Public Safety V. Railway Profits. I. The Cleaner. (1913)

From the June 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

That Fateful Letter.

The workers in general, and railwaymen in particular, have heard a great deal respecting the “safety of the public” and the “welfare of the country” from the masters and their hangers-on just lately. We also saw the letter of Mr. A K. Butterworth (General Manager N.E.R.) to driver Knox; and, unfortunately, since then one or two “accidents” have taken place which might well make the man in the street wonder whether a train is altogether safe to ride in.

We have in front of us a very big and important question, and it would be impossible in a short article to treat it in all its branches. I propose to deal with a section of the railway workers and their conditions of service, about whom the people know very little ; and, as is always the case in like circumstances, a section that is lied about by the prostitute Press and orators of the master class, in the hope of turning public opinion against them. I refer to the men employed in what is known as the “Running Section” of the Locomotive Department of the lines. Let me explain.

The Loco. Dept. consists of all men connected with the Loco, shed work, and also the “running” section, but these latter are classed separately from the rest of the employees because they are employed to “run” the road. The men are doubtless better known as drivers, firemen, and cleaners.

A glance at the title of this article would seem to open up a question of safety in the mind of the thoughtful reader, and I have no hesitation in saying that, as at present run, safety is not the first consideration of the railway magnates. It is profit they think of first, and the services are not safe for many reasons, all of which have a direct bearing on the making of profit.

If safety was the first consideration of the companies, obviously the men who actually work the trains, viz., drivers and firemen, would be assured of a decent living so as to keep them fit for their perilous duties ; also the machines they work would be kept thoroughly roadworthy and in the pink of condition. This, however, I know from experience with two of the leading companies in this country, is not the case.

The men are sadly overworked ; their machines, many of them, are not properly road-worthy, and their wages, especially considering their responsibility, are low.

What We Shall See.

Before going any further it would, perhaps, be as well to look into the conditions of service of the men, as these conditions have a direct bearing on the safety of the services. In doing this we shall have to start with the lad who, after passing a medical examination at the hands of the railway doctor, and an eyesight test at the hands of the Loco. Superintendent or his deputy, starts in the service as an engine cleaner. This is the lad who will be a fireman at some future time, and then driver.

The safety question will not be greatly dealt with in looking at the conditions of the cleaner, for he is not yet “on the road.” Nevertheless it is necessary, I think, to examine the conditions under which he works, if only to see what qualifications he has for taking up the duties of fireman when his turn comes. We shall see that no provision is made to properly teach him the various parts of his engine, and that his daily work becomes a bore to him through the speeding up to which he is subjected.

On most of the trunk lines the lads start at 18 or older, so as to take their turn on night work. They begin by cleaning shunting engires. and are usually on for 10¼ working hours and start at 17s. a week as a rule. These engines are nearly always in a very bad condition, and the lads have to work hard—many such engines running a fortnight without having a “wiper” put on them.

An Irishman's Rise.

About twelve months of this, and then comes the first promotion—to local passenger engines, which are kept almost as dirty. The lads as a rule get 2d. a day rise then, and work in gangs, the work amounting to 1½ engines per man per night (very little or no day work is the rule when on these engines), so that the cleaners are no better off for their extra 1s. a week.

The lads then get another “promotion,” and go on tender engines. Further speeding-up is now resorted to by reducing the working hours to 9, in which time the lads have to clean the mammoth locomotives of to-day. A number of companies have the “contract” clearer, who has always the same engine to clean. It is, however, impossible to clean the biggest modern engines in 9 hours—indeed, they would in some cases take nearer 20. So a great deal of the engine is “left.”

The “contract” cleaner has no appointed time on duty. He has to vary with the “turn” of his engine, which means turning out at all hours of the day or night. A holiday is an unlooked for privilege, and even a day off in the summer is more than many dare ask for.

The man, having his regular engine, takes a pride in it, and would kick up a noise if he were barred going on his machine because it has only a “light” trip “on” it, which often is the case. It is a rule that if an engine looks anything like “respectable” it can “run round,” thus overworking the cleaner by making him “tear off” two or three trips instead of one.

I may say here that the wages of these men are the highest paid for cleaning (the G.N.R. in London district formerly paid 3s. 10d. per day) but they are rapidly disappearing, and are now almost a thing of the past.

Dirt and Dividends.

The directors and shareholders demanding a greater return on their investments, expenses have to be cut down, regardless of safety or anything else. So a number of companies clean their engines by piecework, at miserable rates, and the wages of the man then depends upon how be “stands” with the foreman. (This system has recently been introduced on the G.N.) Another system extensively employed is to have the work done by day work by gangs, the men getting different engines daily. Under this method no pride can be taken by the cleaners in the machines.

Under both the last-mentioned systems the “contract” man is done away with because he is not cheap enough. Engines go out two, three, or four days without a clean, so it is impossible for a driver to make a minute inspection of the parts to see they are not broken. This, which is a very important matter affecting the “welfare of the public,” and the fact that an engine may “run hot” and delay several trains, besides causing a great inconvenience on and off the shed, and a host of other things, are thrown to the winds in the interest of increased dividends. If a machine fails and the driver cannot give a "satisfactory” explanation to the Loco. Superintendent, he can be fined and thus help to swell the coffers of the human vampires that live upon him.

To sum up, the highest standing wage a cleaner can depend upon is in the neighbour­hood of 19s. a week on the trunk lines, for which he puts in at least 54 hours. In the country the wages paid are much lower.

The state of the engines proves conclusively that there are not nearly enough men, and what men there are are immensely overworked, with plenty of dirt, night-work, inconvenience to self and family, bad smells on shed, and the lads often working feet deep in hot water. In addition there is a good deal of bullying from the foreman, who is generally a man who has failed on the footplate.

A Premium on Ignorance.

The average period a man does cleaning is about four years, and from the way he is overworked there is no chance for him to learn much about his engine. Nor is he given a rules-book order to enable him to make himself acquainted with the rules of the road (the Midland does give rules-books after six months). There are, however, “educational classes” on some companies (e.g., the G.N.), but they are not successful, and the attendance is small. The men have to attend in their own time, and with their state of overwork, and that great curse, overtime, it is not to be wondered at that very few attend the classes, the lecturers at which as a rule are drivers.

In working hours the lads are sent home or fined for trifling offences, and kept in abject slavery, so their mind is turned against their work. As a result of these conditions they can not take it up with the interest necessary to become good enginemen and to befit them to be in charge of trains. It is, therefore, little wonder that, at the end of four years or so, when the lad goes up to “pass” for a spare fireman, he often fails in the exam.—which means more shed slavery, or, what is the rule on a number of lines, the sack.

Those who get through, however, owing to the unscientific way they are trained and the low wages paid, are not fit, from the point of view of public safety, to be in charge of an engine—which, by the way, is quite in accordance with the standing orders of capitalism and the production of profit.

And the unscientific training of enginemen through their period as cleaners, is pretty well certain to last until the system that trains men for profit instead of for usefulness and safety is swept into oblivion.

J. Sevier

[To be Continued.]

Public Safety versus Railway Profits. II. The Fireman. (1913)

From the July 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

[Continued from last issue.]

 

We will now look into the conditions of the spare firemen and firemen of the trunk lines, and in doing so we shall be concerned with men that are actually working the trains.

The spare fireman is a man that has been “passed” to act as a fireman when needed, but who is not always engaged in firing. When he is not doing so he is booked “shed duty as required,” and as often as not goes back to cleaning or other shed work. We can briefly pass him bye, because when firing he is under the conditions of a regular fireman.

His working hours are ten without a break, as a rule, and his pay is anything from 3s. to 4s. a day when employed firing. But he must exceed five hours in order to get this. When on “shed duty” the wage is something less (usually 3s. 6d.), which is another instance of the shameless robbery of these men, seeing that it is not through their fault that they are “put back” in the shed, or “cancelled.” Once a man is passed for firing he should be treated and paid as such.

As a rule the spare fireman’s week is six days. Occasionally, however, it is seven days. He is usually on shunting work, but is sometimes put on long trips—a common practice on the M.R. The period of spare-firing is about two or three years, then the man undergoes a further exam. for a regular fireman.

His promotion generally follows in the order of seniority, but the company “reserves the right of choice for promotion irrespective of seniority”—a clause which obviously leaves plenty of room for jobbery.

Once a man is passed as a regular fireman he is always at work on engines, either on or off shed ; so in looking at his working conditions we shall commence to get to grips with the indictment that has already been levelled at the companies: that the men are overworked and underpaid, which are circumstances not consistent with public safety.

