To go on to details, the chief points in the
new offer are that all railwaymen will have an immediate increase of 5s. a week till September 30th; that afterwards they shall have at least double pre-war rates, and that there shall be a minimum of £2 for country porters however much price, may fall; that there shall be standard rates ensuring the same pay for the same work on all railways ; and that rates shall be subject to revision as the cost of living rises or falls. The original demand of the men was that the 33s. war bonus should be added to the highest rate of pay for each grade and the total made the standard rate. This has been conceded only to the locomotive engineers and firemen, the aristocracy of their trade—hence much of the jealousy. When all is said, the real railway settlement is not to follow the vicious circle of raising the cost of living by continual and universal increases of wages— for the one thing always follows the other—but to increase real wages by producing more necessaries, and thus causing their price to fall.
