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/76



We have just received a copy of a circular from the committee, who invite enginemen and firemen to join them in forming a new society. We print the circular in another column. It will be eagerly read by many, especially by those who belonged to the now defunct Enginemen's Society, sometimes called the 1867 Society. That there is ample room for such an association is evident from the way in which the committee has been met by large numbers of enginemen and firemen. Large numbers who were members of the old society, but for some reason or other would never join the A.S.R.S., have responded to this invitation, and are working with a will to establish on a sure footing a society after their own heart. Indeed, it is not only now, or for a few weeks, that the promoters and their friends have been quietly and steadily working, they have been for many months feeling their way and sowing the seed, which will doubtless soon bear fruit which will fully reward them.

If any other proof were required to show that there is ample room for such a society as this, it need only be remembered that a comparatively small number-we believe not one-sixth-of the railway servants of the United Kingdom will join the Amalgamated Society. We have often regretted this; we have frequently been somewhat at a loss to know why so many thousands of railwaymen would not join the society. It has done much for them, it has held its doors open to receive all who would come, it has sent travelling and other secretaries about the country to its various branches to hold public meetings and induce non-members to join, but still a large majority, who all the time watched its proceedings, would not become "society men."

However much this has been regretted, we all know that this is a land of liberty, and that every individual can do as he likes about any matter of this kind. It has been said that a travelling secretary of the Amalgamated Society wished to coerce non-members and compel them to join his society. We find it