Lectures and Essays

by Goldwin Smith

Mr. Brassey, like all men who have done great things in the practical world, knew his way to men's hearts. In his tours along the line he remembered even the navvies, and saluted them by their names.

He understood the value of the co-operative principle as a guarantee for hearty work. His agents were made partakers in his success, and he favoured the butty-gang system—that of letting work to a gang of a dozen men, who divide the pay, allowing something extra to the head of the gang.

Throughout his life it was a prime object with him to collect around him a good staff of well-tried and capable men. He chose well, and adhered to his choice. If a man failed in one line, he did not cast him off, but tried him in another. It was well known in the labour market that be would never give a man up if he could help it. He did not even give men up when they had gone to law with him. In the appendix is a letter written by him to provide employment for a person who "had by some means got into a suit or reference against him," but whom he described as "knowing his work well." In hard times he still kept his staff together by subdividing the employment.

Those social philosophers who delight in imagining that there is no engineering skill, or skill of any kind, in England, have to account for the fact that a large proportion of the foreign railways are of British construction. The lines built by Mr. Brassey form an imposing figure not only on the map of England, but on those of Europe, North and South America, and Australia. The Paris and Rouen Railway was the first of the series. In passing to the foreign scene of action new difficulties had to be encountered, including that of carrying over, managing and housing large bodies of British navvies; and Mr. Brassey's administrative powers were further tried and more conspicuously developed. The railway army, under its commander-in-chief, was now fully organized. "If," says Mr. Helps, "we look at the several persons and classes engaged, they may be enumerated thus:—There were the engineers of the company or of the government who were promoters of the line. There were the principal contractors, whose work had to satisfy these engineers; and there were the agents of the contractors to whom were apportioned the several lengths of the line. These agents had the duties, in some respects, of a commissary-general in an army; and for the work to go on well, it was necessary that they should be men of much intelligence and force of character. Then there were the various artizans, such as bricklayers and masons, whose work, of course, was principally that of constructing the culverts, bridges, stations, tunnels and viaducts, to which points of the work the attention of the agents had to be carefully directed. Again, there were the sub-contractors, whose duties I have enumerated, and under them were the gangers, the corporals, as it were, in this great army, being the persons who had the control of small bodies of workmen, say twenty or more. Then came the great body of navvies, the privates of the army, upon whose endurance and valour so much depended."

There is a striking passage in one of the Erckmann-Chatrian novels, depicting the French army going into action, with its vast bodies of troops of all arms moving over the whole field, marshalled by perfect discipline and wielded by the single will of Napoleon. The army of industry when in action also presented a striking appearance in its way. I think, says one of Mr. Brassey's time keepers with professional enthusiasm, as fine a spectacle as any man could witness who is accustomed to look at work is to see a cutting in full operation with about twenty waggons being filled, every man at his post, and every man with his shirt open working in the heat of the day, the ganger walking about and everything going like clockwork. Such an exhibition of physical power attracted many French gentlemen who came on to the cuttings at Paris and Rouen and looking at the English workmen with astonishment said Mon Dieu, les Anglais comme ils travaillent! Another thing that called forth remark was the complete silence that prevailed amongst the men. It was a fine sight to see the Englishmen that were there with their muscular arms and hands hairy and brown.

The army was composed of elements as motley as ever met under any commander. On the Paris and Rouen Railway eleven languages were spoken— English, Erse, Gaelic, Welsh, French, German, Belgian (Flemish), Dutch, Piedmontese, Spanish, and Polish. A common lingo naturally sprang up like the Pigeon English of China. But in the end it seems many of the navvies learnt to speak French pretty well. We are told that at first the mode in which the English instructed the French was of a very original character. They pointed to the earth to be moved or the waggon to be filled said the word d—n emphatically, stamped their feet and somehow or other their instructions thus conveyed were generally comprehended by the foreigners. It is added however that this form of instruction was only applicable in very simple cases.

The English navvy was found to be the first workman in the world. Some navvies utterly distanced in working power the labourers of all other countries. The French at first earned only two francs a day to the Englishman's four and a half, but with better living, more instruction, and improved tools (for the French tools were very poor at first) the Frenchmen came to earn four francs. In the severe and dangerous work of mining, however the Englishman maintained his superiority in nerve and steadiness. The Piedmontese were very good hands especially for cutting rock and at the same time well conducted, sober and saving. The Neapolitans would not take any heavy work, but they seem to have been temperate and thrifty. The men from Lucca ranked midway between the Piedmontese and the Neapolitans. The Germans proved less enduring than the French; those employed, however, were mostly Bavarians. The Belgians were good labourers. In the mode of working, the foreign labourers had of course much to learn from the English, whose experience in railway- making had taught them the most compendious processes for moving earth.

Mr. Hawkshaw, the engineer, however says, as to the relative cost of unskilled labour in different countries: "I have come to the conclusion that its cost is much the same in all. I have had personal experience in South America, in Russia, and in Holland, as well as in my own country, and, as consulting engineer to some of the Indian and other foreign railways. I am pretty well acquainted with the value of Hindoo and other labour; and though an English labourer will do a larger amount of work than a Creole or a Hindoo, yet you have to pay them proportionately higher wages. Dutch labourers are, I think, as good as English, or nearly so; and Russian workmen are docile and easily taught, and readily adopt every method shown to them to be better than their own."

The "navvies," though rough, seem not to have been unmanageable. There are no trades' unions among them, and they seldom strike. Brandy being cheap in France, they were given to drink, which was not the French habit: but their good nature, and the freedom with which they spent their money, made them popular, and even the gendarmes soon found out the best way of managing them. They sometimes, but not generally, got unruly on pay day. They came to their foreign work without wife or family. The unmarried often took foreign wives. It is pleasant to hear that those who had wives and families in England sent home money periodically to them; and that they all sent money often to their parents. They sturdily kept their English habits and their English dress, with the high-low boots laced up, if they could possibly get them made.

The multiplicity of schemes now submitted to Mr. Brassey brought out his powers of calculation and mental arithmetic, which appear to have been very great. After listening to a multitude of complicated details, he would arrive mentally in a few seconds at the approximate cost of a line. He made little use of notes, trusting to his memory, which, naturally strong, was strengthened by habit. Dealing with hundreds of people, he kept their affairs in his head and at every halt in his journeys even for a quarter of an hour at a railway station he would sit down and write letters of the clearest kind. His biographer says that he was one of the greatest letter writers ever known.