RAILWAY SERVANTS (HOURS OF LABOUR). mineral traffic, all of which increased the hours. Since that Return was pubMR. W. HARVEY (Derbyshire, N.E.) lished, things had gone from bad to rose to call attention to the hours of worse, and railways were working their railway servants; and to move "That men exceptionally long hours and beyond this House disapproves of engine-drivers, anything he had quoted to the House. firemen, guards, and other classes of There were large centres of railway railway employés being compelled to be servants in the division he represented, on duty during excessive hours and and he had been able to collect being allowed but short intervals of rest, somewhat startling information from and urges upon the Government the the men about excessive hours of he work. He the men's names dealt with was of necessity of applying more vigorously the Railway Regulation (Hours of Labour) the information before the President was prepared to place Act, 1893, and, if this is inefficient, to of the Board of Trade on condition that prepare an Amendment to the Act." The hon. Member said this was the first were not disclosed, time it had been his pleasure to address because if they were disclosed the men that House, and he claimed the indulgence would probably be dismissed or inwhich he felt sure would be extended terfered with. The figures he to him. In bringing forward this Motion, about to give were up-to-date and the existing state was in complete harmony with the General Secretary of the Railway things. On February 1st there were Servants Society, the hon. Member for Derby, who was the recognised representative of that body. When the Act of 1893 was passed it was expected by the trade unionists of the country, and especially by railway servants, that there would be a great diminution in the hours of railway servants. The first section of that Act provided that the hours of work should be within reasonable limits, but the words "reasonable limits" had never been accurately defined either year а in or out of the House. He asked VOL. CLXX. [FOURTH SERIES.] two cases of seventeen hours a initiated many reforms, but they did not appear to be concerned about this last reform of bringing down the hours of labour, so necessary in the interest of humanity. Last session the matter was debated in the House, and the President of the Board of Trade replying to the debate said "He was obliged to his hon. friends for bringing this subject forward, and in the course of the next few months he hoped they would be able to clear up many of those cases in which there had been delay, and press the railway companies into conforming to the standard of twelve hours, which was rather high for any man."+ the first time that he had had the honour He wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman's hope in regard to influencing the managers of the railway companies had been realised. There was a very serious side to the matter, and if hon. Members would only refer to the number of accidents occurring on the railways, he felt sure that they would agree with him that the time had come when this question, in the interests of the general community, ought to be dealt with. There had been published in the railway newspapers from the employers' point of view figures which were very misleading. Those statistics placed all railway servants in one class and compared them with the number of accidents. That a subject which had been discussed was not fair, because there were a large number of clerks, managers, and other men who were never brought into actual contact with danger at all, and who had no right to be included in the statistics of accidents. He would take the three most dangerous grades of railway servants. He might add that he was indebted to the hon. Member for Derby for the statistics he was about to quote. Taking the goods guards and brakesmen of the railway companies, the fatal accidents were 27.10 for every 10,000 men employed. In the case of the shunters the percentage was 26-17 fatal accidents per 10,000, and the figure for the permanent way men was 13.47 per 10,000. Those were the men who had to work on the dangerous parts of the railway system, and something ought to be done to prevent that awful death rate among them. Probably he would hear from the opponents of the Motion the old stereotyped argument of economy and competition. That was + See (4) Debates, clvii., 580–1. Alr. W. Harvey. on every public platform in the country. was to be sacrificed If in this way, if men were to be called upon to work unreasonable hours, thus endangering their lives and running the risk of leaving widows and orphans to be kept out of charity-if all this could not be prevented under private enterprise, the sooner the State took over the railways of the country and managed them in the interests of the nation as a whole, the better. They had great expectations from the President of the Board of Trade, and he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that he would have the full support of hon. Members on both sides in strengthening the Act of 1893 if it was too weak and feeble, in order to make it impossible for these men to be worked such long hours. He thanked the House for the patient hearing they had given him on his first occasion of addressing them. He trusted that he had put his case fairly and without offence to anyone. He was not interested in causing dissension, but he was interested in saving life and limb. He had himself worked twentyfive years at that business in another sphere, and his highest ambition and concern had always been to save life and limb, and protect the breadwinner of the family. He had much pleasure in moving the Resolution standing in his name. *MR. BELL (Derby), in seconding, said he wished to express indebtedness on behalf of the railway men of the country to his hon. friend who had so ably moved the Resolution. He knew that the railway men would feel grateful to the hon. Member, or to any other hon. Member who took up this