Let us briefly look at his conditions. Ten hours constitute his working day. This, for a man standing over a furnace which (according C. I. Bowen Cooke, of the L.N.W., in his book “British Locomotives”) developes a temperature of 5,027 degree Fah., is excessive.

To give some idea of the nature of the work let me quote from an article, “A day’s work on the footplate,” which appeared in that capitalist, organ, “The Railway Magazine,” Oct. 1909, and in which the author says : “With 14½ on (a moderate load) I fire up every two minutes, and sometimes oftener.” That this is no exaggeration is shown by the fact that on some of the big engines the coal consumed is about 50 lbs. per mile.

Before leaving the shed the fireman has to make up his fire, assist in oiling, clean and trim his lamps, fetch oil for his driver, and in many cases clean his “front” and otherwise assist his driver to get the engine ready to back on the train. By this time he must be “squared up” and have steam up to anything between 140 to 225 lbs per square inch.

To get the engine ready to leave the shed half an hour is allowed ; to get “on train” from shed another half hour generally, but sometimes only a quarter. In “British Locomotives” Mr. Cooke (Chief Mechanical Engineer L.N.W.) says (p. 353): “Firemen should come to work before booked, and make all preparations with comfort to himself and his driver”—a thing all firemen have to do, for to get an engine ready in a proper manner to ensure safety in the time allowed is impossible, and many firemen “sign on” as much as half an hour before booked in order to make these preparations.

After an engine has run a trip one way “the fire must be cleaned, etc., in readiness for the return journey.” (“British Locomotives,”.p. 370). In the running, when not actually firing, “the fireman must assist his driver in sighting the signals.” (Rule 139.) This is the way that he “learns the road.”

After the return journey is completed and the engine is “on shed,” it has to be “put away,” which means thoroughly cleaning all the parts affected by fire, “turning” the engine, filling the tank, and locking up the tools, etc., reporting any losses of same. For this he is allowed half an hour, which is quite inadequate. He then “signs off,” and is at liberty for nine hours (eight on the L.B.S.C.) from that time. But “in cases of emergency” he may be called out before he has had nine hours off. No matter what “turn” he is booked, after nine hours have expired from his “signing off,” he is the “property” of the company employing him, and is liable to be “called out” at any time. If he is not at home when he is required he is cautioned or reprimanded, and often fined or suspended, for “not being available for duty when required.”

The man’s turn, as a rule, varies daily, and he does not know what turn he will be until the previous day (the Midland and the L.N.W. keep their men fairly well informed of their turns). As aforesaid, his working day is ten hours, but often circumstances compel him to work overtime, especially when starting his career as fireman on the main line, for which, of course, he is paid. Often a fireman does twelve hours or so, then has nine hours off, for two and three days together, the result being that he is tired before commencing his day’s work. This, by the way, being consistent with the companies’ ideas of “safety,” to say nothing of Rule 6 and the dangerous way he may have to cross running roads during the day’s work to carry out the detestable rule 35.

Anyway, his week must not exceed six, or sometimes seven, days (which is quite enough), so after his nine hours off periods he is given a rest of something like sixteen to twenty hours, but only nine of them are his—he is company’s property for the rest of the time, for which he receives nothing.

Of course, anyone with a whit of sense can see that the “men only drive and fire for about four hours per day and are paid ten” (“A Day’s Work on the Footplate,” “Railway Magazine,” Oct. 1909), and the statement of Mr. J. Gooday (Gen. Manager G.E.R.) and his directors, who consider that the “time the men are on duty counts only in the actual running” (“Railway Magazine,” March 1907), is mere piffle, and is only intended to poison the mind of the man in the street, who regards such statements, emanating from such journals and gentlemen, as gospel truth.

It will be seen that the life of a fireman is worry from beginning to end, with bad rest, bad coal, bad engines, bad conditions generally, and bad pay—with which I will deal later.

Now we come to conditions which are rather peculiar to most sons of toil, but which play an important part in dividend making as applied to the Loco. Depts. of the trunk lines. I refer to “lodging,” one of the biggest curses that can befall the loco. man, whether driver or fireman. The sum allowed for a “lodge” is 1s. 6d., and if it exceeds twelve hours, 2s. 6d. The latter price, however, is easily wangled by “calling out” the man a minute or before the twelve hours have expired.

The “main line” men are affected by this, on some lines more than on others. On short lines it is unknown. The men working the long distance goods trains are generally safe for a “lodge out,” because they can only get one way by the time their day is up. They, therefore, on their scanty wages, have to keep two homes going, to say nothing of making a smoke as the result of the bad coal supplied. (See “British Locomo­tives,” p. 346.)

The fireman’s wages vary from 3s. 6d. to 5s. 6d. per day, according where and by whom he is employed—a good average through the country being about 30s. a week. A main line man might get somewhere about 35s. if he is lucky; but besides “lodging,” time worked that he is not paid for, and time at home “waiting” after his nine hours are up for which, as I have said, he gets nothing, and many other expenses connected with the calling, he has to run something like 950 miles.

The wages are nothing like sufficient, neither are there enough men by half, as the long-distance engine working and “lodging” will show. And engines work daily double journeys of 180 odd miles.

The usual term of firing is from twelve to sixteen years, and it is a period of excessive robbery from beginning to end. And while such conditions prevail, and such a set of men are worked as they are, the “welfare and safety” of the travelling public is impossible.

J. Sevier

[To be Continued.]

Public Safety versus Railway Profits. III The Driver. (1913)

From the August 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

[continued from last issue.]

How often has one gone on any busy station and seen a crowd of people gathered round a large engine just about to “get away” with a world famous train ! And how often have we heard very harsh and untrue things said about the men thereon, especially in the neighbour­hood of August 1911, by the master class, and even by many misguided workers !

“The men have fine jobs and get good money, and they ought not to be allowed anywhere where beer and spirits are sold, nor to smoke, for the responsibility of these men is great, and every precaution should betaken.” That is what I have often heard from “gentlemen,” and that, no doubt, expresses the ideas of many people on the subject.

I will attempt to show what a “fine job” and what “good money” falls to the lot of the engine driver.

As regards beer, Carrie Nation herself could not have said anything stronger ; besides, it implies that the majority of accidents are due to drink, which is not the case—though doubtless there have been times when a loco. man has been at fault in this respect.

I am not advocating the “Standard’s” “right to get drunk.” I agree that “every precaution should be taken.” But to debar the men from having any beer or tobacco is not precaution, but only tyranny. Real precautions cost money, and hence lower dividends, so they are not taken.

At the commencement of these articles I stated that in order to cope with the dangers of their calling, all men of the running department should be assured of a decent living, decent conditions, perfect machinery, good education, and encouragement. All this is essential to making a man thoroughly efficient. But all, alas! is sadly lacking.

The fireman who has done about sixteen years swinging the shovel first undergoes a very stiff exam, to see if the fire has “killed” his eyes. If such is the case he is ruthlessly cast aside, but if he gets through he is in for an exam. of the engine that no one has taught him—unless it is his driver, who only tells him what he has had to find out for himself. If he passes he is then a “spare driver” : i.e., he drives if there is a job, but if not he has to go firing, with a corresponding reduction in pay. He is usually “spare driving” about four years, and then, after passing more exams, and tests, he becomes a full-blown driver.

Let us look at this man, whom we perhaps have seen with a pipe on as he sits down for a minute or two before running something like 350 miles. Upon his presence of mind and vigilance depends the safe running of the train, and one would think that, to keep him fit for a task that must tax him to the utmost, he above all men would be assured of decent conditions, pay, and rest. But far from this is the case.

The driver’s hours are ten, and there is plenty of overtime. And besides being “in steam” at home, for which he is not paid, he is a victim of “lodging out.”

It will be quickest, perhaps, to describe a driver’s day’s work. His first duty is to “sign on.” He must then read the notices—whether they concern him or not he must read and know them—and sign a book saying that he has read them. He then proceeds to get his engine ready. “Everything that could possibly go wrong must be examined” (“British Locomotives,” p. 348). At the same time he must oil the whole of the working parts. Often he must make a shunt to get water and coal. Having done all this, he “whistles up,” and goes right away to back on to his train at a terminus or wait for it at a road-side station.

From signing on to “right away” half an hour is allowed (in the interest of safety) which is far too short a time in which to do the work satisfactorily on the big engines of to-day. This is well known to the officials, as Mr. Bowen Cooke says that the statement that the firemen should come on before booked applies equally to the drivers. (“British Locomotive,” p. 383.)

