I. United Kingdom
Period to which
the figures relate.
First week in
December:—		Number
employed in
selected week.		Amount paid in
wages in the
selected week.		Average
weekly earnings
per head.
£0s.00d.
1901440,557551,11425000¼
1902448,429559,17924011¼
1903448,321557,81924010½
1904445,577557,82025000½
1905449,251568,33825003½
1906457,942582,20725005¼
1907478,690618,30425010
1908459,120574,05925000
1909459,444582,78225004½
1910463,019596,34225009
II. England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland
ENGLAND AND WALES.SCOTLAND.IRELAND.
Year.Number
Employed.		Average
weekly
earnings
per Head.		Number
Employed.		Average
weekly
earnings
per Head.		Number
Employed.		Average
weekly
earnings
per Head.
0s.00d.0s.00d.0s.00d.
1901378,12125006¼43,71023001½18,72619005
1902383,88325005¼45,24023001¼19,30619003¼
1903384,46525004½44,92222011½18,93419005
1904380,6102500745,21623001¼19,75119001½
1905384,32125010¼45,39923003¾19,53119002¾
1906391,66125011½46,40723004¼19,87419009½
1907412,80426004¾46,41623005½19,47019008¼
1908395,27125006¼44,80922008½19,04019008¼
1909394,92825010½45,14723003¾19,36919011
1910397,71526003½46,1052300319,19920007
II. England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland
ENGLAND AND WALES.SCOTLAND.IRELAND.
Year.Number
Employed.		Average
weekly
earnings
per Head.		Number
Employed.		Average
weekly
earnings
per Head.		Number
Employed.		Average
weekly
earnings
per Head.
0s.00d.0s.00d.0s.00d.
1901378,12125006¼43,71023001½18,72619005
1902383,88325005¼45,24023001¼19,30619003¼
1903384,46525004½44,92222011½18,93419005
1904380,6102500745,21623001¼19,75119001½
1905384,32125010¼45,39923003¾19,53119002¾
1906391,66125011½46,40723004¼19,87419009½
1907412,80426004¾46,41623005½19,47019008¼
1908395,27125006¼44,80922008½19,04019008¼
1909394,92825010½45,14723003¾19,36919011
1910397,71526003½46,1052300319,19920007

Whatever the precise amount of the remuneration received, allowance must be made for various subsidiary advantages of the railway service.

Free uniforms or clothes are given to various grades, the recipients thereof on one of the leading lines including station-masters, district police and traffic inspectors, platform inspectors, yard inspectors, passenger guards, ticket collectors, foremen porters and foremen parcel porters, foremen shunters, brakesmen, shunters, signalmen, parcel porters, vanmen and boys, porters, sergeants and policemen, telegraph messengers, sleeping-car attendants and corridor attendants. Passenger guards, for example, get a summer coat and vest every two years, winter coat and vest every two years, summer trousers every year, winter trousers every year, topcoat every three years, mackintosh every four years (main line) or every three years (local line), belt (main line) when required, cap every year, and two neckties every year. The amount which a man saves by the supply of this free clothing naturally adds proportionately to the actual value of his position.

On many of the lines the companies have provided for their workers a considerable amount of cottage accommodation, with gardens and allotments, charging rentals which yield little more than a nominal return on the capital expenditure.

The Glasgow and South-Western Railway Company have organised, at Cockerhill, a model village for the accommodation of the principal section of the locomotive staff employed in the engine-sheds there. Purchase of land and construction of buildings involved the company in an expenditure of £70,000. To-day the village has a total population of 700 persons. Each tenant gets three large rooms and a kitchen for a rental of £13 a year, plus local rates, which amount to about 17s. a year. Attached to every house is a plot of ground where the tenant can grow his own vegetables, or cultivate his favourite flowers. The centre of social life in the village is the Railway Institute, a commodious building erected by the company, and still maintained to a certain extent at their cost. Administration of the affairs of this Institute is entrusted to a General Committee of thirty-two of the tenants, elected annually, and having different subcommittees, each of which takes charge of a particular phase of the work. The Institute has a hall (reserved on Sundays for religious meetings of a strictly non-sectarian character), reading and recreation-rooms, library and baths. The village also has a fire brigade, a children's savings bank, and a committee for the organisation of ambulance work.

A rent club, the subscription to which is one penny a week, ensures for its members the continued payment of their rent in the event of their being absent from work on account of sickness. Still another advantage offered to the tenants is that of a season ticket between Cockerhill and Glasgow for themselves or for members of their household at the nominal charge of five shillings a year.

One of the latest developments in connection with the housing of railway companies' workers has been on the Great Eastern Railway, the chairman of the company, Lord Claud Hamilton, saying at the half-yearly meeting on July 28, 1911:—

"We have been asked by a portion of our staff to do something for them in respect of cottages, for although in some districts they can obtain adequate lodging, in other districts it is exceedingly difficult to obtain, at a reasonable rent, the decent accommodation which they require. Now that our prospects are improving, we have settled as from the 1st of July to spend £10,000 a year on cottages for our workmen. It is not a large sum, but it is as much as we can afford, and I must tell you we can only expect to get, at the most, 2½ per cent interest on that money. But although that is a low rate of interest, and not remunerative, the extra comfort, satisfaction and happiness which these men and their families will derive from healthy and adequate accommodation repays us, I am sure, indirectly, over and over again in their more willing service to their employers."