere with the hours of railway servants. There is another principle which, to my mind, is, if possible, a stronger one, and that is that the State has a right to in- terfere with the hours of labour of railway servants for the purpose of protecting the travelling public against the risk of accidents. I may state generally that instances have occurred of great disaster entirely, or in a great measure, ascribable to the fact that the servants of a Railway Company have worked unreasonably long hours. There was the case of the terrible railway accident at Thirsk.

SIR J. W. PEASE (Durham, Barnard Castle)

That is not a case in point.

SIR J. GORST

The man was too long on duty.

SIR J. PEASE

That is not so.

SIR J. GORST

I understood that to be what occurred—that the man in the signal-box was too long on duty.

SIR J. PEASE

It is not so.

SIR J. GORST

Well, it appears that in four years it has been found by the Inspectors that in 47 cases it was found necessary to call attention to the long hours of work of some of the men, and in 17 cases it was reported that the servants of the Railway Companies who were wholly or partially responsible for the accidents had been at work for an excessive time. That is sufficient to justify my argument that the State has a right to interfere with the hours of railway servants in the interest of the public. The clause of which I have given notice is based upon, and in accordance with, both these principles. The Bill itself assumes that there is to be some interference by the State with the hours of labour of railway servants, and the question is as to the reasonable time that railway servants should be employed. I am asking the House to consider this matter; but the Government, by their mechanical majority, may prevent the House from expressing any opinion upon the subject. If that be so, the Board of Trade will have to decide the question which the House is asked to decide tonight, and which it may be prevented from deciding; and if the Board of Trade cannot decide the question to the satisfaction of the Railway Companies, then the Railway Commission will have to undertake the task. The only question really for the House to decide is whether the House of Commons or the Board of Trade is the best qualified body to say what are the reasonable hours that railway servants should work. I think that Parliament rather than the Board of Trade should determine the question. Parliament is quite as competent to do so us any body of experts at the Board of Trade or any number of lawyers on the Railway Commission. In the House there are many hon. Gentlemen acquainted with the views and opinions of the workers themselves. There are also Members acquainted with railway management, and who know the views of the working classes as to the hours it is expedient for them to work. Another reason why the House should decide the question is that it would very much discredit itself by evading the responsibility of a decision. Great expectations have been formed in the House and great promises have been held out to the constituencies as to its competence and intention to deal with labour questions. But if, on the first occasion when a practical question is submitted for its decision, it should say it is wholly incompetent to decide, the House will be very much discredited in the eyes of the labour constituencies. If this Bill is to have any operation at all, and if it is not to be a mere sham, it appears to me that railway men have a right to some kind of authoritative declaration from Parliament what excess of hours would justify them in making an application to the Board of Trade. As the Bill stands, however, they are absolutely without any guide at all. I suggest eight hours for signalmen and ten for other servants; but these figures are merely put into the clause tentatively and they can be altered in Committee, if the general opinion of the House is against them. I confidently assert that if the Bill stands in its present form it will be a dead-letter, and that the hours of no railway servant in the Kingdom will be reduced by its operation. The clause I propose is so moderate that I am apprehensive lest it may be said to partake of the vices of the Bill, and to be hardly strong enough to do any good. The hours I have taken are those now worked on the best railways. It will hardly be argued that eight hours is not a long enough day for a signalman, or ten hours for an engine-driver, both in the interests of the men and of the public. There are exceptional cases, but the clause I propose gives the most absolute discretion to the Board of Trade and the Railway Commissioners to extend the hours subject to the condition that the reasons should be stated upon the Schedule to be laid before the House. I have been compelled to discuss the clause at some length because there has been no discussion of the principles of the Bill. Whatever are the principles underlying the Bill, the clause is a reasonable and safe extension of them. It merely takes off the shoulders of the Board of Trade and the Railway Commissioners a duty for which they are not specially adapted, and a duty which the House is far more competent to perform. I beg to move the clause standing in my name.

New Clause (Hours exceeding eight for signalmen and ten for other servants to be deemed primâ facie excessive,)— (Sir John Gorst,)—brought up, and read the first time.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."

