The next great and central business of 1919 was the standardisation of wages and national conditions of service. These constituted. without any question, the greatest, the most prolonged, and the most important negotiations ever embarked upon in the history of the Society. They began on February 12th, and concluded on August 28th, the official report of the proceedings extending to 1,543 pages. The result of it, too, furnished the finest charter of service that the locomotive workers of the United Kingdom had ever enjoyed. A mere summary of the case as presented by the representatives of the A.S.L.E. & F. extended to a volume of over six hundred pages, whilst a survey of the evidence given and questions asked and answered on four days in May—the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 27th—filled a handbook of 116 pages. My task, therefore, in focussing a miniature of these extended operations into this volume is a very considerable one.
Those engaged in the proceedings were:—
