Railway Wages
SIR,—Regarding your editorial note Reason for Railwaymen. Truth is undoubtedly relative, and however basically true your note may be, another truth, still more basic, stands out a mile—that a railwayman and his wife, in these times of rapidly increasing prices, cannot pay their way on £4 16s. per week. This figure is the wage of a porter (before deductions), and many potters have no opportunity of making extra through overtime. I myself am a porter-signalman earning £4 19s. per week. I have no chance of overtime, so with deductions for national insurance and income tax I take home exactly f4 13s. Id.
The railways may " have lost £50 million in three years," but it is a strange system of accountancy that declares any sum less than the £36,000,000 due annually to compensate the ex-shareholders a loss —and a stranger system of morality that uses this fictitious "loss as an excuse to refuse underpaid workers a living wage.—Yours, &c., Flaxmere, Norley, via Warrington, Cheshire. JOHN R. HOLMES.
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