Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/435

 NOTES AND MEMORANDA 413 have themselves worked; the secretaries of three railway servant organisations Mr. H. Tait, of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Srvants in Scotland; Mr. E. Fiarford, of the Amalgamated Society of Rilway Servants of the United Kingdom; and Mr. Watson, of the GenerM Railway Servants' Union, of whom the last said that his Society, with 25,000 members, came into existence a year ago mainly to pro- cure the legal eight hours day; but Mr. Tait and Mr. Fiarford both asked only for a ten hours limit as a general rule, with an eight hours one in certain special kinds of work, meal-times to be in either case excluded. Mr. Harford said they wanted the hours fixed by the Board of Trade, not by Act of Parliament. Among thv latest witnesses have been two railway ,mnagers Mr. Findlay, of the London and North Western, and Mr. Lambert, of the Great Western. Both stated that since attention had been called to the long hours of railway servants, their respective companies had been trying to reduce the hours to more reasonable compass, Mr. Findlay speaking of twelve hours as a maximum to be scarce ever exceeded, and Mr. Lambert hoping to make eleven hours a day for six days a week the normal time even for goods guards. Fie was to do this, not by a system of relief, but by sending the guards a nine hours' distance one day and a thirteen hours' distance the next. Tm Scotch railway strike has been largely instrumental in pro- curing a still more important investigation. In March Government resolved to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the whole sub- ject of the relations of capital and labour, and to report how far exist- ing evils could be remedied by legislation. The importance attached to the investigation is shown by the fact that the Marquis of Hatting- ton, the most powerful statesman but one out of office, has been made Chairman of the Commission, and that the Prince of Wales was ready to serve upon it. There are twenty-seven members, including some of the ablest men on both sides of politics Lord Derby, Sir M. Hicks Beach, Sir John Gorst, Mr. Mundella, Mr. Courthey, Mr. H. Fowler. Economics is represented by Professor Marshall, jurisprudence by Sir F. Pollock, and the other members are for the most part representatives either of heads or of hands in the world of labour. It has been objected that they are too many to aee on a report, and that interested parties ought rather to have been called as witnesses than to sit as judges, but in such inquiries the evidence is always more than the report, and for eliciting the whole truth there is obvious advantage both in numbers and in the presence of examiners with special, though it may be interested, knowledge. Besides, the Commission has Mready utilised its numbers for the purpose of accelerating the inves- tigation by subdivision. At its second preliminary meeting, held on 6th May, it agreed to divide itself into three Committees, devoted respectively to (1) the mining, iron, engineering, hardware, shipbuilding,