Often only a quarter of an hour is allowed to get on the train, and this is the first the public sees of the driver—when he has been at work an hour and a half.

When the driver backs on the train he delivers a “ticket” to the guard, who times the train throughout the trip, stating whether he is early or late at various points and why. And if the driver is not “to time,” and no “satisfactory” excuse is forthcoming, it means a fine or suspension, even if the engine is vastly overloaded.

Another examination of the brake apparatus is made here to see if it is all right on the train, in accordance with rule 3d Vacuum Appendix, and the guard tells him what load he has on, and the brake-power under his control.

The average express-train load throughout the country is about 350 tons behind the tender on passenger, and about 45 waggons (average capacity 10 tons) or about 750 tons on goods trains. (These waggons, by the way, are loose coupled, and have no brake-power provided to “hold” them, except it be a 10- or 20-ton egg-box). Even this seems, in the eyes of those jealous guardians of the “public safety,” the railway directors, to be too much, for within the last few weeks a goods guard on the Midland Railway was dismissed for refusing to take a train with insufficient brake-power, according to that company’s own rules. To have taken the train would have directly affected the driver in working it, and woe betide him if he lost control over it !

We must now consider the “homework” a driver has to do to properly work his train. He has an Appendix consisting of about 1,200 pages, with the working time-table, which he must know—for he dare not take his eyes off the road while he is running. Weekly notices are issued to him in reference to any alterations of signals and repairs to the road, and he must be prepared to act on them. Many a “day off” of a driver is taken up in learning all this printed matter, which is, in effect, part of his work, and for which he receives nothing.

We must not, however, forget the Rule Book, containing over 260 rules, which it is impera­tive he must know.

Still now the signal is “off,” the flag waved and whistle blown and we are on the move. Through rain, snow, fog, wind, and boiling sun this frail hero is now “doing his duty,” ever mindful of what he has behind him, and knowing only too well what it means if he does not get over the road to time—at speeds which are sometimes criminally excessive. But we are a queer people in a queer system.

Besides driving his own train the driver must be prepared to safeguard trains travelling on the opposite road (Rule 191c), and occasionally to assist the fireman, either manually or viva-voce. He must make no “unnecessary” noise in the working, nor must smoke be emitted from the engine, for either of these offences are rewarded with a fine or suspension, and in the case of smoke it falls on the fireman as well, for “being concerned with driver in making a smoke when working train” (“British Locomotives,” p. 346.)

After he has worked one way according to written orders, the driver “comes off” the train and gets into a siding or the nearest loco. shed, and there “another examination must be made by the driver in readiness for the return journey” (“British Locomotives,” p. 370). The return trip is performed as before, after which the engine is taken to the shed and again examined, and put away.

When the driver leaves his train the guard gives him back his tickets, which he then has to copy out on to a “way-bill,” also stating what coal and oil he has had, what coaches attached and detached, and make out a report of any irregularity in the day’s work.

This bill sometimes takes half an hour to write out, and then the driver has to enter in the “repair book” whatever he may have found wrong with the engine during his examinations and in the running. He then finds out his turn for the next day, “books off,” and goes home.

From the time of arriving on the shed half an hour is allowed to get clear away and “book off,” but it usually takes nearer an hour.

Such is a very brief outline of a day’s work on the footplate. The number of hours worked by a driver in a week actually on the job amounts to anything between 60 and 80, to say nothing of the work of memorising he has to get through at home.

Now a word as to the pay. “Spare” drivers, as a rule, get 5s. 6d. per day, and when firing 6d. less. The “registered” driver usually starts at 6s., and continues at this for three years or so, until he has advanced to occasionally getting a “running” job. Many companies then “bracket” the pay of drivers. If a “bracketed” man runs six miles he is entitled to 7s. a day; if he runs less he only gets 6s. And, needless to say, the mileage is made up as a rule so that he only gets the 6s, I know of a case where one mile is deliberately cut out of the mileage table in order to “dish” drivers out of 1s. a day. From A to B is three miles, but the return trip over the opposite pair of rails is only given as two, so the driver making that journey, though he actually runs six miles, is only allowed to book five !

Generally when a man is properly “on the road” (i.e., does little or no shunting), his wage is 7s. a day. Occasionally 8s. is the highest wage of a main-line driver in this country, and this, with all expenses to be paid, including “lodging” away from home, is shamefully inadequate.

The average shunting and local drivers’ wage is from 36s. to 42s. a week, and on the main lines it is higher where the mileage rates are in force. Long distance engine working is a favourite dodge of the companies’ to save additional engines and men ; so, as a general thing, many companies lay it down that 150 miles shall be a day’s work. But owing to the long distance working, many men get 1¼ , 1½, or 2 days in one, which looks very nice—on paper.

The men, however, are worn out after these long trips, and where they are in vogue, usually follow a long trip by a short one. This often means 9 hours off after having worked 12, 13, and sometimes even 14 hours on the job, which is clearly a menace to public safety.

Other companies have the “trip” system—so much for the trip—which on a number of lines means hours worked for nothing at all. A few companies work on “classification,” paying different rates for different trains worked ; so many a man’s hours are paid at two or three different ratings in one day.

Anyway, the average “crack” driver’s earnings are a little less than £2 10s. per week, for which, as in the case of the fireman, something like 950 miles must be run.

The safety of the driver or the public is not allowed to stand in the way of the sweating of the railway servants and the heaping up of profits. Signals are placed anywhere, and not in the best position to be read ; and many of them cannot be seen until one is quite close to them. On most lines no difference is shown by night between a “home” and a “distant” signal, nor are the slackening notice-boards illuminated. In the “interests of public safety” the driver has to guess where these notices—in fact, many lines discard them altogether. The same applies to water trough, and crane notice boards, and also gradient boards. Chance rules the road. The driver is even placed on the wrong side of the engine to see the signals and station work himself, and he has to ask his mate to look for him. Even in the matter of stopping a train the “actual” brake-power is not known : only the “absolute” power is shown when running, and the actual power at the driver’s command often falls short of that shown on the brake gauge. Nothing is told him as to where to apply the brake—he has to find this out from his own experience.

A further example of the elaborate precautions taken to procure safety is found when, in long-distance working, the driver has to leave the regulator and swing the shovel because the half-starved fireman becomes exhausted. And again in the common practice of putting a young and inexperienced fireman on a heavy job in order to save a few pence—which re-acts on the driver. At the best his hands and mind are over-crowded, and it is murder to impose these additions to his duties.

Now that we have briefly looked at the conditions under which our enginemen work, we can truthfully say that their lot is a hard one, and that it is a period of continual overwork. Any child knows full well that such a state of affairs cannot exist side by side with safety. A study of what is here laid bare will show that the conditions of labour of the men upon whom the safety of those using the railways depends constitute a public scandal. But there is still more speeding-up in the air so far as the Loco. Dept. is concerned, which will make railway travelling still more dangerous. And until the railway magnates, together with all other property owners, are dispossessed, and the railways, together with all the other means and instruments of production and distribution, become socially owned, profit will be the first consideration, and the public welfare and safe services quite a secondary matter.

J. Sevier

                                                                 [To be Continued.]

Public Safety versus Railway Profits. IV The Engine. (1913)

From the September 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

[Continued from last issue.]

After even thus briefly reviewing the working conditions of the footplate men, I doubt whether anybody will question that the Loco. running conditions are bad, and that the “elaborate precautions” for the public safety that we hear so much about are entirely wanting. We now come to another part of our survey, namely, the machines that the men have to work.

Like the men, the engines are overworked. They are also supplied with poor coal and oil, and are nothing like sufficiently examined or repaired. The officials’ motto is : “As long as the wheels go round let her run.” Let me quote the “Railway Magazine” for October 1908 : —

“The proper cleaning of an engine is a great help to economy. The valves, packing, tubes, and firebox do not always get examined until trouble o! a serious nature exists.”

This is giving the game away with a vengeance. But the men get fined or otherwise punished if a mishap of any kind happens whilst working, as I have stated before.

To show how injustice is done to the men in the way of fines for losing time, etc., I may say a lot of it is entirely due to the bad state of the engines and to the villainous coal supplied (see “Drivers in Difficulties,” “Railway Magazine,” November 1911).

Now we will look at the working of an engine. The first thing after being left the previous day is to have the repairs that the driver entered in the repairs book carried out. This, by the way, is done in a very loose fashion, and, as often, as not, the repairs, like the cleaning, remain undone, unless they happen to be of such a nature as to almost stop the engine.

