Page:Hine (1904) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/151

 them as well as a contractor who pays daily or weekly. Right down the track a little way our agent is remitting company money which is not earning any interest. Another reason given is that our officials are too far away to give the coal wharves proper supervision. As a matter of fact the official is on hand about as frequently as the contractor. This is a sad commentary on the versatility and elasticity of our organization. Before throwing money to the contractors why not give our section foreman or our agent a bonus for supervising the coal heavers? Let our men be a little interchangeable. If a man becomes worn out from too much sun on the track, let the breeze blow through his whiskers in the coal shed for a few weeks. No, I do not think the track would suffer if the section foreman had to put the fear of the Lord in another gang of men. The old-time section foreman had ingenuity and originality enough to do many things. His prototype of to-day may be dwarfed by over-specialization. When we treat our men less like machines we can subdivide gangs and still get results.

Nearly every winter a bill is introduced