At the sitting of the Railway Inquiry on Friday week
evidence was heard from Mr. Charles Shipley, a driver on the North Eastern railway, on the working of the Special Concilia- tion scheme adopted on that line. Differing widely from Mr. W. H. Hudson, M.P., this witness condemned the North Eastern system, under which the unions are recognized, and stated that the number of strikes on that line since the system cameinto force had been unparalleled. He accordingly favoured the abolition of standing committees and the setting-up of sectional boards ad hoc in their place. Labour, in his opinion, had a prior claim to the shareholders in the division of rail- way profits, and if trains could not be run to pay labour ade- quately, they should not be run at all. Mr. Walkden, secretary of the Railway Clerks' Association, a body not included in the scheme of 1907, next gave evidence, and asserted that the clerks strongly objected to being required to fill the place of strikers both on the grounds of public safety and because they resented being coerced into acting as " blacklegs." He was aware of cases in which clerks had got into trouble for refusing to comply with the requirement to perform manual labour. The clerks did not desire the existing Concilia- tion Scheme ; they wanted to have the option of joining an amended Conciliation Scheme when they saw what it was like.
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