Many a time I have known defects in the brake apparatus to be ignored for days together, as also defects in the injectors, which might easily cause trouble on the road. Frequently, too, the regulators are allowed to get in such a condition as to “blow through” very badly. Before now I have seen engines at work with loose tyres, and spring hangers almost cut away, and very often the “blowing” of glands and cylinder covers is passed over as nothing.

The parts of the machine looked after most carefully are the boiler and the firebox, but even these are in a bad state, the continual breakage of firebox stays, and the number of leaking and burst tubes being ample evidence of this.

Next comes the cleaning (!) and perhaps a “wash out” of the boiler—a process which, if properly carried out, saves a great deal of fuel and prevents the boiler burning away. (The general rule is about 300 iniles between each “wash out,” but on local engines, where there is a fire for a week on end. a proper examination of the boiler even is out of the question, to say nothing of washing out.)

Next an “examiner” (!) looks rapidly over the engine, and then comes the driver’s examination. This last, after knocking off ten minutes for finding the engine, getting out and replacing his cans and tools, etc., would work out at about twenty minutes—which, of course, is quite inadequate.

After the run another examination is made as before described. Once a month is about the usual interval for a thorough examination of the engine, for which it is “stopped” for two or three days. Generally eighteen months or two years elapse between the engine being the subject of “heavy” repairs, during which period the machine has to run some 100,000 miles.

In the face of all this it is really amusing to observe the righteous indignation of the companies and their henchmen in the matter of the driver’s glass of beer—clearly enough exposed, by the facts herein described, as a shallow and pitifully cheap artifice to cover their own callous disregard of their passengers’ safety, and cast suspicion for all the disasters that have happened in the past and will, under the conditions imposed by the greed for dividends, most certainly happen in the future, upon the men who work the rotten and uncared-for engines.

The trunk lines build their own engines—often by piece-work—and it can be guessed how it is done. If the imagination is not lively enough to serve, perhaps Col. Van Dolop’s remarks upon the cause of the Stoat’s Nest disaster (L.B.S.C.) on Jan. 29, 1910 will assist.

According to the Colonel’s report the accident was “caused by shifted wheel. The wheel was examined, and the grip between the wheel and axle can only have been a very loose one, and on most railways it is not customary to test whether wheels have a firm grip on their axles.”

There is many an engine on the road to-day, on which the automatic brake apparatus is next to worthless, and it is a bye-word amongst drivers on suburban passenger trains that they lose a lot of time through not being properly able to release the brake owing to the bad state of the apparatus. In fact, even to-day on a few lines, there are engines that work goods and coal trains of fairly heavy weight (whose stock is not “braked”) which are fitted with the hand brake only—which is a fine state of affairs, and likely to prove pretty costly to somebody in a case of emergency.

Now just a word on overloading, which is a common occurrence, especially during the busy seasons. Often excessive loads are placed behind comparatively small engines, with the result that, to get along to time, the machines are “flogged” to the utmost, which obviously overstrains the working parts and overworks the men.

Is it to be doubted that a full and adequate explanation of many of the “accidents” which take place from time to time (and there are many that the public never hear of) is to be found in all this callous, pinching, false economy ? When an enquiry (!) is held, the companies are time after time shielded by the person who issues the report of the enquiry, as the shipowners were shielded in the Board of Trade “enquiry” into the loss of the “Titanic.” That is what such institutions and such “enquiries” are for. In the case of the “enquiry” into the cause of the Shrewsbury disaster, rather than indict the master class, those appointed to make the investigation attributed the “accident” to the alleged fact that the men “sleep on the footplate whilst, on duty.” (See decision of Col. Yorke, “Railway Magazine,” June 1908.)

CONCLUSION.

Now a final word in reference to the situation. It must not be thought that the whole of the defects of the railway systems have been brought forward. Space has permitted me to deal only with a few of the principle abuses connected with the calling of the loco. men, who are at least as much concerned and as responsibly engaged in the running of the trains as any other section of the railway slaves. I doubt if, after having read the irrefutable statements which have appeared in this series of articles, anyone can continue to hold the opinion that the railway magnates really do run the safe services they would have us believe.

Now the railways are a necessary institution in our modern life, and the safety of the services should be the first consideration of, not only all who have anything to do with their provision and maintenance, but also of all who have occasion to use them. Therefore we will see if any remedy can be applied, and if so, what it is.

There is no solution under private ownership except “cutting down expenses” and the extension of the “control” we have heard so much about lately. The masters have no ideas in railway working outside of this. And as for the Trade Unions, the National Programmes of 1907 and 1911 of the A.S.L.E. & F. and the A.S.R.S. (the section dealing with loco. men) was a poor contrivance, and only calculated to give the present bad conditions a new lease of life. The “four eights” are no remedy for the railwayman, because they would soon be nullified by the increased cost of living, etc. Moreover, such items as lodging and long-distance engine working figured prominently, whilst such necessary items as the fitting of all engines with power brakes—items which have a direct and vital bearing on safety—were omitted.

The Trade Unions may effect something, but they will never be able to grapple properly with the safety question, and often it looks as if the “leaders” do not intend to do so—the N.E.R. betrayal re Knox and A.S.R.S. to wit. Some of them, no doubt, are in earnest, and so are the rank and file, but they are not conscious of their position in society.

Now let us look at the claims of that nostrum, State Ownership of Railways, and see if that would solve the “problem.”

We have no State lines in England but there are plenty in Europe, of which Mr. Bell, speaking of a tour through various countries on the Continent which own State lines, said they are not beneficial, either to the workers or to the public. “I am satisfied” he declared, “that, bad as are the conditions of British Railwaymen, they are far in advance of State owned railways on the Continent, and if conditions there are a fair sample of them, then save the British Railwayman from them.” (“Railway Magazine,” December 1908.)

Besides, we have an example in the frequent strikes which occur on the French State railways. For, after all, the State of to-day is merely the master class, so that anything owned by the State is just the property of the proper tied class.

The only remedy, therefore, is that which is proposed by the Socialist, viz., that the railways shall be owned and controlled by the whole community for their own use. This, of course, can only be accomplished through the complete overthrow of the master class and the taking of all the means and instruments of production and distribution by the community for the community. When this condition of affairs is brought about the people will see to it that the safety, both of those who operate the railways and those who use them, shall be the first consideration, far transcending all question of speed or economy.

Only when this property condition has been instituted, when there is no longer any question of “cutting down expenses” in order to provide big dividends for idle shareholders and princely salaries for parasitic directors and jacks in office, will the services be safely run and the community be able to use them to the fullest extent.

Such a condition is Socialism, therefore only Socialism is the remedy for the unsafe and unsatisfactory conditions under which the railway services are run.

J. Sevier

Graveyards. (1916)

From the August 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whether we look at the manifestations of the capitalist system of society from a historical standpoint, or view the effects of its workings at the present time, there is every reason why the system should be abolished. Apart from the fact, that it has given birth to and developed the means of production so that it is possible to produce wealth in abundance, capitalist society has since its inception a record worse than which it would be almost impossible for the human mind to conceive. For years now the workers, who alone produce the world’s wealth, have had a greater struggle to exist, in spite of the marvellous increase of wealth production due to improved machinery and methods. Not only is it true that the workers are in greater poverty relatively to the amount of wealth produced, but they are beaten, broken, and done to death in their struggle for a dull, monotonous existence. Factories, mills, mines, and the like are veritable death-traps, “accidents,” poisoning of one kind and another, and consumption finds victims by tens of thousands.

We know that of recent years the Press has published the heart-rending news of explosions in mines with their great loss of life, and that the customary enquiry has produced evidence proving beyond honest dispute that had the mine-owners taken reasonable precautions the terrible loss of life would have been avoided. We know that Lloyd George, at the behest of the ship-owners, raised the load-line of ships so that the owners might get greater profits at the expense of seamen’s lives. It is hardly necessary to refresh the memories of our readers with reference to railway disasters and the appalling waste of railwaymen’s and passengers’ lives.

After every railway disaster the usual enquiry of the Board of Trade official takes place ; the scapegoat is invariably an employee. The railway directors escape all blame. In the “Nineteenth Century Magazine” for June appeared an article on railway administration in Great Britain, from which is quoted the following scathing criticism.

