Rationalization and Unemployment.
Both before the Committee inquiring into the pooling scheme of the L.M.S. and L.N.E. railways and in debate in the House last week, Labour representatives seemed to argue that all the men who might be no longer required must be provided for, at the expense of the railway companies. Everyone must sympathize with such men, who have long enjoyed higher pay and better conditions than prevail in the unsheltered industries. But it is clearly impossible for the railway companies to admit that, when once a man enters their service, he is assured of a comfort- able wage for life, whether the railways are paying their way or not. If such claims were admitted, it would be impossible to reorganize the railways and make them solvent. Counsel for the companies pointed out -that, while in 1913 the railway employees received in all no more than the shareholders, to-day they receive more than three times as much, and the high labour costs are largely accountable for the railway deficits. It is clearly better for the railwaymen as a body that the railways should be made to pay by the dismissal of a small number of men, rather than that these great undertakings should continue to march towards bankruptcy.
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