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/75

 man's Sick Society," may not be out of place here. This organisation has not been got up in opposition to your well-managed Club, of which most of us are members, but rather to supply a want which you have long neglected, and the necessity of which is patent to all thoughtful enginemen. But are there no means by which the two Societies can amalgamate? We make the proposition in all honesty and friendliness, we seek a closer bond of union between the Enginemen and Firemen.

Our Branches are numerous and steadily increasing, our Funds are in a satisfactory state; we do not wish to boast, neither do we intend that our affairs shall be made public; we neither fear nor court criticism, but intend to carry on our affairs in our own simple way, and will give all members and and every information which the most exacting may require. Many of our members are already receiving the benefits of our various Branches, and hundreds of non-members are reaping the rewards of our actions in reductions in their hours of labour, which we have no doubt will become more general as the area of our operation spreads,

We deprecate any violent means of arriving at those concessions which it is our aim to obtain, and trust that all our councils may be marked for their moderation and humility, and that we may never have to record in the history of our Society any of those unhappy events which so often set Capital and Labour at variance.

On behalf of the Executive,

JOSH. BROOKE. Secretary.

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Where all Communications must be addressed.

As an indication how sympathy was gradually returning to the grievances of enginemen, whose case for protection and resistance was indeed urgent, | quote the following article from the same "Gazette" after it had received the circular from the committee:—