THE TABLET May 10th, 1958. VOL, 211, No. 6155

THE TABS FT A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER & REVIEW

Published as a Newspaper

Pro Ecclesia Dei, Pro Regina et Patria

FOUNDED IN 1840

MAY 10th, 1958

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Democracy and Indifference: The Moral to be Drawn Before the Italian Elections : I. The Christian Democrats. By Gunnar Kumlien The Missing Teachers: A Surprise for the Statisticians. Report On Quiliran : Father Roland de Vaux a t Ushaw. By L. Johnston

World Shortage of Priests?: 1*1 Africa and Asia. By J. P. Forrestall Sir Bertram W in d le : An Appreciation at his Centenary. By Sister Monica Taylor, S.N.D.

Critics’ Columns : Notebook : Book Reviews : Letters : Chess

RAILWAY

T 1 0 m'lhons would be required to finance the in­

creases for which the railway unions are asking ; and Sir Brian Robertson has persuaded the Government to relax the ban placed on immediate capital expenditure. He is to be allowed £25 millions for modernisation, and he proposes to cut out certain of the less profitable activities. (It will be unwelcome news for holidaymakers that this will include a reduction of crosschannel services.) There will be fewer trains and fewer stations, and in some cases higher fa re s ; and there will also be a reduction in the number of railwaymen employed.

This last part of the programme, is highly unpalatable to the unions, and it comes at a time when it is less easy than it was a year ago to be confident that alternative employment will be available immediately, and in the same parts of the country. But these are all obviously practical proposals, and the unions ought to appreciate them much more than the general public. They are to be undertaken primarily for the men, to enable them to earn more.

It is none of it what the public was promised when the railways were nationalised. Then the public was told that a great national service, by the very scale of its operations, would be able to give a better service, more trains and cheaper fares, as well as a contented staff, conscious of themselves as the direct servants of the public. None of this has in fact happened. It is fair to remember that many of the reasons why nationalisation has been disappointing have been outside the control of anyone in the industry. It is also true that the Transport Commission, because it is believed to have the Government behind it, is not listened to by the unions when it demonstrates that it has not got the money with which to increase the weekly pay of nearly half a million men.

SOLVENCY

The railway unions look beyond the Transport Commission to the Government. Private employers may say “ No ” and mean “ No,” because the banks would not lend them the money for uneconomic wage increases. But it is perfectly well-known that a Government whose financial operations are on the huge scale of today could raise £10 millions and hand it over. I t would be a folly and a betrayal of trust if they did so, but the power is there.

This is so much the test of Mr. Macmillan’s Government that we do not expect to see Ministers giving way, even in face of the threats of the most widespread transport strike. As we write those threats are still held in reserve. The possibility is ominously referred to, just as it was with the ’bus strike. The tactics are to pretend that the strike is a kind of natural calamity which the Government has called down on the nation’s head, when it is really the decision of very worried and anxious trade union leaders responding to a pressure from below which they dare not oppose too resolutely for fear of losing their authority to younger and fierier men. This means that the decision really rests with the rank and file ; with men who are always tempted to vote “ Yes ” for proposals that they should be paid more, and then find themselves called out on strike when what they had been intending was an easy addition to the weekly paypacket.

We would have more sympathy for the men at the top of the trade union movement, who have been confronted with the solid economic realities of the country’s position, were it not that their troubles from their rank and file is largely of their own making. One of the advantages that the United States and Canada both enjoy is that the trade unions are purely industrial, and not also political bodies ; and the Opposition in those countries, however eager it may be to achieve political