the demand quantitatively but not qualitatively. It is important to understand this, since the deterioration of the staff was a chief factor in the strike. One incident of the deterioration was an infusion of the Irish element, previously rare on Scottish lines.[1] This element is chiefly to be found in Glasgow, and although the promotion of the strike is not to be attributed to it exclusively, the method of the strike, so far as the breach of contract was reckless or heedless, is probably to be attributed to the new drafts in the North British Railway.
These new men, lacking the steadiness of the traditional Scottish railway servants when reckoned by polls at the meetings, outnumbered the others, and thus the vote to strike without notice was carried against the influence and the advice of the executive. Those who engaged in the strike may be divided as regards motive into three classes: (1) There were those who imagined that had they sent in their resignations they would have simply finally severed themselves from their employment without hope of reinstatement. The view of this class was that to leave their work without notice was a protest against their treatment by the managers of the companies. They thought that their action would meet with some response on the part of the directors, who were presumed not to be aware of the state of matters; that the whole affair would be over in a few days; and that at the worst they would be liable to the usual penalties for absence without leave. This view was extensively held, but was of course quite naïve. (2) There were those who were thoroughly desperate and were prepared to risk anything. In this class may be included those who thought that in striking without notice the men inflicted the maximum amount of damage on the companies, and that by means of this method they secured an important strategic advantage. They also thought that had the notices been given, ere the periods of notice expired, the managers would have exercised all kinds of pressure upon the weak-kneed among the men, with the object of inducing them to withdraw their notices, and thus the strike would probably have collapsed without substantial benefit accruing. This class was represented largely at Glasgow, Motherwell, and Hamilton. (3) There were those who simply went with the majority. These were to be found partly among the more experienced but hard wrought among the town men, and the men in the country districts. It is to be noted that the meetings of the men were all public and were amply reported, and that a strike was expressly threatened at these meetings for about two months.
The Reasons for the Attitude of the Companies.— The defence of the railway companies is twofold. (1) The conditions of the employment involve long hours. (2) The earnings of the companies do not admit of their employing more men to do the work. If it be true as indicated in the analysis of the causes of the strike offered above, that men of the skill and morale required will not tolerate the conditions of railway employment prevailing on the Scottish lines, especially on the North British Railway, the conditions of work must be altered, if the railway is to continue to serve the public. It does not follow that the net earnings would thereupon be reduced. The conditions in which the Scottish railway companies now find themselves are due largely to the ant of foresight, either of past or present administrators, and any attempt to make the manual labour department suffer for the defects of the administrative must inevitably result in failure.
The rationale of the assumed necessity of long hours may be briefly
- ↑ The ethnical element in the labour struggle is apt to be overlooked.