“What is the Board of Trade record in this connexion ? It is shameful. Our percentage of killed and wounded on railways is nearly twice what it is in France. After every accident, there is the same heartless mockery, The same condemnation of a perfectly innocent engine-driver or signalman, found guilty of being human, of having failed to do the duty the human machine is not capable of doing : a duty which it is biologically impossible for him to carry out with the requisite degree of certainty. It is the duty of the Board of Trade official, as specified by Act of Parliament, to enquire into the cause of railway accidents, and advise and enforce the proper remedy. The Board of Trade official knows that the cause of 90 per cent. of railway accidents is one locomotive running into another, and he knows that the remedy is to instal apparatus which would render the recurrence of such accidents a physical impossibility. He knows that the engine-driver or signalman as the case may be, who has been guilty of the inevitable biological lapse, is as innocent as the policeman who stands at his elbow in the dock. He knows that the really guilty persons are the railway managers and he himself: the railway managers because they have neglected to make the inevitable accident an impossibility, and he himself, because he has neglected to employ the authority vested in him by Parliament to force the adoption of the necessary preventive measures. The procedure in these so-called Board of Trade inquiries is nauseating in the extreme. The real points of importance are purposely avoided. Why does not the Board of Trade official enforce the remedy he knows so well ? The explanation is obvious enough. He knows that the installation of preventive measures will mean a legitimate expenditure of railway money on a large scale, and that this will deplete some railway dividends, and absorb others altogether. He knows that this would cause an immediate outcry from the railway shareholders en masse, that real enquiry would follow, and that the miserable sham in which he is a partner would be at an end. He therefore orders a fresh copy of the conventional report he has made so many times before, to be made. It only differs in the matter of the date, and the figures of the killed and wounded, and the place at which the disaster took place. He sheds the same number of crocodile tears as he did on the previous occasion, and takes his directorship of one or more railway companies on his retirement from Government service (Italics mine.)

Think it over, fellow workers ; read it over yet again, and I have no doubt as to the result of your serious deliberations. During the processes of production and distribution thousands of men and women are hurled into premature graves in the greed for profits, while thousands of the wealth producers every year are maimed or become physical and mental wrecks as the result of the awful conditions under which they are compelled to labour for a bare existence. The capitalist class are only concerned with the acquisition of dividends, and are indifferent to the prodigious waste of human life that is ever resulting from their avarice. The writer hardly feels disposed to give the reader a further dose of the horrors of the ghastly struggle on the Continent ; but no more convincing evidence could be adduced to show the cold-blooded, murderous nature of the ruling class.

Not content with the systematic butchery of the workers in the “piping times of peace,” the master class, whenever their material interests are seriously threatened by their rival capitalists of another nation, do not hesitate to force the whole of the manhood of the toiling masses who are capable of shouldering a rifle and marching, into the armed forces to safeguard their interests and property. Many thousands will never return. As they die fighting King Capital’s battles they will be hurled unceremoniously into any hole as so much refuse, forgotten by their historic enemy—the ruling class.

Perhaps the reader would like to peruse the following, culled from the “Daily Chronicle,” 12.6.16.

“’Vorwaerts’ publishes an article headed ‘More than 700 Graveyards.’ The article refers to the battlefields of Galicia and to the efforts that are being made by the Austrian authorities to bring some order into the chaotic military burying places which lie scattered over almost the entire province. The writer reckons that between the town of Gorlice and the heights of Tarnovo no less than 419 graveyards have been cleared of their unsightly surroundings, and says that where possible natural beauties in the landscape have been utilised to lend dignity to the enormous cemeteries.

All along the Dunajec one proceeds from graveyard to graveyard thickly strewn over the entire countryside. Russians, Austrians, Germans, Hungarians, to the number of 40,000 are buried in the cared-for graveyards, a number which does not include, of course, those buried in masses in one grave. In West Galicia alone about 600 graveyards exist, and in other parts over 100. From the Dunajec eastwards the multitudinous graves of the Russians are seen stretching away into the eastern plains, an awful record of the death-grapple of last year.”

The reader will, of course, recognise that the same conditions apply with equal force to France, Belgium, and other areas where hostilities are in operation. The writer can almost hear the terrible shrieks of the Anti-Socialist in pre-war days: “Socialism will break up the home.” That agonised voice is strangely quiet while the homes of whole peoples are being laid in desolate ruin.

Need more be written ? We Socialists urge the workers to study their position in society, to understand the great and bloody struggle which exists between the capitalist class and the working class, and when they realise and understand these things, to join with us in the work of spreading the knowledge of the principles of Socialism, and organising our fellow-workers, consciously and politically, for the overthrow of the hideous capitalist system and its blood-soddened parasite class.

Only when capitalism is overthrown will society be able to free itself from the shackles that bind it, and men and women be able to lead a free, full, and joyous life.

C. F. Carter

Off the rails (1982)

From the August 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Like a stillborn child, the National Union of Railwaymcn's strike simply lacked the nutrition to keep it alive. And if it had lived for any time, its strength would have been quickly sapped by some debilitating social viruses.

There was. to begin with, the matter of the NUR’s tradition. Not since 1926 had the union called an indefinite national stoppage; a more usual tactic had been to threaten a strike and enforce a discussion with the Prime Minister of the day, from which both sides would emerge apparent victors and agree to co-operate in an enquiry. But in 1982 the government, far from sending Thatcher to talk with the NUR. is exerting determined pressure on them. British Rail’s stand on the matter of wages was given strength by the government’s refusal to subsidise any concessions at a time when, in pace with the industry’s decline, the railway unions are already in retreat. With the shrinking of steel and engineering, freight carried on the railways has fallen since 1960 from 16 billion tonne miles to 11 billion. Since the railways were nationalised the work force has been cut by about 450,000.

This depression has had its effect on railway workers’ wages; signalmen and shunters have fallen from 13th place among manual workers to 21st. Total earnings of railwaymen are now often below the level at which they qualify for Family Income Supplement. In other words, they are being worked progressively harder for less in terms of real wages, some of them at starvation level. And each negotiation for more pay is surrounded and bedevilled by the employers' demands for more intense work, with the railwaymen condemned as Luddites and worse if they don't immediately accept these conditions.

The NUR’s weakness was personified by its General Secretary Sid Weighell, who is famous for the terrier-like acerbity with which he deals with the other railway unions and with those of his members who are "militants" — which often means that they want to resist any downward pressure on their working conditions. In spite of his confident cry, as the strike began, that "Our case is overwhelming”, it is no secret that Weighell was vastly relieved when the NUR conference accepted what he saw as reality and common sense and decided to take the issue back to the industry’s arbitration machinery.

This did not case the pressure on the railwaymen. British Rail soon announced the withdrawal of their original low offer of a rise and said loftily that it was no concern of theirs if the the NUR chose to go to arbitration; they would not discuss the matter again until the union had given way over “productivity” — more intense exploitation. Tory chairman Cecil Parkinson, in a speech positively rotten with false assumptions and non sequiturs, unblushingly threatened that a patriotism newborn through the Falklands war “. . . will not take lightly the return to the pursuit of self-interest over the national good”. (He was not discussing members of the Stock Exchange, or the royal family at Ascot or the firms which sold all those weapons to Argentina.)

In sober reality, history is not at present on the side of the railway workers. Railways were once part of the romance of Victorian capitalism. Their competition finished off the canals in the late 19th century and for the next 50 years they were integral to the economic and social fabric. "In South Lancashire", wrote M. Robbins (The Railway Age), "people associated the London and North Western with the Church and the Conservatives; the Midland with Chapel and the Liberals”. There were few admitted to be railway workers; those who laboured to produce the profits for the shareholders were referred to as servants of the company and were expected to forego too uncouth a preoccupation with their material welfare for the paternalism of the company. In 1871, when the economy was booming, when unemployment was low and recently passed legislation seemed to put them on a secure footing, the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants was formed. In theory this was a Friendly Society (its patron was the Earl de la Warr) which did not intend to organise strikes. At the time, a normal working week for a guard could be 90 hours.

The boom collapsed a few years later and from 1876 wages were cut and hours increased. One result of this was the reduction of ASRS membership from 17,000 in 1872 to 6,000 in 1882; another was the formation in 1880 of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) and later, in 1889, of the General Railway Workers Union in direct opposition to the ASRS. In most cases the employers refused to recognise or negotiate with the unions; the general manager of the London and North Western told the 1893 Royal Commission on Labour: "You might as well have trade unions in Her Majesty’s Army as have it in the railway service” — an apt comment, in view of the hard conditions and the quasi-military assumptions of employment on the railways.

