THE STRUGGLE FOR THE RAILWAYS.
AVERY interesting and very important struggle for the control of the railways is going on at present, and deserves a great deal more of public attention than it has received. This struggle, as Carlyle would have said, is significant of much ; the demands which are being daily put forward by Labour imply, or rather are the result of, an entirely new conception of the part which the manual workers, acting as a self-sufficing political body, may play in the governance of the country. The more advanced leaders of Trade Unionism have cone to regard the Unions, if not precisely as potential Soviets, at least as the natural legatees of the powers hitherto vested in Parliament. Labour policy is directed towards insinuating the Unions into the management of all affairs of primary national importance. The proposed " General Staff for Labour " is to direct the Labour forces in this new and hopeful field of action. Direct Action—the policy of forcing the will of a minority upon the majority by means of a general strike— has fallen into unpopularity, and is not for the moment going at all strong ; but we see in its place an attempt to put into force the next best thing to direct action—namely, the securing of an undue degree of control by Labour in the management of State affairs. Two fields just now present far more favourable opportunities than any others for Labour operations. These are the management of the railways and the management of the coalfields. We want in this article to examine what is happening in the case of the railways.
No one can read the newspapers without learning that Mr. J. H. Thomas is in constant communication with the Government, and that, to use Mr. Thomas's own phrase, the leaders of the railwaymen will not be satisfied till they have been made " railway directors." Let us say at once that, so far as the demand of Labour to be represented on all Boards of industrial management is concerned, we are in principle in entire sympathy with it. We need not go now into the question of the relative values of the advice given by manual workers and the advice given by brain workers in industrial management. We must be content to assert the general truth that the more Labour can be represented in business management, without detriment to the wise direction of the industry involved, the better. From every point of view it is desirable that Labour should make itself conversant with the difficulties of management instead of regarding an industry merely as a wage-paying institution. But having conceded this point, we find ourselves face to face with the fact that Labour is once more demanding undue representation. It does not now propose to make the Government or the whole country submit by means of violence, but it does hope to serve its own interests by ignoring the existence of other interests. The truth of what we say will be obvious to any one who looks at the proposed scheme of railway management which is said to contain the latest ideas of the Government, who are evolving those ideas in direct association with the representatives of Labour. Mr. Thomas, speaking at Bristol on November 16th, said that the machinery of control which the Government proposed to create included three Trade Union representatives who would join the Railway Executive with powers equal to those of the General Managers. A Joint Board composed of five General Managers and five Trade Union representatives would deal with the general conditions of service. A body of twelve persons (four Labour men, four representatives of the railway companies, and four representatives of the public, with an independent Chairman) would settle questions on which the Joint Board failed to agree. More- over, bodies containing an equal number of Managers and Labour representatives would be set up locally to deal with grievances. The first question which occurs to us on looking at this proposal is, Where do the traders, the real customers of the railways, come in ? Where, we might also ask, does the public come in, since we understand that two of the four representatives of the so-called public are to be representatives of the Co-operative Movement, in other words Labour representatives—anti-trader representatives —under an alias 1 The representatives of the public are actually reduced to two. What has been happening is something of this sort. The Government are suggesting an extremely ingenious but, as it seems to us, a very specu- lative scheme of bureaucratic control. If they had been left to themselves, they would no doubt have carried their bureaucratic ideal into effect in unadulterated grandeur— without being worried by, or without greatly considering, any outside interests. But it is the custom of the Government to get themselves out of a difficulty by giving way, whenever convenient, to those who clamour most loudly. The leaders of Labour clamour day by day. That we know. We also perceive the results. The con- sequence is a bureaucratic scheme tempered by heavy concessions to Labour. Where, we ask again, do the other people conic in, although everybody in the nation is directly interested in the railways ? The mischief is that the nation has forgotten to clamour. This may not be a great fault on the part of most people, but on the part of the traders who both feed the railways and are fed by them it may prove to be a disastrous omission. In our opinion, the traders have much more than an interest in this business ; they have a duty. They are the natural representatives of the public. if the management of the railways should be inefficient and expensive, the public, through having to pay more for what it wants, will have in the end to bear the burden. In an interview published in the Sunday Chronicle last Sunday Lord Birkenhead said :- "Look at the new plan for the railways. The men are to have their (chosen representatives at the very centre of the railway system. They can then advise their fellows in the light of a complete knowledge of the facts. The Government can have its own way in respect of the railways, for it is master there, but it wants all trades to set up a Whitley Council which would have pretty much the same powers and effects. ' Dodge ! ' Nothing of the sort ! It is a crusade, a great movement in the whole national interest."
