LONG RAILWAY HOURS.

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 May 1907, Page 2

LONG RAILWAY HOURS.

Excessive hours of work on the railways, and consequent increase in the number of accidents, is exercising the attention of the public at Homo as well as in the colonies. The subject was recently brought before the House of Commons by Mr Harvey, who, it is said, has strong leanings towards shorter hours. He stated that according to a recent official return 58,000 railway servants had worked for 13 hours a day, 21,733 worked 14 hours, 8257 worked 15 hours, 3811 worked 16 hours, 1797 worked 17 hours, and 1636 worked 18 hours. These figures were taken at a time when there, was no fog or snow, and therefore were the best from the railway companies’ point of view. In some cases men worked 16 to 31 hours continuously. Having regard to recent accidents at Salisbury and Grantham, he submitted that it was a subject in which the public generally were interested. Mr Richard Bell supported the case made out by Mr Harvey, but Mr Stuart Worthy and Sir F. Banbury argued that the excessive hours were not due to any grasping spirit on the part of the companies, as they had to pay extra for overtime. Mr Lloyd George, however, thought the railway companies had not done all they could to mitigate the evil, and in accepting Mr Harvey’s motion the President of the Board of Trade warned the railway companies that if they wished to avoid drastic legislation with regard to hours of labor, their only way was to find the remedies themselves before another year was out.