*SIR J. PEASE (Durham, Barnard Castle)

said, the right hon. Gentleman laboured under the disadvantage of one who had not been a Member of the Committee on whose Report the Bill was founded. He believed that the Bill, as it stood, would tend, to a greater extent than the proposed clause, to secure the comfort of the men and the safety of the public. The subject had been thoroughly sifted in the Committee. The Board of Trade could, upon the representation of almost anybody, order the company to submit to them, within a specified period, such schedule of time as, in the opinion of the Department, would keep the hours of labour within reasonable limits, having "regard to the circumstances of the traffic and the character of the work." The public were much better protected by the regulations of the Board of Trade, who had full power to bring every Railway Company to account, than they would be by scheduling the hours of labour. The danger of specifying the hours would be that the maximum rates laid down by Parliament would be adopted by the companies instead of the minimum rates which the friends of the railway servants were anxious to obtain. The Report of the Committee stated that the companies which wished that the men should be kept at work long hours were comparatively few. Mr. Harford, Secretary of the Amalgamated Railway Servants' Union, which was the largest union of railway men, stated, when examined before the Committee in 1891, that he did not ask that the limit of hours should be laid down by Act of Parliament. Eight hours in many signal-boxes would be too long; but there were men who worked in some signal-boxes not more than six hours or four hours. There were signalmen who did not do two hours and a half consecutive work in the 12 hours that they were on duty. Four or five passenger trains and two goods trains in the 12 hours were all that they had to signal. It was idle to compare such men with the men at Clapham Junction or other larger places. Major Marindin stated very clearly that he was totally against a Parliamentary limit of hours; and Sir H. Calcraft, who certainly had more experience in connection with the matter than almost any other man, was exactly of the same opinion. It would appear from page after page of the evidence given before the Committee that there were few railway servants, no officer of the Board of Trade, and certainly no railway general manager, who thought it would be for the public safety or for the advantage of the men themselves that Parliament should interfere. Instances had occurred which, he thought, showed that it was time for Parliament to interfere, and the question was—How was Parliament to interfere? Certainly not by laying down hard-and-fast lines as to hours; but by trusting, as this Bill did, the Board of Trade to deal with the circumstances as they arose in special cases. The right hon. Gentleman was mistaken in his view in regard to the matter.

SIR J. FERGUSSON (Manchester, N. E.)

I feel somewhat impelled, as an old-fashioned politician, to object to the new doctrine of spontaneous interference with the freedom of contract and the labour of adult men. It is said that this Bill was smuggled through the House on the SECOND READING. I do not see how that could be done if those interested in it attended; but, however that may be, it has received careful investigation in the Standing Committee. There have been undoubtedly notable eases in which serious accidents have occurred, either post hoc or propter hoc, when railway servants have been employed for unduly long hours; but Railway Companies have set their houses in order, and have greatly reduced the hours of their men Nevertheless, the Committee wore satisfied that there were adequate grounds for giving the Board of Trade special power to interfere with the discretion of the companies. That is a very different thing from the House laying down hard-and-fast lines as to the hours of railway servants. It is said that railway servants are in a manner State employés, because the companies have a monopoly; but in these days of unlimited competition, when Parliament authorises parallel lines in every direction, I cannot see how the companies can be said to have a monopoly. The question of what are reasonable hours is one, primarily, for the employers and employed. I do not believe that the House is as capable to judge in such matters. It might as well be said that it is qualified to settle questions of law. Parliament should rather lay down broad rules and interfere as little as possible between employers and their workmen. When a Committee of the House has decided that a certain measure is adequate for the purpose, I hope that the House will not Interfere with that decision. If the House should adopt this principle a very inconvenient precedent may be established. I do not speak as a railway director, or as one interested in the matter; but I am most desirous that the House should not adopt a principle which is extremely inconvenient and beyond the necessity of the case.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. MUNDELLA,) Sheffield, Brightside

