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Emperor of Germany, as my colleague says, has agreed to that, and taken the matter up, and no doubt he knows best why, but the fact remains that he has done it. And we all know that there is a general movement in this direction all over the world, that eight hours' work shall constitute a day. Mr. McKerrow : Yes, that is the point. What is the eight hours' work ? Standing still is not work. Mr. X)wen :If you send a carter out with a dray for a load of cement: he goes to the store, and has to wait his turn there—it may be an hour, it may be half-an-hour, or more. You would not think of stopping that man's time ? Mr. McKerrow : Certainly not, for one day ; but if I should employ a carter for every one of the 313 working days of the year, and he had to stand each day waiting an hour or two, I should make some arrangement with him. I should say to him beforehand, " You will have this time off; that I expect you to make up. For anything that I know, you may be asleep in your cart; at all events, you are not working, and what I require is that you give me a fair day's work for a fair day's pay." That would be a matter of common understanding. Mr. Owen: Now, in regard to locomotive men, I do not wish to press hardly on any of my superior officers, but there is a column in our sheets where one shows his shunting and running, and standing. I think Mr. Kotheram will bear me out when I say that although an engine may be standing the man may not be. In seme instances, a man is cleaning his engine, or, in the case of a branch man, coaling, and so on. There are many cases in -which men have to clean as well as to coal, water, and oil their engines; so that in the time that is booked as " standing" the engine-man may be at work. When the engine comes in, the man has to move it to the turn-table, go to the water-column, take water, and coal, clean his fire ash-pan and smoke-box, &c, before he goes into the shed. I think every one will admit that coaling, and so on, is work, not play. Mr. McKerrow : Is there any allowance made for this, Mr. Eotheram ? Mr. Botheram: Yes ;it is all reckoned in the day's work, and an allowance- is made for this kind of thing. The matter Mr. Owen refers to is that of the men in Christchurch, who have been in the habit of putting down "Shunting" when they were not shunting, and it has made the returns all false. It made no difference to their pay. Mr. Owen :It was never intended to book the returns falsely. It has simply been the practice since the railway was a railway, and it has been always done up to the present time. In this particular day's work, the engine was moving, and was considered as shunting by the men. There was no column to show the work in, and consequently it was entered in the shunting column. It was no gain to the men to show it, but they considered it only fair to the engine, and to the men, as the engine was moving. That brings up another matter, which is, that the engines are not credited with the amount of work they do, as compared with other parts of the world. We are only allowed six miles for shunting, and—the practical gentlemen present can speak to this—l think that in other parts of the world ten miles an hour is allowed, and in some cases twelve. If you watch an engine shunting you will see that six miles is a very moderate allowance. If an engine in a big yard was only working six miles an hour, we should very soon have the officers wanting to know what was the matter. Mr. Maxwell : That does not affect the pay. Mr. Owen :No ; it is only brought in by Mr. Eotheram's remark. That is all I can say in the matter. We do not want to bring in particular instances if we can possibly avoid anything of the kind. We do not want to create feeling in these matters; we want to live as a happy family if possible, and we would like you to assist us to do that, if you can only see your way clear, by establishing the principle of a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. Make eight hours the day's work. You will not be alone in doing that. You are not stepping out of a straight line, but you will be doing what has been adopted on other railways, following in the steps of others in the old countries and the new ones. Mr. McKerrow: lam new in the department, but, as I understand it, ten hours was fixed, and the wages accordingly, some time ago after careful consideration, and if we must drop that, for eight hours it might mean a proportional reduction of wages, though it would come to the same thing as regards the actual payment of the men. If we make such a great concession, giving the same wage as at present, it would very much increase the cost of the service to the country. However, I will call on Mr. Maxwell, who is au fait in these matters, having devised the regulations under which you have been working, to explain them. Mr. Owen : Compare the service with New South Wales and Victoria, and see the pay in those colonies. You speak of lowering the pay for eight hours ; but compare our pay with what they are receiving on the other side. Contrast a man going on and doing six hours' duty from the time he goes on with his engine until he comes away, and receiving £1 for that, with what you pay. We have not asked for anything like that, which is a fact on the other side. A man goes on there and runs an express train: he runs, on mileage, 150 miles, which is a day and a quarter, at 16s.—that is£l. Mr. McKerrow : There are some of our services where an engine-driver only does thirty-six miles a day. I have a case in my mind. How would you arrange that ? Mr. Owen : That is, going by the hours. Mr. McKerrow : Then, you would apply the mileage in one case and not in the other, where it will suit the employer ? Mr. Owen : Even in England there are pilot-engines that never turn a wheel during the day, but the man gets his pay : he stands the whole time. Mr. McKerrow : But let us confine ourselves to the New Zealand service. Supposing we take your plan of paying by mileage, how would you pay this man ? Mr. Owen : Ido not quote it as a plan, but only to show what is paid on the other side. Mr. McKerrow : I thought you said it would be fair if we had the same here.