[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—The present stage
of the railway crisis is ominous. It is like the hush before the storm, and the public are being lulled into a sense of false security. The railway strike will be the signal for many other strikes, and a flood of financial disaster will sweep over the land, overwhelming multitudes in irretrievable ruin. What is wanted now is a shareholders' ballot on the primary matter in dispute,—viz., the recognition by the companies of the men's Union. A small majority of the directors and managers refuse to recognise it. But the stockholders are virtually the railway proprietors, and they
are at present the chief sufferers in this dispute between the railway directors and the railway servants. Theoretically the shareholders rule the directors, but practically the reverse is the case, and " the shareholder is a poor snubbed creature." Let the voice of the stockholder be heard in the land, a ballot taken, and the result published. It is generally admitted that the railway strike would be a national disaster, far- reaching and productive of incalculable loss and suffering. What patriots will come forward and help to organise a stock- holders' ballot, the only means of preventing this national
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