Page:The truth about the railroads (IA truthaboutrailro00elli).pdf/47

Rh has already discouraged the railway-owner, and will tend to discourage him more unless additional revenue can be obtained from the railway-user. The railway-user often fails to understand the wage situation, and the railway employee and the railway-user must remember that in fixing wages they must consider the ability of the business to pay the wages demanded.

In 1908, the official figures show that there were 1,458,244 railway employees receiving $1,051,632,225 in wages, or an average of $721.16 per year. For the year 1907 the average pay of railway employees in the United Kingdom was $260; in Germany $371, in Switzerland $292; in Belgium, where the railways are owned by the state, firemen received $15 to $23 a month, the higher rate only after fifteen years’ service; enginemen from $22.50 a month to $28 a month after twenty-four years’ service; conductors from $15.97 a month to $34.70. The average railway worker in Belgium gets 43 cents a day. Certain classes of American railway employees get more in a Rh