This attitude was expressed in the action of the Taff Vale Railway Company in 1900. when they sued the ASRS for damages following a strike in which there was some violence. Against all expectations, the company won £23,000 damages from the ASRS — a judgement which struck at the heart of all trade union activity. Every strike has to cause damage somewhere and there is. of course, no parallel provision in the law for unions to claim redress for the effects of a lockout nor for those of a company closing down. The Taff Vale judgement has much to answer for, since it motivated the founding of the Labour Representation Committee, forerunner of the Labour Party and of all those governments which consistently fought the working class and the interests of trade unionists.

The National Union of Railwaymen was formed in 1913 from the combination of three out of the then five unions in the industry. Among the many ironies accompanying the event is the fact that it was hailed as a venture into industrial unionism — the establishment of one trade union to cover an entire industry as a step towards the working class taking over the means of production. Some craft unions remained outside the NUR, as did ASLEF and the Railway Clerks’ Association (now the TSSA). Traditionally (and the railways are a great place for tradition) there is little love lost between ASLEF and the NUR. Sid Weighell recently called the ASLEF president a liar, at which the offended man threatened to pick Weighell up by his braces and drop him down a lift shaft.

During the First World War the importance of the railways to the British capitalist class was asserted when they were taken under state control. The war emergency offered the unions a chance to improve wages, and the railwaymen emerged, in 1918, among the better paid sections of the working class. In 1921 the Railway Act, which effectively ended state control, imposed a measure of government influence by reducing the 120-odd companies into four groups, each with a territorial monopoly and allowing for the government to keep an eye on the rates charged by the railways. A negotiating procedure was defined which was greeted with relief as the end of disputes in the industry, on the mistaken assumption that strikes are caused by the absence of machinery to negotiate the conflicts away. This assumption was soon exposed in the post-war slump, as the new, larger and more powerful companies responded to the fall in traffic by cutting wages, sacking workers and imposing longer hours on those who were left.

This process was cynically called “rationalisation”. Although the unions resisted it there were few strikes and one which was called, just as the first Labour government were taking office in 1924, was doomed because the NUR accepted the lower wages and kept services going against the striking ASLEF men. In 1928 the NUR agreed to a 2½  per cent wage cut. an agreement described by their general secretary as “the best ever made”. He was probably referring to the fact that there was an undertaking to restore the cuts when business got more profitable; but when the unions asked for this, in 1934, they were again resisted by the companies. There was then the growing competition from the road haulage industry, boosted by the experience of it during the war. NUR conference delegates were warned by their secretary, John Marchbank, that if they struck there would be no road stoppage and that many NUR members would be "walking the streets” afterwards — words which might well be used today by Weighell.

The railways were again taken understate control during the Second World War and soon after the NUR's longstanding dream of nationalisation came true. After the years of cuts, sacking, closures and battling against the railway workers, only the politically misinformed would see an unpredictable irony in the hopes which inspired that dream:

Ideologically, public ownership was regarded as the gateway to a new society, in which there would be greater plenty and less hardship for the toiling masses. Materially, the unions and their members. . . hoped that the elimination of profits would bring them higher wages and better working conditions, that State control would ensure full employment . . .

(Nationalised Industry and Public Ownership, W. A. Robson).

In contrast, the reality has been a continuing struggle against the stale machine which had taken over from the private groups. The NUR threatened a strike in 1953. in an effort to improve a low wage offer. A hastily set up Court of Enquiry secured them a much higher offer. In 1958, when the employers rejected a pay claim, a strike was averted by yet another enquiry, which recommended that railway wages should be set by reference to "comparable” jobs in other industries. This was greeted as a “common sense" solution which would eternally remove all conflict. But in 1965 it clashed with the “common sense" of the Wilson government's pay policy, which was to restrict rises to those cases where the workers could prove they were working harder, no matter what was happening in “comparable" industries. There was another threat to strike, averted by Wilson’s personal intervention. The Labour Prime Minister kept the union officials talking on beer and sandwiches (Tory Premier Macmillan had beaten them with tear-swept memories of the Flanders battles of 1914/18) until they all agreed to yet another enquiry which would produce a report to be greeted as an eternal piece of "common sense".

Of course things were different then. Before the present slump, employers were usually prepared to support industrial cooperation at almost any cost. In the present stark climate, the railways’ difficulties have been intensified by the measures of successive governments to isolate them commercially from the rest of the transport industry, with which they were linked by nationalisation. Their lack of direct profitability (a feature of railway networks world wide) can no longer be cushioned by the other parts of a state transport system. Since the early 1960s, most notably under the luxuriantly waged Lord Beeching, the railways have been cut back and the workers’ bargaining power correspondingly undermined.

The plight of the unions, then, is not the making of any feeble, or militant, leaders, nor of transport ministers getting their own back for past concessions. Railways were once dominantly powerful in capitalism and had that sort of glamour. Now they struggle, with the help of Jimmy Savile, against the drab image of the outmoded. None of this has anything to do with their usefulness to people or their material efficiency; it is all judged by their contribution to the overall profitability of British capitalism. By these standards their future looks pretty precarious. This is no time to be playing at trains.

Ivan

Jottings. (1909)

The Jottings Column from the August 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Owing to the agreement between the L. & N.W. and Midland railway companies, there results a reduction in the wages bill where that agreement is in operation.

* * *

We are often told by the advocates of railway nationalisation that the shorter hours of labour which would result from State ownership would mean an increase of workers employed. The details of the agreement between the above named companies have been issued as a White Paper, and certain statements therein disagree with the pro-nationalisers’ contentions.

* * *

The Midland Company ran to Rugby over a branch line and the L. & N.W. ran to Leicester over a branch line. The L. & N.W. now work the Rugby section and the Midland the Leicester section. The result is a considerable reduction in the number of working hours. The employees now work but 3½ or four days per week. If this is the result of but a sectional inter-working, what would be the result upon employment of a State effort at organising traffic ?

* * *

It must not be forgotten that “nationalisation” presupposes the capitalist State still existent, the dividend mongers still in power, and a proletariat still unable, because of its lack of class-consciousness, to assume control of ALL the industries in the interest of the community. Now, as “nationalisation” of industries is carried out, necessarily, by and in the interest of the exploiting class, it would certainly involve a greater displacement of labour and a smaller wages bill, which in turn would mean decreased purchasing power on the part of the workers in most branches of industry. Of course, if the “nationalisers” can show that the exploiting class will pay a double or treble wages bill to that now paid for the same traffic receipts, then my contention falls to the ground.

* * *

I fear we Socialists will have to admit the truth of our opponents contention that “Socialism will abolish the home.” It were folly to deny that we mean to abolish such homes as are described below.

* * *

“At a Huddersfield inquest yesterday on a baby that was said to have been suffocated, it was stated that the child’s father and mother and three children all slept in one bed in a one-roomed house. Natural causes was the verdict.” Manchester Guardian, 13.7.09.

* * *

Natural causes, indeed ! To say so is to say that the conditions are natural. 0f course; the capitalist-minded jury could return no other verdict. To say that the death was “unnatural” at once lays a charge at someone’s door. The question then arising, followed to the solution, turns the inquest into an inquest on the capitalist system. It is better to resort to the old lie “natural causes.”

JAYBEE.

Blogger's Note:

My educated guess is that 'JAYBEE.' was the pen-name for Manchester Branch's Jim Brough, who had written other Jottings columns under his own name.

Notes by the Way: A Spot of Bother for the Dean of Canterbury (1949)

The Notes by the Way Column from the August 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Spot of Bother for the Dean of Canterbury

In that wrongly named book “The Socialist Sixth of the World” the Dean of Canterbury endeavoured to show that all is for the best in state capitalist Russia. On page 212 of the 1944 issue (Gollancz edition) the Dean had something to say about the leaping production of “Socialist” tobacco and cigarettes.

“Tobacco is in demand in Russia as in other lands. The supply was short so long as tobacco was imported. Today the Soviet Union produces its own tobacco, the collective farms of Abkazia grow leaf equal to the finest Turkish brands, and Soviet cigars, an innovation, rapidly find favour. Variety of brands is large and increases. Professor Hanson remarked, as we stood in a tobacco shop in the Crimea, whereas two years previously he had counted a dozen varieties, today he observed a dozen times as many in that one shop alone. In 1937 the Soviet factories turned out 89,000 million cigarettes. The Soviet Union stands second in the world amongst tobacco-producing lands.”

Now read this from the News-Chronicle (24/6/49):

“The capitalist habit of smoking must be shunned by young Russians, says Dr. A. Kuznetsov in a Soviet youth magazine.

“Russian youths, he complains, tend to ‘use nicotine’ more, though they have the brightest of futures—unlike the children of capitalist countries ‘who are led to smoke by hunger, need and despair.’

