Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/36

 (2.) Care should be taken that every man entrusted with a responsible duty is thoroughly trained for its performance and competent, before the responsibility is cast upon him.

(3.) Every man should be fairly remunerated for his labour, and should be, as far as it lies with the management to make him so, a cheerful and contented servant. A discontented man makes a bad servant, for his mind is often pre-occupied by his own real or fancied grievances when it should be concentrated on his employer's business.

(4.) Every man should have his duties thoroughly defined and should know exactly what is required of him. To use another aphorism, "What is every one's business is no one's business," or, in other words, a piece of service which is equally the duty of two or three men is likely to be well performed by neither, for each will shift it on to the others if he can, and the one who ultimately discharges it, will do so grudgingly, thinking the others might have done it rather than himself. Moreover, if, after all, it is neglected, it is difficult to fix the responsibility for the omission on any one individual.

(5.) There should be, at all times, active and vigilant supervision in every branch of the service. It is not enough that every man should be fit for his duties and trained for their performance, but it must be the duty of someone to see that he actually does perform them, and that no slackness or carelessness is allowed to supervene in carrying, on the working from day to day. The railway service is pre-eminently one requiring for its efficient conduct a high degree of smartness, alacrity, energy, and zeal on the part of every individual engaged in it.