THE NEW RAILWAY DISPUTE. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "
SPECTATOR.") SIR, —1 have read with interest the article on " The New Rail- way Dispute " which appeared in your columns on January 22nd, but it seems to me to have escaped the notice of the writer that the proposals of the Railway Companies' Asso- ciation and that of Sir George Gibb, as quoted in the article, are, if not identical, at any rate very nearly so. The fact is that half, and more than half, of this controversy has its origin in the failure to recognize what most people might be supposed to know (and certainly what Mr. Thomas, who has been in touch with railway management for many years, cannot be ignorant of), viz., that according to the practice now well
established on all large railways, the function of railway directors is not to "manage " but to "direct," "manage- ment' being the duty of the head officials. So thoroughly is this recognized that Sir George Gibb, as is shown from the extract from his address quoted in your article, with his expe- rience both as railway manager and railway director, could not believe that the Minister of Transport, when he spoke of a Board of Management, had in mind the Board of Directors. It has since transpired that Sir George was wrong in this respect, hence the opposition of the Railway Companies' Association to the Minister's proposal, because, while there is much to be said both for taking advantage of the experience gained by the men in their daily contact with practical problems, and for making them acquainted with the difficulties of management, there is no reason to suppose that anything would be gained by associating them with the sort of questions which are settled in the board room.
The writer's suggestion that the men's directors should be
chosen by them, but not from them, is of course an entirely different suggestion from that put forward by either the Rail- way Companies' Association, the Minister of Transport, or Sir George Gibb; in any event they will hardly appreciate the further suggestion that they should be content with a director's salary. But that is a small point. I think it will be found that the question of associating railwaymen with the manage- meat, in the only sense in which it would be of value either to them or to the community, and 'I may say in the only sense in which I believe 99 per .cent. of the men desire it, is far easier of solution than many of the railway problems of to-day, and Ivnuld probably have been satisfactorily solved before now on more than one railway if we had been back in the old days of individual management and control.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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