” ‘In capitalist countries where the entire pattern of life drives a man to narcotics the urge for smoking can be understood,’ says Dr. Kuznetsov. But Russians do not need it. Youth must be instructed in the harmfulness of tobacco.”

Of course we do not know what is the explanation of the Doctor’s attack on smoking by Russians. Maybe the Russian Government merely wants to cut down smoking at home in order to export the tobacco; or perhaps Kuznetsov is only giving his own view and may shortly “confess” that he is a fascist-capitalist propagandist. Until the matter is straightened out the Dean will be wondering whether he ought to go on singing the praises of Russian tobacco or whether he should just cut the passage out of his next edition.

* * *

How much Unemployment is necessary to Capitalism?

An argument is going on about the amount of unemployment necessary to compel the workers to work harder. The Labour Government’s view was and presumably still is that the present condition with relatively little unemployment gives maximum production. Nevertheless all the Ministers keep on making speeches about the necessity of getting more production.

The Economist representing the tough capitalist viewpoint has long argued that unless there is a considerable amount of unemployment the workers won’t put their backs into it. In the issue for 4th June, 1949, the Economist repeated this: “As the Economist has said more than once in the past, full employment will not work without a million unemployed.”

The Economist returned to the subject in the issue of 9th July, 1949. The Economist urged the Labour Government to recognise and act on the overriding necessity of cheaper production, and said that if the Labour Government was alive to the urgency of the problem “it would insist on payment by results in every industry where a scheme could possibly be introduced. And if there were no other way of persuading the unions and their members to give value for money, it would welcome the therapeutic effect of a moderate degree of unemployment.”

The same article disclosed another interesting aspect of the capitalist attitude to the Labour Government— they think the Labour Party can put the screw on with less trouble than could a Conservative government:

“One must hope that the Labour Party will screw up its courage to undertake something of this order—for if anybody else has to do it, there is risk of serious civil commotion.”

* * *

The Capitalist Cycle : War—Trade War—War.

“Washington, Thursday.—Mr. Willard Thorp, Assistant Secretary of State, said today: ‘ Rivalries and conflicts are again beginning to appear in the world trade picture.

” ‘Some nations and interests are seeking to take over particular markets and exclude competitors.

” ‘The post-war honeymoon in international economic relations is drawing to a close.

” ‘The U.S. has made efforts to put Germany and Japan on their feet again. But those efforts conflict with the hopes of people who wish to prevent the return of those countries into the foreign trade field.’:—Express News Service.” (Daily Express, 26/6/49.)

* * *

The Workers and Nationalisation.

When the advocates of Railway Nationalisation first started their organised propaganda the chief emphasis was laid on the argument that Nationalisation would eliminate waste and overlapping, lead to economies and reduced staffs and thus provide efficient and cheaper transport. As this was not much of an inducement to railway workers propaganda turned more towards the alleged benefits nationalisation would bring to the workers.

Now that the railways are nationalised and are running at a loss the demand has gone forth for economies so that the losses can be wiped out and a profit realised. One of the Labour M.P’s, who supports railway nationalisation, Mr. Ernest Davies (Enfield), wrote to the Times (8/7/49) agreeing with another correspondent who had said that “the most hopeful source of substantial and lasting economies in the working of British Railways lies in a reduction of the total wage and salaries bill,” and that if the average wage rate is to be maintained, man-power must be reduced.

Where Mr. Davies differs from the other correspondent. Dr. Gilbert Walker, is that he does not think it possible to cut labour costs now, it must wait until the Transport Commission has complete control of the whole of the rail and road transport system of the country.

We can leave those two disputants to argue about the best way of running capitalism but the railwaymen may well ask what they have got or will get out of nationalisation.

As a footnote we may add the following:

“Tokio, Tuesday.—The Japanese State Railways today began distributing dismissal notices to another 63,000 railway workers.” (Daily Mail,13/7/49.)

* * *

Cripps on the Standard of Living.

“The Chancellor declared that for the greatest proportion of the population we had today a better standard of living than ever before. It was fantastic to say that they were worse off.” (Daily Herald, 19/5/49, report of Cripps’ speech in House of Commons.)

* * *

Drastic Strike Powers used by Australian Labour Government.

The Australian Labour Party, administering capitalism in Australia, has got into the same kind of mess as its companion party in Britain. The coal miners having made claims for shorter hours and higher pay to the Arbitration Tribunal decided to go on strike without waiting for the award. This the Government holds to be illegal and amidst a familiar denunciation of Communist agitators it took legal proceedings to freeze the funds of the Miners’ Federation.

The following is from the Times (15/7/49):

“From our correspondent, Sydney, July 14th.— Four hundred police, including more than 200 from Sydney, are tonight spread out over the coalfields as a protective force for tomorrow, when an attempt is likely to be made to move large stocks of coal standing in trucks on the coalfields to help maintain Sydney’s lean electricity and gas ration.

“There are now six union leaders in prison, including William Parkinson, acting general president of the Miners’ Federation, and Morris Michael Fitzgibbon, secretary-treasurer of the southern miners’ district, who were both sentenced today by-Judge Foster to 12 months’ imprisonment with light labour for contempt of court by failing to produce £A4,200 withdrawn from the bank and intended to aid the strikers. Parkinson had been acting president for only a day having been chosen when the president, Idris Williams, was sent to prison.”

One Feature of the Australian Strike Deserves Notice. 

Here the Government and the Press denounce strikes because they are “unofficial.” The Australian strike is officially conducted by the Union—but it is condemned just the same.

* * *

Food Production—What Could be Done.

The following news item from Rome is taken from a Report submitted to member governments by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation:

“World food production could be almost doubled in ‘a relatively short time’ by the use of modern technology.

“This estimate is made in a report of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation issued here today.

“Unexplored stretches of sea await the application of modern fishery methods to unlock new food resources, it said.

“World livestock could be stepped up by at least 25 per cent, in ten years through the general application of modern breeding methods.” (News Chronicle, 13/7/49.)

Edgar Hardcastle 

The Nationalisation of Railways and Other Services. (1908)

Book Review from the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard 

A copy of the most recent book on the nationalisation of railways, by Mr. A. Emil Davies (A. & C. Black, 125 pp., limp cloth, I/-), has been sent us for notice. The question is one that is again occupying considerable public attention, and some examination of the case for this and kindred reforms is therefore called for from those who regard anything less than Socialism as something approximating to a delusion and a snare from the point of view of the working class.

If, first of all, the nationalisation of the railways were as important as Mr. Davies would have us believe, we would very readily admit that Mr. Davies’ book is as handy a presentation of the case against the present system of private ownership as we have seen. It manages to compress the essential arguments of the railway nationaliser into 120 pages of easy setting, without leaving the impression of a scamped job. It is not so exhaustive an examination as that published by Mr. Clement Edwards some years back, yet the reformer will find most of what he wants in it, including matter of as recent a date as February and March of this year.

From the Socialist point of view, however, the only value the book has resides in the evidence it adduces of the incapacity of the railway capitalist to manage his own

DIRTY PROFIT-MONGERING BUSINESS,

and in the proof it provides of our continuous contention that nationalisation and municipalisation as such have nothing in them advantageous to any section of the working class that is not considerably out-balanced by the disadvantages that result from them—even if, which is at least arguable, they have any advantage at all.

The advantage, contended generally, is in the higher wages and better conditions obtainable under municipal or national control. This may result—sometimes. But it is just as probable that it won’t, seeing that the service municipalised or nationalised is still under the control of capitalist administrators, who are dominant in legislative and administrative affairs. While this condition holds, as it will while the capitalist system lasts, the paramount desideratum is the realisation of profits. It is merely an exhibition of economic stupidity to urge that these profits, used as they may be to reduce rates, go back to the pockets of the community. Even if this were true the fact remains that the profits have been realised from the labour of a section of the working class, and in going into the pockets of the community, they have gone in part into the pockets of the capitalist class that forms part of the community, and to that extent have been diverted from the rightful owners—the working-class producers. But although the argument has been extensively used by those who presumably should know better—the Clarion crowd, the I.L.P., the Fabian Society, etc.—it is simply not true that the relief of rates is a relief of the working class. If it were true, the working class of Nottingham and Glasgow, and other places where many services have been municipalised, should be in a flourishing condition, seeing that most of their public services are realising large profits. In point of fact the working class there is not one whit better off than is the working class in towns that haven’t a single municipalised undertaking, for the very simple reason that the labour-power which the workers have to sell, and must sell, in order to live, is bought like any other commodity at its average cost of production. So that, assuming such a relief of rates in any given district that a material reduction in the cost of living is effected, the cost of production of the commodity labour-power would be less, and the price of its purchase—wages—would also be less. Why is it that the

“STANDARD RATE OF WAGES”

is higher in some districts than in others if it is not because cost of living is higher in some districts than in others ? Moreover, it does not even follow that low rates will imply low rents, nor that a reduction of taxation on any other commodity will reduce the price of that commodity—although this point is not germain and has already been adequately dealt with in these columns on previous occasions.

