Now, gentlemen, it is pretty clear and obvious that upwards of
200,000 persons engaged upon the various railways of the United
Kingdom cannot be rich; and although their duties require great
care and great exactness, and although our lives are every day,
humanly speaking, in the hands of many of them, still, for the most
of these places there will be always great competition, because
they are not posts which require skilled workmen to hold. Wages,
as you know very well, cannot be high where competition is great,
and you also know very well that railway directors, in the bargains
they make, and the salaries which they pay, have to deal with the
money of the shareholders, to whom they are accountable. Thus it
necessarily happens that railway officers and servants are not
remunerated on the whole by any means splendidly, and that they
cannot hope in the ordinary course of things to do more than meet
the ordinary wants and hazards of life. But it is to be observed
that the general hazards are in their case, by reason of the
dangerous nature of their avocations, exceptionally great, so very
great, I find, as to be stateable, on the authority of a
parliamentary paper, by the very startling round of figures, that
whereas one railway traveller in 8,000,000 of passengers is killed,
one railway servant in every 2,000 is killed.
Hence, from general, special, as well, no doubt, for the usual
prudential and benevolent considerations, there came to be
established among railway officers and servants, nine years ago,
the Railway Benevolent Association.
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