Mr. Speaker, I oppose the clause that is now submitted to the House for reasons similar to those given by the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. The public mind has long been made up as to the necessity of restricting the hours of work of railway servants, not only in the interests of the workmen themselves, but in the interests of the travelling public. Two years ago a Select Committee was appointed to consider the question, and it sat for two years considering how best the hours of railway servants could be brought within reasonable limits. Abundance of evidence was taken, from railway servants, railway directors, and Inspectors of the Board of Trade; and that evidence, much of which is of a remarkable character, has been published with the Report of the Committee, and circulated among hon. Members in the form of two large Blue Books. When I entered on the duties of my office I found this important Report ready to my hand, and it became my duty immediately to take action upon it. I took action as early as I could. On the very first day of the Session, as a matter of fact, I brought in this Bill, and my only regret is that it is not already law and in operation. It is not my fault that it has not been passed. The Bill has certainly not been smuggled through. It was sent to a Grand Committee of 103 Members, and was most carefully considered. So also has the proposed now clause been carefully considered, and it was absolutely rejected by the Committee. There were two Reports presented—a Majority Report and a Minority Report—and both agree that the number of working hours should not be stated in the Bill, but that the responsibility of fixing the hours should rest primâ facie with the Railway Companies, the Board of Trade seeing that they are reasonable. Mr. Harford, Secretary to the Union of Amalgamated Railway Servants, does not wish that the hours should be fixed by the State, but is of opinion that on complaints being received from the men the Board of Trade should have power to order such a reduction in the hours as they might think necessary. I have not called upon the railway servants for complaints, and I should not ask for them before taking action; but if the Bill were in operation I should call upon the Railway Companies for a Schedule of the working hours of all the servants in their employ. The general opinion amongst all people best acquainted with the condition of railway servants is that there should be elasticity in dealing with the hours of working, looking at the varieties of employment, at all the dissimilarities, and all the diversified conditions. This case is not like that of workers in a factory, where work is commenced at a certain hour in the morning and terminated at a certain hour at night. Railway work depends upon all sorts of circumstances. Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman what has happened sine he put his Amendment on the Paper. I have, as he says, received deputations from railway servants. On Saturday, for instance, I received a large deputation from engine men and drivers of eight or ten of the principal railways in the country; and they were all strongly opposed, not to the Bill, but to fixing a hard-and-fast line in regard to hours of labour. They said—"If you do this it will tell against us very seriously." I know that eight hours is quite long enough to ask men to work in a great variety of trades; but you cannot deal with railways as you can with trades. These men said— After a journey we are anxious to get home; we do not want to lodge away from our wives and families. Take the ease of railway servants conducting excursion trains to the seaside. It takes us two or three hours to get to our destination. We spend some hours enjoying ourselves at the seaside, and it then takes us two or three hours to get home. All the time we are away is reckoned in our working hours; and if you tie us down to eight hours, what is to become of us during the time we are remaining at the pleasure resort with the excursionists? Are we to stop there and not come home? If the clause were passed we should have to deal with the evidence of 400,000 railway servants in order to make the necessary exceptions. The right hon. Gentleman says he has no confidence in the discretion of the Board of Trade, and yet he is willing to allow the Board of Trade to make exceptions with regard to the hours of working of all classes of railway servants. He asks—"Is this Bill to be a sham?" Sir, I would ask him—"Does he wish to make the Bill a sham by inserting this clause in it?" Is it a serious, practical clause? It is said—"You may not be able, perhaps, to fix the hours of all railway servants, but you could fix the hours of signalmen." They are satisfied that it would be impossible to fix eight hours as the working day of all railway servants, but they say—"We will make exceptions in all cases where it is necessary to go beyond eight hours." Why, in the case of some signalmen they would be as much over-worked with eight hours as other signalmen with twice that number of hours. In some instances six hours' work is quite sufficient to exhaust a man. One signalman may have to be continually in the box with 40 or 50 trains passing by, whilst another may not have to attend to more than 10 or 12 during the whole day, may not have to be in the box more than two or three hours, and may be able to spend many hours during the course of the day working in his garden. Are you going to lay down the same number of hours in the one case as in the other? I appeal to all who have had to deal with questions of this sort as reasonable and practical men. I am as anxious as the right hon. Gentleman opposite to take care that railway servants shall not he overworked. I have hoard it urged that railway servants will be helpless in this matter unless some stringent rule of law is laid down; but I would point out that a, deputation of railway servants from the North-Eastern system which waited on me to-day showed a frankness and a manliness with regard to their interests in connection with this subject that leaves nothing to be desired, and showed that they are quite able to manage their own affairs. It is said that under the Bill no one is bound to make inquiries; but if anyone—say the secretary of one of the Railway Servants' Unions—were to come to the Board of Trade and make complaint the Board of Trade would be bound to make inquiries. It not only requires that we should make inquiry, but it requires that having made inquiry, and satisfied ourselves with regard to the matter complained of, we are to give orders to the Railway Company to provide a Schedule, and that if they do not comply we are to proceed against them before the Railway Commissioners. As I have pointed out, you have every variety of service on the railways. To begin with, there are over 10,000 station-masters to deal with. These men are on duty more than 10 hours a day, but though on duty they have a considerable amount of leisure; but if a hard-and-fast rule were laid down we should have to forbid these 10,000 station-masters from working more than 10 hours a day. We should have to enforce the same rule in the case of men who have merely occasionally to open gates at level crossings. I am sure that if the House only considers this question in the way in which it was considered by the Committee, it will not allow itself to be led away by the specious arguments of the right hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir John Gorst) as to the Bill being a sham. If it passes it will be the strongest measure that has ever been placed in the bands of the Board of Trade to administer. It will be open to any hon. Member to complain it be does not think its powers are properly enforced, and it will be for the Minister of the day to answer him. I am sorry my Predecessor in Office is not in the House to answer the right hon. Gentleman who has moved this clause. All I will now say is that, if the measure becomes law, hon. Members may be assured that the Board of Trade will put it into active operation, and that the hours of railway servants will be materially reduced.