So much for the alleged advantage of a municipalised or nationalised service. But what of the disadvantages ? The case of the railways is before us. In the chapter on “Waste,” Mr. Davies gives, inter alia, a list of things in the administration of which economies could be effected under nationalisation. The cost of the present competition is due to separate offices, separate stations, separate lines, separate engines, wagons, and carting services, light loads, unnecessary haulage, an enormous advertising and canvassing staff, a great clearing house system, and so on. Given nationalisation there follows the concentration of traffic, the closing of offices and redundant stations, the abolition of the canvassing and clearing house departments, and, to a large extent, the abolition of the advertisement department, the reduction of trains, etc., etc., etc. In short, the elimination of “waste.”

Now the working class under capitalism is not concerned with the elimination of waste. To the orthodox person such a statement is no doubt dreadful. If so, the further statement that the working class is a distinct gainer by waste must be the very devil. Yet it is obviously the case. The working class must live. To live it must sell its labour-power. Does “waste” increase the demand for labour-power ? If so, it is good for the immediate purpose of the working class. There is nothing more immediate than

THE CLAMOUR OF THE EMPTY STOMACH.

We are dealing with the railways. The elimination of “waste” there means the abolition of the clearing house rendered necessary by the conflicting interests of many private companies. The clearing house has a staff of about 3,000 clerks. The demand for the labour-power of 3,000 clerks no longer exists and—the 3,000 clerks no longer exist. The same thing holds in the case of all the other departments mentioned. The saving is effected every time at the expense of the workers who have found employment through economic “waste.”

Therefore, under capitalism “waste” is positively a good thing to the workers to the extent that it provides them with the means of living. The South African War, notwithstanding the lamentations of the “moral” Jeremiahs directed against national “waste,” created a demand for labour. If that war had not happened a large number of the workers would have had to take in their belts another hole. If the nationalisation of railways happens a great army of the workers will be without visible means of subsistence.

The railway nationaliser seems to see the difficulty as through a glass darkly. Mr. Davies. says

“It would be a great mistake to measure the advantages of State ownership solely from the point of view of the yield per cent. on the sum invested. Under an equitable, reasonable, and uniform system of rates, trade would be stimulated to an extraordinary degree, and regard would be paid to the social needs of the nation, as is done in Belgium, Germany, and other countries, so that masses of even the humbler town workers would live in the country, and the depopulation of the countryside, with all its attendant evils, would be checked.”

Hope, says the sage, is very cheap. Trade is to be stimulated to an extraordinary degree—by a reduction, to the extent of the thousands of railway workers displaced, of the demand for the commodities that “Trade” supplies !

IT’S AS EASY AS THAT !

But the prospect of regard being paid to his social needs, and of an opportunity of living in the country where the work he requires is not, must be sweet solace to the man in danger of being thrown on the unemployed market by the elimination of railway “waste.”

No, the fact must be faced that, until the working class understand the reasons why it is. in a position of dependency upon the fluctuations of trade for even a precarious living; why it must sell its labour-power for wages that represent not the value of the wealth it has produced, not even a third of that value, but the bare cost of the sheer necessities of existence ; why it must stand starving in the market places of the world at the very moment when, all the requirements of happy, healthy life are piled in riotous profusion on every hand—until the working class has understood the causes of these things and expressed its determination to remedy them by capturing the political machine, in order that the capture of the economic machinery may follow, questions of the nationalisation of this, or the municipalisation of that, undertaking, are only of interest to the extent to which the change may affect the pockets, or the stomachs of the workers immediately concerned. For the working class as a whole, there is nothing in them except danger of being sidetracked in an endeavour to get at the solution of the economic problem.

That danger still needs considerable emphasis. If any section of the workers is persuaded that in some such reform movement as the nationalisation of railways there is salvation, it will come to itself in the final reckoning, sick and sorry, with apathy bred of disappointment and despair born of withered hopes. It will be more difficult material for the Socialist leaven to work upon. It will retard the advance of the workers toward the Co-operative Commonwealth that lies at the end of our journeying. It will, until the effect of its painful experience and knowledge of its wasted energies have grown small, be a stumbling block and a rock of offence in our path.

WE DO NOT WANT STUMBLING BLOCKS.

Therefore we do not want, reform agitations. Therefore we will do what, we may to counteract the possible influence of Mr. Davies’ book by indicating the narrow limitations of its working-class potentialities, and pointing to that more excellent way—the straight, narrow way—of whole-hog, revolutionary, uncompromising demand for the working-class ownership and control of all the means of life, along which alone the party of the proletariat may march to victory.

“But,” says the earnest reformer, ”you will not be able to get control of the means of life all at once. You must walk before you can run. It’s all a matter of evolution.” The dear child ! If a man wants bread shall he assiduously pick up stones ? Shall he endeavour to gather figs from thistles ? The worker wants what Socialism alone will give him. He must therefore make for Socialism, aim at Socialism, concentrate on Socialism. Under Socialism the municipality will probably supply him with dough-nuts and hob-nails, while “blood-alleys” and commoner marbles will doubtless be available for his children. Shall he, therefore, wanting Socialism, cry aloud to-day for the municipal supply of blood-alleys and hob-nails and dough-nuts ? Why not ? Because they are not important ? Neither is a nationalised railway.

Mr. Davies points out that most of the Continental countries and nearly all “our” Colonies have nationalised railways. Wherein are the workers of those countries beneficially affected ? Who are making the demand for nationalised railways in England ? Other sections of the capitalist class. To assist the working class or expedite Socialism ? Not much. Rather to enable them to exploit the working class the more. The nationaliser of the railways of Germany was—Bismarck!

Nationalised railways will be a factor in the Socialist Republic. They will be important—then. But only important because Socialism holds. Socialism is the thing that matters. Let us go for it—and the dough-nuts and blood-alleys and hob-nails will be shied at us in the hope that, because we shall have them under Socialism, we may be stupid enough to turn aside to pick them up now. But Socialism will not be shied at us. We may have everything else at the hands of the good capitalist; hut the only thing we want—no ! The capitalist will do anything for the working class, anything—except get off its back.

If our reformer friend’s difficulty is that, unless we nationalise and municipalise as we go along, we shall be

IN A HOPELESS TANGLE

when we arrive, let him remember one little fact. The evolution of capitalism (he will like that word “evolution”) has placed the workers practically in complete control of industry. From the top to the bottom the whole process of production is managed by—wage servants. The workers are in control in fact but not in name. It’s the product they do not control. The thing necessary, therefore, and the only thing necessary, is to evolve in the minds of the workers the knowledge of the fact of their control and the means by which they may expropriate the present expropriators, so that they may be dominant in name as well as in fact, and secure for themselves the product of their own labours. That evolution of knowledge is quite as easy under private ownership as under State ownership. All that will then be required will be the capture of the political power through which the armed forces are manipulated, and—a notice to quit to the capitalist. The industry socially worked to-day, will have its product socially owned then.

But the publicly-owned service has, anyhow, a good educational effect on the working class, surely ? Perhaps—p’r’aps not. In any case there are enough of them for all educational purposes to-day. But they have been converted to publicly-owned services by representatives of the capitalist class in the interests of the capitalist class. The effect of that outstanding fact to any but the serious student who will take the trouble to dig below the surface of things, will hardly have great educational value. The casual enquirer, such as the worker unfortunately often is, will conclude either that the capitalist is willing to help the worker along the road to Socialism, or that the publicly-owned service is, Because it is a capitalist move, steered clear of completely. In both cases he would be wrong. The educational effect of the fact of Post Office sweating, Clothing Department sweating, Woolwich Arsenal sweating, London County Council-jerry building, etc., etc., ad nauseam, is also likely to be a little dubious.

Are there any other legs upon which the national cum-municipal-Liza can stand ? Probably. Our ”Liza” has as many legs as a caterpillar. But not one of them can support the argumentative superstructural body that it is hoped to stick on it. In the final analysis we come back to the incontrovertible fact that Socialism is the only hope of the workers, and that everything else is mere leather and prunella.

Alec James.