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Mr. Owen : Six days. Mr. Maxwell: Four days at 21s. ? Mr* Owen : He has to be paid at the present time. Mr. Maxwell: £3 125.: is that it ? You do not propose 21s. a day, and count overtime in those days'? . Mr. Owen : I distinctly made that clear. We stipulate forty-eight hours a week, and I think it is for the first four hours time and a quarter. If there is any other means of getting at it, or doing it more economically, to meet both sides of the case, I am sure we shall only be too glad to meet you. Mr. Maxwell: 1 dare say. All ] want is to get at the rights of the thing. You are going to pay forty-eight hours at the ordinary rate, and pay him for six hours overtime, and he will be running four days and earn £i Is. Mr. Owen : Yes. We can quote cases in which a man is running four days a week and is paid for six. Of course, Ido not wish to lay that down as a hard-and-fast rule. Ido not hold myself out as an expert at this sort of thing. Mr. Maxwell: Ido not suppose so ; lam only asking you for information. Mr. Owen : But it is hardly fair to put me in the position of an expert. lam only an enginedriver. Mr. Maxwell : All we want is the association to tell us, and I think you know as much about it as any man in the association. Take another case. A man leaves home at 10.30, and gets to the end of his run at 5.30, running all the time, and he stays away from home that night. He is thirteen hours and a half away from home on that day. He comes back the next day, running seven hours again, as on the first day, and he is seventeen hours away from home. How do you meet that case ? He has only seven hours' continuous work. Mr. Owen : But he is seventeen on duty. Mr. Maxwell: He is seventeen hours and a half away from home the second day. Take your own case. You run to Oamaru, which is about seven hours' run, and stay at Oamaru that night; you are away from home thirteen hours and a half the first day ? Mr. Owen: You give me a lodging-allowance. Mr. Maxwell: Yes; but you are thirteen hours and a half away from home. Mr. Otven: That man has done when he has done with his engine. Mr. Maxwell : So he is in the first case—that man is booked off for five hours. Mr. Owen : But he is away from home? Mr. Maxwell: And you are away from home ? Mr. Owen: But this is night-work? Mr. Maxwell: Yes; in the one case night-work and in the other day-work. Mr. Owen : Take the Oamaru case : you run a man six days, and give him a week's pay. Mr. Maxwell: But you would pay him for overtime because he is away from home, although he is not working. Mr. Owen : No; but he has rim one hundred and fifty odd miles. Mr. Maxwell: But do you not pay him for overtime V Mr. Owen : He runs such a long mileage that it amounts to a day's work. Mr. Maxwell: But you are away from home at' Oamaru. You only pay the Oamaru man for a single day's work, no overtime, and you do not put him on forty-eight hours a week ? Mr. Owen: Certainly r not; his mileage is so good : and in Australia he would be paid a day and a half for same mileage. Mr. Maxwell: But why not, as in the other case. The other man is booked off his engine, he is away from his home, and has nothing to do : in fact, the same position as the Oamaru man. Mr. Owen: He has nothing to do with the engine ? no responsibility if the glass or tubes burst ? Mr. Maxwell: Nothing at all; he is clear of his engine. Mr. Owen : You are putting a rather awkward question, for me to answer; but I think, as you keep the man away from home during the day, and he has to come on again the same day, his time should count. Mr. Maxwell: Very well; that is, in the first case you count for time away from home off duty ; but in the second case you do not count for it ? Mr. Owen: I think not. Mr. Maxwell: Why not in the second case ? Mr. Owen: I do not come on duty again the same day. Mr. Maxwell: But you are away from home. Mr. Owen : But I have not to take the engine again that day, and have lodging allowance, making that my home for the night. Mr. Maxwell: Neither has the first man. He is away from home, and booked off, and seems to be in the same position, except that you are away from home all night, and worse off. Yours is the worst case of the two, but you are not going to give yourself the same advantages as the other man. Mr. Owen : I do not want advantage. I am quite prepared to stand that, to affirm the principle. Mr. Maxwell: But I cannot see that there is any principle in it, if you are going to pay one man and not another. Mr. Owen : But the other man is booked off and goes back. Mr.'Maxwell: But the second man is worse off, because he is booked off, and is away from home all night. Mr. Owen : I hardly see that.