Page:Engines and men- the history of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen. A survey of organisation of railways and railway locomotive men (IA enginesmenhistor00rayniala).pdf/105



O grumble is the natural prerogative of human beings, and we are inclined to grumble sometimes about slow progress, and about old grievances which linger far too long with us. A member of five or six years standing, for example, has no conception of the long series of struggles and triumphs by those who have preceded him, and no idea of the vast debt he owes to the continuous efforts of the Society through all these years. Give me now a little of your time to examine conditions as they once were, to look at the record of bard endeavour and steady progress, and at the great distance which separates conditions which once prevailed from those conditions which prevail to-day.

Let us take first the state of affairs just before the A.S.L.E. & F, came into existence, In the year 1878 there was only the A.S.R.S., the all-grades movement, buoyed up by the money and encouragement of certain M.P.'s. Its six years of life had not been happy, not at all. There had been quarrels between executive officers, and the danger of collapse only saved by the timely help of Mr. Bass and others. On the night of Wednesday. January 30th, 1978, a public meeting of railwaymen was held in the Exeter Hall, London, to urge Parliament to pass a measure of compensation to railway servants for injuries. Mr. Thomas Brassey, M.P., presided,