NO DIVIDENDS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 May 1932, Page 8

NO DIVIDENDS

BRITISH RAILWAYS’ PLIGHT.

MR THOMAS’ PLEA

i.oNDON, May 16,

Enthusiastic cheering greeted Mr J. H. Thomas, Dominions Secretary, at Pontypool, when he addressed a ’meeting of raihvaymen for the first tune since he relinquished office with the iN.U.R. shortly after the formation oi I the National Government. At the end I of the meeting the audience sang “Em He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Mr Thomas, who was accompanied by his wife, said he was deeply touched by the magnificent reception. The position oc the British railways to-day was not. only bad; it was serious, ho went on to say. Whatever their politics o> views on methods of transport, they should never forget that they were part of the railway system, and it prosperity or difficulties were inevitably bound up with their own. They were within a lew days of the period when either the employees or the railway company might make application bathe revision of terms of service. “Do not get it- into- your heads,” he said, j “that the railway companies are merely I bluffing, that they are hiding something, and that there, are some buld'-n reserves that no one knows anything about. Over £'4oo 000,000 of railway capital last- year did not earn a corner of dividend. To-day £IOO of railway stock can he bought for £6/10/-. Those are facts, and remember that you can. not get more out of industry than is put into it.” Tf they thought if, was only necessary’ to talk about nationalisation he would remind them that whether privately owned or Government owned the railways would still have fr. earn something or the railwaymen would he the victims.

Roads and Railways. “I do not hesitate to say,” he said “that, the policy should be to give the 1 raihvavs a fair chance. It do not think that they have a fair chance to-day. They are very much to blame; if they had taken my advice 15 years aco they would not have let the roads get the mastery of the situation as they have to-dav.” Hoads were not paid for hv the road users as the railways were by the railway companies, and the policemen had to do the work on roads of the signalmen. The railways wore mmmon carriers, and were compelled to. take anything offered them, while the road people could pick and choose and refuse what did not suit them. The jesult was that the railway companies last year not only did not earn thenstandard revenue, but tilings were going from bad to worse. Could the position he improved by a further reduction of wages? He did not think it could, and he did not think the railway companies would Mate that it could. The railways' would only succeed when there'was'a "bango for the better in the industrial position of the country. Recalling the crisis of six months ago. he' shid that although we had passed tli,” danger snot we were hv no means out O' 1 " the wood. Those who knew the position in Central Eui-ope knew that the future of this country an/ the wor'd was dependent on whethoi common sense preva'iVd at Lausanne and war debts 'and -reparations were dealt "••tb on a common-sense and permanent basis.

Fair Competition. i Referring to a meeting arranged by the Government of representatives of the railway and other transport interests, he said that the railway companies wore on strong ground when thev said that if they were to have competition, as they must, it should he fair and equitable. Speaking on the question of wages agreement, Mr Thomas said it would not help matters for the railway companies to make application for levision. Equally anyone who advised the men to make application for revision would not only he giving them had advice hut playing right into the hands of the reactionary people who would let them have a fight on railway wages. No application should he mad ■ b.v either side, because the agitation propaganda, and uncertainty that would he caused would he unsettling and had for both sides. It was because he did not want industrial trouble, knowing it would he fatal to the interests of the country, that lift advised the companies and the men not to provoke controversy.

Although they were members of a big and powerful union, lie advised them all to remember that they would go wrong the first day they assumed that they were more power'd] than Hastate. He was content to he judged by future events, and his conscience told him tint whatever lie had done for railwaymen and iho nation in the past he had never rendered them greater service that he was doing now.