RAILWAYS, 
147 
actually received. The same may alse be said of bonus additions to 
provident funds and gratuity benefits, especially as we are informed that 
only about one-third of the workers are actual subscribers to Railway 
Provident Funds. The cumulative value of these concessions and addi- 
tions to ordinary wages is considerable, and those railway workers in 
receipt of them undoubtedly have advantages enjoyed by few industrial 
workers. We have been furnished With comparisons of rates of wages 
ruling in different industries and dea] with this question in another section 
of our Report. Here we need only express the opinion that railway 
service is becoming increasingly attractive, with the result that not only 
is a better type of applicant available, but the supply generally is in excess 
of requirements. 
Wage Movements, 
In pre-war days, wages were fixed in accordance with the rates 
prevailing in other industries In recent years, however, rates have been 
revised to meet changed conditions in the cost of living and improved 
standards of comfort, and, although there are differences of opinion on this 
subject, it may be accepted that the law of supply and demand has ceased 
bo be the sole determining factor. Except in one or two cases, service 
agreements contain no reference to rates of wages, although schedules of 
rates are in existence on all railways. There is no uniformity of practice 
on the various railways or even in similar departments of the same 
tailway. Pay generally is fixed on an incremental basis so as to 
admit of the grant of increases as an employee’s service and age 
increase. Certain classes are divided into grades, and Promotion from 
one gradeto another depends on the occurrence of a vacancy in the 
higher grade and on the suitability of the men for such promotion. 
As a rule the initial pay given is the minimum pay of the scale, although 
exceptions are frequently made, for example in the case of labourers 
and of men recruited for some workshops who, after trade tests, have 
bheir initial pay fixed according to skill. Complaints are made that there 
are $00 many grades, that men gre blocked for years in lower grades until 
vacancies occur in the higher, and that the wages of railway workers gre 
not based on the principle of g living wage. 
Revisions of Wages. 
We have been supplied with statements regarding revisions of 
wages made during the war and Post-war years to meet the changes in 
the cost of living. War allowances were given on various railways from 
1917 ‘and increased from time to time, until they were merged in genera] 
revisions of the scale of pay carried out between the years 1920 and 1922, 
We are formed by the Railway Board that the scheme of revision was 
framed with due regard to the increased cost of living in the various pro- 
vinees traversed by the several railways and that, as the lower paid em- 
ployees were Particularly affected by the increase in the cost of the 
necessaries of life, the Percentages were fixed on a sliding scale, giving 
much larger proportionate Increasesin the lower grades. The following 
table indicates the percentages of increase over 1914 scales of pay, 
3