MR. SCOTT-MONTAGU (Hampshire, New Forest)

said that, as having had great experience in these matters, it would be in the highest degree inconvenient to interfere with the working of the railways of the country. As to the signalmen, no doubt it was desirable, in the interest of the public, that they should not be overworked; but their case might safely be left to the Board of Trade. The exceptions which would have to be made under this clause would include 90 percent. of the men. Besides, it was not necessary to interfere with those Railway Companies who were dealing fairly with their servants. He did not think the clause would have a generally beneficial effect either on the railway servants or the companies. It was an important question how far they were entitled to interfere with the hours of adult labour; but in this case the question was a more serious one still, involving, as it did, the safety of the travelling public. He was sorry he could not see his way to support the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge.

*MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)

said, the President of the Board of Trade described this as the most stringent measure over placed in the hands of the Board of Trade. What was its history? It was brought in on the very first day of the Session; the Second Reading was moved at about eight minutes to 12 one night, and he (Mr. Bartley) happened to he discussing it when an attempt was made to closure it at 12 o'clock. He had received a deputation of railway servants with regard to it, and they had expressed themselves as immensely dissatisfied with it. The question was—Did the Bill satisfy the wants of the railway servants and the public? [Cries of "Question!"] That was the point they were really considering.

*MR. SPEAKER

The point under discussion is the clause of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge.

MR. BARTLEY

said, he thought the Amendment really struck at the root of the whole Bill, because the Bill said they were to leave the whole matter to the Board of Trade, and the clause under discussion indicated how the Board of Trade were to be guided in settling the question of the hours of labour by the rule contained in the clause itself. The clause, as the right hon. Gentleman who proposed it had pointed out, would not tie the hands of the Board of Trade. It left complete elasticity; but it did lay down a certain definite guide to the Board of Trade as to what the hours should be. A great many of the railway servants were anxious to see that guide as to the maximum hours of employment laid down. He (Mr. Bartley) was in doubt as to the advisability of laying down rules at all; but as the Bill, which had passed the Second Reading and so been adopted by the House, would give the Board of Trade power to do so, he thought the House should have the courage of its convictions, and, without laying down a hard-and-fast rule, say that, primâ facie, so many hours should be the number worked except under special circumstances.

*MR. J. WILSON (Durham, Mid)

opposed the clause, hut protested against the inference that he was, therefore, opposed to the interests of the railway servants. He had been a Member of the Committee of last year, and he had been the medium through which the views of the railway servants had become known. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman did not in any way meet the view of the workmen. It was not in harmony with the Resolution passed by the House last year, and it would not in any way settle the question so far as the railway servants were concerned. The Amendment which would meet with his approval would be one in harmony with the Motion of last year, and with the view of the railway servants, such as had been put forward by their chosen spokesman. The Amendment would give no place whatever to the action of the workmen in arranging the hours they would work on the railways. It gave a right of interference, but that was on the motion of the Railway Companies, and not of the working men; whereas the Bill, as it at present stood, gave that right to the workmen. Looking at the circumstances of employment—in the signal-boxes for instance—it seemed only reasonable that the workmen, if they considered they were over-worked, should make out a case and submit it to the Board of Trade and give evidence in support of it. He was in harmony with the right hon. Gentleman as to the extravagant hours worked by some men on railways, and he considered it a great danger to the travelling public to have men in signal-boxes I 2 hours a day, and men at work on engines 12 hours a day. He should certainly oppose the Amendment, and support the Bill as it stood.

MR. BANBURY (Camberwell, Peckham)

wished to say why he could not support the new clause. It embodied a most important principle, involving the regulation by the State of the hours of adult labour. He had, during the General Election, always stated that should that principle be proposed he should oppose it. His right hon. Friend (Sir J. Gorst) had stated that one of the reasons why he brought the clause forward was that long hours conduced to accidents. The clause, however, would regulate the hours of porters and of men who were employed in a variety of work not in any way likely to conduce to accidents, and he could not support it. He wished to point out that proposals of this kind had a very deterrent effect upon the investment of capital in railways. It was mentioned in the Budget Speech earlier in the evening that a very large amount of capital was awaiting employment. He himself was not a railway shareholder or a railway director; but he could not help saying that if Parliament interfered continually with the interests of shareholders it was not surprising that money was sent out of the country for investment.

