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/357

 of pounds. In many centres they dispensed with contractors and saved £100 per house on the contractors' prices. It seemed as though on parallel lines the Miners. Railwaymen and Builders were forging ahead into a new era, cutting out of the mists of the wage system into the light of a clearer day, in which a new security and a new joy of life shell be realised by all willing workers.

Concluding, as I am now, the story of a century of labour on the railways, in which conditions have been terrible, and are now growing better, I am conscious of an incompleteness. The story is not yet completed, for the best is yet to be. Another historian, forty years hence, may unearth from the cellars and archives of the Associated all the Minute Books, the "Journals," the Circulars, the Reports and the Ledgers, and smile at the toils and the struggles of those dear folks who acted and recorded in 1920-21. May his verdict at least be that the work done now laid the foundations of the brighter history he shall write, in a day when all the officers and shareholders and directors of 52 separate companies have been merged by time into one cohesive service, when no man has the power to sack and suppress his fellow, and when all men feel free indeed, and enjoy their work and their play.

Writing many months ago, in the early pages of this long story of a great movement of men, I said that of all the improvements the nineteenth century brought to men, it was the steam engine which came puffing into the centre of the picture as the greatest of them all. Now, my brothers, carry that greatness into the days to come. For your efforts you have received, and you have knocked off many shackles. You have many branch banners and bands, and on those banners the steam engine takes its place in the ranks of labour. March on fearlessly with it into new adventures for your fellow-men, "never doubting clouds will break," and the next generation of enginemen and firemen will carry on your high traditions.