The risk that the country may find itself faced with
a r4ilway strike during the Week-end is still grave. now seems certain, however, that the strike, if it comes, will be confined to the Associated Societies of Loco- • motive Engineers and Firemen, and that the bulk of the railwaymen will remain at work. The situation has grown moreeomplicated as well as more delicate. The attempts which are being made to regard the A.S.L.E. & F.'s action as breaking a pledge which they had given by signing the Wages Board's award are unjustified. Mr. Bromley, the Society's secretary, is right when he points out that the National Wages Board does not make decisions but records " findings " which the representa- tives of the Societies merely recommend to their con- stituent bodies when they sign a " finding." On the other hand, it is true that if the various parties to arbitration -do not abide by the " findings," the whole principle will be lamentably weakened and the value of the Wages Board diminished. There are still some hopes of settlement. Mr. -Bromley has raised many- complicated issues outside the Wages Board findings, and we may at any rate hope that compromise may be effected on these. It will be natural, however, if the companies are somewhat unyielding, as the prospect of success for so partial a strike as that of the A.S.L.E. & F. alone can be but slight.
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