proposed to modernise canals and waterways, to bring them into line with modern needs. Railway property was stated to amount to £1,200,000,000, and the outgoings and incomings of the railway companies to exceed £500,000,000 a year.
This report evoked a triangular battle which is not yet settled, and the noise of it will reverberate for long after this history is in the hands of its readers. The Companies began to investigate every detail of the White Paper, and late in 1920 issued a trenchant document which freely criticised the State proposals. They found fault with the proposed grouping, as lacking financial stability and balance, and suggested five different groups, but most severely they differed from the proposal to have members of the Board of Management "elected by and from the workers." That phrase they picked upon, and offered as an alternative a series of subcommittees, whose chairmen should be directors, and which should have advisory powers to the Board of each Group. They declined to accept the principle of matters of management and discipline being dealt with by a composite Board, and suggested as alternative a series of improved Conciliation Boards. They also strongly complained against the financial clauses of the White Paper, while the Government left them to find a way out.
On the other hand the Societies of railway workers, like our own, the R.C.A., and the N.U.R., were adamant against the railways going back to private control, and firmly insisted that the half million men who invest their whole life in the railway interest should have a fuller share in the control of the undertaking and their destiny than was proposed. The A.S.L.E. & F., in collaboration with the Railway Clerks' Association, promoted a very able Memorandum and Draft of a Ministry of Transport (Transfer of Railways) Bill, which clearly demonstrated the desires of the Society in this important matter when the existing form of control expires on August 14th, 1921. The Bill indicated with considerable detail the method in which the change could be effected with little or no inconvenience, and with advantage to the railway stockholders, the public, and the railway staffs.
