month than Belgium railway employees average in a year.
The advances made in wages in 1906 and 1907 increased the payrolls of the railways about $120,000,000, and increases since then and now under discussion mean $60,000,000 to $75,000,000 additional. These two increases are equal to 7 per cent per year on a capitalization of from $2,500,000,000 to $2,750,000,000, a sum of money that would go a long way in adding to the transportation facilities of the country.
The railway employee has a responsibility to the railway-user to be sober, industrious, and careful, so as to furnish the best and safest transportation to the public, and he has a responsibility to the railway-owner to furnish a full day's honest and efficient work for the compensation that he receives, whatever it maybe. The industrial supremacy of America cannot be maintained unless that is done, and every patriotic man, no matter what his employment, should stop waste in labor as well as in material, and expect hard work and rigid economy.