question in the interests of railway men. Upon each occasion when the question had been before the House those interested in the management of railways had endeavoured to impress upon the President of the Board of Trade that things were not nearly so bad as they had been made out. He would very much like to know whether those interested in the railway companies had a good case to justify the intolerable state of things which now existed. He claimed to be fairly moderate in his opinions upon the question, and he was sorry that his moderation had not been accepted in the same spirit as that in which he had always endeavoured to put his case. He was afraid that there had been undue delay in dealing with the cases which had been referred to the Board of Trade. He would like to have some explanation why each year when the Return was being published under the Act of 1893, there was generally a kind of polishing touch apologising on behalf of the companies for the few instances reported, which tended to prove that the long hours worked on railways had practically been reduced to a minimum. In the Return issued in August last year a sentence was large increase in the traffic which led to employment of men for longer hours." congestion, the working of later trains, and the considerably worse, Instead of improving, things had got and there was something which certainly needed looking into. The Return each year was almost an apology for the railway companies, and he would like to have some justification for that apology. It would be said by some that the figures given by his hon. friend referred to isolated cases. There might be some instances in which the long hours worked were due to exceptional causes, such as fogs, breakdowns, and snow storms, but the President of the Board of Trade could, if he chose, bring down to the House a barrow-load of complaints sent to him of cases where no such reasons could be given. He would give a few examples where it had been habitual on the part of the companies to work their men excessive hours. He had a return from a man showing the hours he had worked from November to the end of February. He had before him the daily details, but he would give only the weekly hours. For the first week ending 6th December the hours on duty were eighty, and for the twelve following weeks the hours were 79, 84, 66 (two days off at Christmas), 80, 89, 81, 95, 62, 118, 83, 88 and 105. [An HON. MEMBER: "Was that on an English railway?"] It was the case of a goods guard on the Midland Railway. He would give a few instances of the hours worked by men on the footplate of locomotives. Although some hon. Members might not understand much of railway working, yet they would be able to appreciate what was meant by being kept on duty on great locomotives from eighteen to thirty hours at a stretch. That was a common occurrence, and it was absolutely intolerable that it should be permitted. At Staveley, on the Midland Railway, there were 166 men who, during January, worked 1,676 shifts of from thirteen to twenty-eight hours. In February the same number of men worked 1,093 shifts. It could be seen from those figures that excessive "It is a disgrace that men should be compelled to work such long hours. Just fancy an average of eighty-five hours a week for thirteen weeks. I can assure you that we are heartily sick of it. Please use your power and influence on our behalf so that we may be recognised as human beings, and not machines.” hours of duty were not rare, but could have had. It would be said now, as frequent. He had a return showing a it had been said before, that the men number of instances in which locomotive did not object to a little overtime, and, men on the Midland Railway at Notting- indeed, that they liked it. He could ham had been on duty from seventeen assure hon. Members, and the President to twenty-two hours at a stretch. On of the Board of Trade in particular, that four consecutive days in February the the men disliked it. For one man who hours of one man's duty were 16, 17, might crave for overtime irrespective 12, and 17. No man could work long of the injury to himself, there were 100 hours without completely exhausting who objected to it. This was the lanhimself. He would like to call the atten- guage of one man who had written to tion of the House to the practice of rail- himway companies of fixing a limit of eight hours for rest, and, in some cases, nine hours. He would deal only with the maximum. The nine hours meant only from the time a man booked off until he again booked on. It could easily be imagined that a man who went off duty after seventeen or eighteen hours work and resumed duty again at the end of nine hours, and continued to act in that manner for a whole week, must be physically exhausted, and rendered absolutely unfit to do his duty properly. He was a source of danger not only to himself and his fellow workmen, but also to the travelling public. Some people might think that a goods engine driver or guard had nothing to do with the travelling public, and that they could not be a source of danger to them. Had not hon. Members read of accidents occurring to passenger trains because something had happened to a goods train or engine on the line or in a shunting yard? Men were not in a condition to do the work as it ought to be done, if they had to remain on duty long hours. At Normanton on the Midland Railway, during the month of January, one man in sixteen days worked 269 hours and thirty-five minutes, or an average of sixteen hours fifty-one minutes per day. The same thing applied to February. Taking the whole of this particular depot for the week from 17th to 23rd February inclusive, there were sixty-four cases of men working over twelve hours; sixty-eight over thirteen; sixty-eight over fourteen; forty-six over fifteen; thirty-three over sixteen; twenty-two over seventeen; and ninety over eighteen. Some of the ninety would work as long as 100 hours in the seven days. He had an instance reported to him where a man