We Cannot help agreeing with Lord Birkenhead that there is no dodge." We fear that the facts betray an even lower form of mental process. The Government have merely listened to those who have importunately•besieged them, and have ignored all those who have not troubled to do so.
If the traders do not open their eyes, and by means of their various organizations get together and insist upon being heard, they will find that they will be left out in the cold. Trade will suffer heavily, and may suffer irreparably. The great virtue of the traders' point of view in railway management. is that it is purely commercial. We say this in no cynical sense whatever. The greatest boon that can be bestowed upon an industrial country, apart from low taxation and the absence of Government interference, is cheapness, quickness, and regularity of transport. This boon is not in the least likely to be bestowed unless the Railway Executive are being continually kept up to the mark by those who really understand what they are talking about, and whose personal financial interests are vitally concerned. The man who takes a purely commercial view of transport is the true benefactor of his fellows, and no one in reality can do a better turn to the wage- earner ; for wages go much further, and therefore are in effect much higher wages, when transport is cheap and satisfactory. What will happen, on the other hand, if the bureaucratic ideas of the Government are shaped or deflected only by the demands of Labour representatives ? We shall probably have the railways regarded as an instru- ment of " social reform." If what is called " social reform " were really social reform, we should not have a word to say against it ; but that attractive phrase means in practice more expense, and ultimately fewer advantages for everybody. Probably if some of the half-baked plans of Labour which are at present fashionable were put into effect, all the railways would be run rather in the spirit which has governed the development of the London County Council trains. The railways, like the trains, would become a kind of political argument. The voter would be told that a great blessing had been bestowed upon him by a humane and considerate Government, and that if he continued to vote right more blessings of the same kind would follow. But really the blessings would be illusions, and everybody would be much better off and would reach a higher standard of comfort if the railways were managed on purely commercial lines, enabling commodities to be circulated cheaply and promptly. If we wanted to give an illustration of how management by traders on purely commercial lines—management by men whose pockets are concerned in every decision they take—has worked out for the benefit of everybody, we might point to the extraordinarily good management of some of the independent docks and harbours in this country. Take the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, for example. The management used to be in the hands of the Liverpool Corporation. Gradually the dissatisfied traders—and they had good cause to be dissatisfied—secured representation on the Board, and ultimately they took over the entire control. They did not squeeze out the Corporation by unworthy strategy and dodges. They established their title to government by common consent because of their great success. That is the kind of management which is also required for the railways. Of course we know very well that a dock or a harbour, which is a small compact thing, cannot be compared with a railway which covers hundreds of miles of country. How the local knowledge of traders could best be put to the service of railway manage- ment which covers an enormous geographical area is not a problem for us. We must leave that to others. All that we contend for is that if the Government take on to their Bc and of Management non-bureaucratic elements, they ought to take on the representatives not of one interest only but of several, and particularly those whose brains are most likely to run the railways well. Not to do so is to give Labour the right to exercise a kind of modified Direct Action after all. We read in the newspapers the text of a resolution which was passed this week by the United Trades Association. It is as follows :- "That the Prime Minister be informed that the proposed Board which it is understood the Government intends to set up for the management of the railways gives a totally inadequate representation to the trading interests of the country, which are those of the consumers and the public at large, and is there- fore unacceptable to the trading community. That the Prime Minister be asked to receive a deputation at an early date in order that he may hear the views of the traders on the urgent necessity not making any arrangement for the management and working of the railways until the traders have had an opportunity of considering the subject as a whole, and of formulating and putting forward their suggestions of what the future policy for the railways should be—a policy which is of such vital concern to the trade and prosperity of the country—this Association being of opinion that an efficient and harmonious railway system cannot be secured without the advice and active assistance on the management of representative traders duly elected by their fellows."
This resolution points the right line of action. We sincerely trust that other bodies all over the country will follow suit. Nothing is more certain in dealing with the present Govern- ment than that those who insist on being heard can make themselves heard.
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