The Railway Enquiry Commission held its first sitting to take
evidence on Monday. The case of the men was heard first, and Mr. Williams, General Secretary of the Amalga- mated Society of Railway Servants, who was the only witness called that day, attacked the Conciliation Scheme at great length. He charged the companies with deliberate delay, extending to many months, in setting up the boards and after- wards in putting them into operation, and declared the cost to his society in eleven cases of arbitration had amounted to £30,000. He suggested that the sectional boards should be abolished, and that there should be one board for each railway and a National Board, confined to no particular system, but serving as a kind of Court of Appeal, composed of elected representatives from the companies and the men's executives. He asserted that no body of men had ever given any scheme such an absolutely impartial chance as the rail. way men had given to the Conciliation Scheme of 1907.
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