A very formidable strike is occurring on the Caledonian Railway.
The men allege that they are worked to death, being frequently kept on duty eighteen and twenty hours at a stretch, and paid for overtime only as ordinary time. They therefore -demand a nine hours' stint, extra pay for overtime, and double pay for Sunday labour. The last demand is absurd, as if the men object on religious grounds, they should not work; and if on social grounds, they should be content with the overtime rate. Nine hours, too, is a short stint. Let them make the day ten hours, and demand overtime pay for work beyond that and for Sunday labour, and the whole public will be with them. The -whole of the men will, it is believed, be "out" to-day; but the Directors declare they will not yield, partly because the demands are unreasonable, and partly because they were not sent in -through the heads of departments,—the last being mere dignified nonsense. We recommend • the Directors to offer -fair terms of compromise, before a great accident happens, or they will find the juries' verdicts affect their dividends. The public are sick of the over-working of Railway servants, who, if they fall asleep, are liable to criminal penalties. We have known ourselves of pointsmen, not on the Caledonian, working -twenty hours a day, at points where a pull at a wrong lever
would cost fifty lives.
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