lightning strikes on the railways, and the Executive Committee agreed to accept the machinery, subject to satisfactory local or district Boards being set up.
Then, on June 24th, 1920. Sir Eric Geddes again outlined the future policy of the Ministry, and announced the proposed Zonal system, or division into groups, as follows:
- 1.—Southern, combining the South Eastern & Chatham, the Brighton, and the South Western.
- 2.—Western, the present Great Western system, with the Welsh lines.
- 3.—North Western, combining the North Western, the Midland, and the Lancashire & Yorkshire, the North Staffordshire, and Furness.
- 4.—Eastern, combining the Great Northern. Great Central, and Great Eastern.
- 5.—North Eastern, the present North Eastern system, and the Hull & Barnsley.
- 6.—London Group (local lines).
- 7.—Scottish Group, the whole of Scotland.
Each group should have a Board of Management, consisting of representatives of the shareholders, who should form a majority of the Board, and of employees, of whom one-third might be leading officials of the group, to be co-opted by the rest of the Board, and two-thirds members elected from and by the workers on the railways. Permanent machinery was proposed to be set up dealing with questions of wages and conditions, and the State was to have power to (a) protect the public, (b) the economic working of the railways, and (c) the safeguarding of national interests. The Ministry held that very large savings could be effected by standardisation of methods and machinery, and by introducing co-operative working methods. The railways were regarded as neither adequate nor entirely suitable to meet the growing needs of the community, neither for agriculture, industry, nor housing. It was further