worked 130 hours in the seven days. He did not know how many hours rest that man Mr. Bell, He would give one more instance from the Midland Railway. A workman after giving details of the ninety-two, ninetysix, and 100 hours he had worked during three consecutive weeks in February said: "I feel quite done up." It was not surprising that he should feel done up in the circumstances. A return which he had received showed that at Toton on the Midland Railway, during twentysix days in January, a man had worked an average of thirteen hours and fifteen minutes per day. On one occasion the period of duty ran up to twenty-seven and a-half hours at a stretch. In his own constituency at Derby the locomotive men, as well as the goods guards, complained bitterly of the excessive hours they were called upon to work. It had been going on for a considerable time, and it was not due to a spurt of traffic, or to two or three days fog dislocating the working arrangements. Nor was it due to the storms which had occurred. He found that the Great Central Railway was practically as bad as the Midland Railway in the matter of long hours. During the twenty-six days ended 2nd February goods guards employed at Sheffield worked, in seventy instances, over sixteen hours at a stretch. The men complained, too, that their hours were so irregular that they had no proper time for rest at home; and the guards of the Great Central, who ran to Grimsby, complained that the lodging-house provided for them by the company was overcrowded and unfit for their accommodation; and that men had to wait to go to bed until others cutting competition with other railway in occupation had got up. They com- companies. Trains were made up of as plained that the barracks were near many as 120 wagons frequently with two where shunting operations were carried engines in front and four behind. Of on, and that generally they were unable course they often broke down, and he to get the rest they ought to get, the was satisfied that the great length result being that when they returned of those goods and mineral trains to duty they were not in a fit state. was largely responsible for the excesAnother reason alleged for the excessive sive hours the men had to work. A hours being worked, and he believed it to goods guard named Wilkinson, stationed be a good reason unless he heard some- at Bury, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire thing to the contrary, was what he might Railway, was killed at Rochdale on 12th call the penny wise and the pound foolish February this year, after being on duty system adopted by the railway companies fourteen hours and forty minutes. There in working their traffic. He knew that were only thirty-five goods guards at the the Great Central and Midland Com- Bury depot, yet during January, 1907, panies had recently adopted a system of there were 295 cases of men being on employing emergency guards. These duty over twelve hours. He dared emergency guards were not, as one say that the excessive hours which might expect, qualified and competent Wilkinson was called upon to work were men, put on to relieve the ordinary guards responsible for the unfortunate fellow's in emergencies, to facilitate the working death. It might be difficult to prove that, of the traffic-men who, for instance, because the poor man had gone, and had eight or nine years experience; but probably the officials of the Company they were men, very often, who had never who instructed him to work these exbeen on trains, who had no experience cessive hours would say that it was not of the work, and who, in many instances, so. The right hon. Gentleman had did not even know the road they had to promised an inquiry into the case; but work. That was done to save 3s. or 4s. he asked him that the inquiry should go a week, which was the difference between back so as to learn how many hours the wages of an ordinary guard and those Wilkinson had been at work the whole. of an emergency guard. It was not week, and how many hours rest he had surprising that they could not get the had. The poor fellow might have had a trains along the road in time, although short day before that on which he was the excuse was made by the company killed; but he might have had long duty that that was on account of the booming during the whole of the week. The Great trade. He was satisfied that the right hon. Eastern Railway Company was not free Gentleman sitting on his right did not from blame in this matter. He had approve of these things, but they did not instances of passenger guards whose day's seek to probe them to the bottom so as work extended over fourteen hours to learn actually what went on. They thirty-five minutes, thirteen hours fiftysimply depended on information supplied five minutes, fourteen hours, and thirteen to them by their officials. He knew hours twenty-five minutes. He hoped of a case where an emergency guard was that the President of the Board of Trade compelled to work a train on a road which would not accept any excuse from the he did not know, because if he had railway companies that the men had refused he would have courted the dis- intervals of rest of one, two, or three pleasure of the officials, and they knew hours during the day. Admitting that, what the result of that would be. That he contended that a man might be sent sort of thing must be stopped, and he out to work at six o'clock in the morning hoped the right hon Gentleman to whom who did not get home until twelve o'clock he had referred would see that it was at night, and the railway company might stopped. The Lancashire and York- say that he had not worked more than shire Railway Company was another twelve hours in the day. Such hours great sinner in that respect. He was a were, he held, excessive, and he hoped railway man himself, and had operated that the Board of Trade would insist that trains for many years, and he knew that twelve hours should be the maximum, that company had adopted a system of intervals or no intervals. As to the Great |