MR. BURNS (Battersea)

said, the question for discussion was not whether the House should apply the principle of legislative interference with workers' hours, but the manner in which such interference should be applied. He would not enter into the reasons which had induced the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Sir J. Gorst) to move his clause; but as one who had had some experience of rail- way men, and who had identified himself with the Scotch railway men in their strike for shorter hours, he preferred the right hon. Gentleman's clause to the vague and general terms of the Bill. The proposed clause was not so rigid as the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Mundella) implied, as it provided for exceptions, qualifications, and conditions, and its advantage consisted in the fact that it provided for a maximum of eight hours for signalmen and for one of 10 hours, exclusive of meal times, for other classes of workers. The House admitted that the railway workmen's hours were scandalously long, and should be restricted in the interest both of the travelling public and of the men themselves, as well as in the interests of those who could not now find employment, because in many places each man was doing the work of two and sometimes three men. He regretted that he could not approve of the line taken by the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. John Wilson). The hon. Member had said that the railway workers were generally in favour of the proposals of the Bill. He (Mr. Burns) ventured to dispute that. The 10,000 Scotch railway men who were out on strike for six weeks, and were told to resort to voluntary effort and. trade union combination, but who, when they did resort to those things, had the police and the military picketed against them, were in favour of a legislative limit of 10 hours for railway servants and eight hours for signalmen, but, at the same time, thought that four or six hours were sufficient in boxes that were exceptionally busy. Mr. Tait was in favour of a statutory limit of 10 hours Mr. Watson, the Secretary of the Railway Workers' Union, thought that eight hours should be the maximum for all railway workers; and Mr. Forman, who spoke for the Irish railway men, supported maxima of eight and ten hours for various classes of workers. He was afraid that Mr. Harford, the General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway-Workers, preferred in the matter of legal interference to be a politician first and a labour man afterwards. He (Mr. Burns) wanted to ask the President of the Board of Trade this pertinent question. How many more strikes, almost amounting to civil war, were they to have like that which took place in Scotland two years ago, and how many accidents similar to those which took place during the Cardiff railway strike? He was convinced that until the House fixed a legislative limit of ton or eight hours the Railway Companies would continue to dodge the Board of Trade as they did now by their booking times, and it would too frequently happen that the stable door would be locked after the steed was stolen. The hon. Member for Barnard Castle (Sir J. Pease) had said there was no reason for fixing a legislative limit to the number of hours worked, and the House had been treated to a description of the Arcadian signalman sitting in his box—of course with geraniums and roses growing all around—and working two and a half hours a day. Hon. Members had heard that story before. That was the kind of statement to which railway directors always treated the House of Commons, and which was always made at shareholders' meetings; but it represented one case in 1,000. In 1892 the North-Eastern Railway Company employed 2,105 signalmen. The number of cases in the course of the year in which signalmen were employed over 10 hours a day was 2,100, the number over 11 hours was 3,100, the number over 12 hours 19,630, the number over 13 hours 945, the number over 14 hours 505, the number over 15 hours 203, the number 16 hours 160, the number over 17 hours 43, and the number over 18 hours and upwards 8. These long hours had an extraordinary effect upon the increase of accidents. He believed that the butcher's bill which the Railway Directors, for profit, through the long hours they worked their men, provided every year for the delectation of the public was largely attributable to this cause. He believed that 50 per cent. of the accidents to which shunters, goods guards, firemen, and drivers were subject was due to the excessively long hours which had been proved up to the hilt by the Board of Trade Inspectors. Between 1874 and 1892 excessive hours, as he contended, had in the majority of cases been responsible for thousands of deaths and many thousands of cases of injury in the management of rolling stock. It would not do to say that those deaths and injuries were due to unavoidable accidents or to carelessness and negligence when he found that in a number of cases the men responsible had been on duty for 16, 18, 23, or even 26 hours when the accident took place. He was positively convinced that there was a direct connection between the long hours worked and the accidents that frequently took place. In one case that recently occurred a goods driver was on duty on an average 19¾ hours a day, with an average of four to five hours a day rest, whilst shunters had been on duty 36 hours without relief. He was certain that if the Bill passed without amendment, laxity on the part of the officials would take place as soon as trade revived, the supervision of the Board of Trade would be relaxed, and they would see the indiscriminate slaughter of our railway men continued. There had been more than sufficient loose sympathetic talk about doing something in the interest of the railway servants. The railway servants were very much in favour of the legislative limit. Hero and there men wanted to do all the overtime they could get, but the great bulk of the railway workers were in favour of a rigid legislative limit; and that being so, whilst he should prefer to make eight hours the maximum for all kinds of railway work, he should walk into the Division Lobby in favour of the new clause.

*THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH,) Fife, E.

I agree with my hon. Friend who has just sat down that there has been a great deal too much sentimental talk on the subject now before the House. It is because Her Majesty's Government desire to crystallise and to bring to some effective and practical end the widespread conviction entertained by the great mass of those who have investigated this subject that something effective ought to be done to limit the excessive hours of labour of railway servants that this Bill has been introduced, and that we shall ask the House to carry it to a Third Reading. I confess I think that in the latter part of his observations my hon. Friend was, if I may use a homely expression, forcing an open door. No one in this House contends that the hours of railway servants under existing conditions are not excessive; no one except one or two hon. Gentlemen opposite, who, as they have candidly admitted, belong to an old-fashioned school of politicians, has denied the right of this House to interfere with the regulations of large Corporations like Railway Companies, or to interfere with other departments of labour where conditions exist which are detrimental to the health of the labourers and the interests of the public.

SIR J. FERGUSSON

As the right hon. Gentleman has referred to me, I may say that I supported the Bill of the Government.

*MR. ASQUTTH

It is quite true that the right hon. Gentleman supported the Bill; but his arguments, if they amounted to anything, were arguments against the Bill. But that, after all, is a comparatively unimportant point. I agree with my hon. Friend (Mr. Burns) that voluntary combination has proved ineffective for the purpose in view. I do not, in the least degree, quarrel with the conclusion he has drawn from the cases he has mentioned to the House that there is abundant evidence that under existing conditions railway servants are not able to secure for themselves without the protection and assistance of Parliament those reasonable conditions of labour which they and the public have a right to demand. Well, then, the real question between us is reduced to one of method or machinery. The argument of those who support the Amendment is that for the purpose of obtaining an end which we all admit to be desirable, and obtaining it not by combination but by legislative interference, it is better to lay down in the Act a specific standard of hours, with power to the Board of Trade to vary it in exceptional cases, than, as the Bill proposes, to enable the Board of Trade to interfere at its own instance or at the instance of any person who brings cases before it. What are the arguments of my hon. Friend in support of his contention that there ought to be a rigid and cast-iron system? I venture to say he has produced no argument whatever. He has exposed to the House the magnitude of the evil, but has not given a single practical authority in support of the proposition embodied in the Amendment. The Board of Trade Inspectors, who have to consider the interests of the public, are of opinion that the circumstances of the railways are so elastic that it is impossible to lay down any fixed rules. Mr. Harford, Secretary of the Railway Servants' Union, is of the same opinion. To cite an illustration of the view of the men themselves, on one railway, out of 1,600 engine-drivers and firemen, 1,300 or 1,350 have declared themselves to he in favour of the scheme of the Bill rather than that of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. Therefore, I say, admitting that the hours of labour ought to be limited, that voluntary competition is ineffective for the purpose, and that the statutory interference of Parliament is necessary, the Government took the opinion of competent experts engaged in trade, and have come to the conclusion that the plan proposed by the Bill is is more suited to the attainment of the object in view than that which is proposed by the right hon. Gentleman. It is absolutely essential to remember that the employment of railway servants differs fundamentally from that of almost any other kind of labour. In factories and mines all the persons engaged in production are, by the necessities of the case, obliged to labour together for practically the same length of time; but in the case of Railway Companies with systems extending over a great length of country, and serving great towns and small villages, and with signal-boxes dealing with varying numbers of trains every day, the House must, as practical men of business, come to the conclusion that it is impossible to lay down a fixed rule applicable to a system, and that it is far better to vest an elastic power of administration in a Government Department, which will adopt rules to meet the varying conditions that may arise. I therefore advocate the Bill in the interests of the railway servants and the public, and I ask the House to adopt the Bill as it stands and to vote against the amendment.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 71; Noes 257.—(Division List, No. 60.)

And, it being after Midnight, Further Proceeding on Consideration, as amended, stood adjourned.

Bill, as amended, to be further considered To-morrow.