A sudden conflict has arisen between the railway companies and
the N.U.R. and the Railway Clerks' Asso- ciation. These two Unions met the representatives of the companies and put forward claims not so much for flat rate increases in wages as for large concessions in conditions, different grading of employees, pensions at sixty and so on, which, the railway companies contend, would cost anything from thirty to forty-five millions a year. The Unions, however, place the extra cost as low as ten millions a year. The companies met these claims by a counter-proposal for considerable reductions in wages in many grades—for instance, 6s. a week in the flat rate in rural, and 4s. a week in industrial and London areas. Naturally the conference at once reached a deadlock between these absolutely conflicting points of view.
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