was most heavily felt by the North British Railway, and less heavily by the Caledonian and the Glasgow and South-Western Railways.

The chief incidents of the struggle can only be briefly summarised. A reduced passenger train time-table was prepared for all the lines. From the 22nd December onwards, for at least four weeks, the depôts of the companies were blocked with goods, and unmanned engines were rusting in their sheds. The quantity of minerals moved for weeks, excepting by traders' own engines, or by engines manned by traders, was insignificant. For several days the Vale of Leven, the Aberfoyle, and other lines were closed for traffic. The Glasgow Underground (City) Railway was closed for circle trains from the beginning of the strike till 28th January, a period of five weeks.

It is not too much to say that on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, 21st till 23rd December, the passenger, goods, and mineral services in Scotland were disorganized to the extent of paralysis. Signalmen had left their cabins, engine drivers had left their engines and their routes, and new men could not be trained to unaccustomed work at a day's notice, even if new men could be found to take the places of those who had gone.

All this produced an incalculable amount of public loss and inconvenience. The days between the beginning of the strike and the New-Year holidays were fruitful of suffering to all classes of the community. Many public works were closed almost immediately owing to the want of fuel. It is hardly likely to be an overestimate that 100,000 persons were granted an unwelcome extension of holiday. At the works of the Singer Company at Kilbowie, on the Clyde, upwards of 5 000 persons were thrown out of employment at once, owing to the North British Railway Company being unable to run the usual special trains from Glasgow to Kilbowie for the purpose of conveying them to and from their work. The passenger traffic of the Christmas and New-Year weeks was seriously impeded, notwithstanding the abandonment of the goods traffic in its

favour, and the concentration of the whole energies of the companies upon it. The real testing-point came on Monday, 5th January, when the public works would in the ordinary course have been opened, and when the goods traffic had to be dealt with or industry paralysed. Notwithstanding the adherence of a considerable proportion of their servants, and the influx of a certain number of "blacklegs," the companies did not succeed for several weeks in doing more than merely touching the fringe of the goods and mineral services. The chief incident, and one which affected a large group of complementary industries, was the want of coal. Stocks in Glasgow were soon exhausted, and though considerable quantities were carted from local pits to the enrichment of their owners, who sold their output at enhanced prices, steam coal for ships' use or exportation' was almost unprocurable, and steel works, engineering works, shipbuilding yards, and cotton mills closed their doors, and very many thousands of workmen were thrown out of employment. Meanwhile the impossibility of procuring despatch for coal accumulating at the pitheads compelled the coalmasters to cease working, and in the mining districts thousands of miners became idle. Some were for the time supported by their trade unions. The dearth of coal and the high prices charged by local dealers pressed most heavily upon the poorer classes, whose hardships were much intensified by the enhancement of the cost of fuel during the height of an unusually severe winter.

The retail price of coal

(2) During the weeks ending the 10th, 17th, and 24th January, a very large number of the public works in the west of Scotland still remained closed.

(3) A curious instance of the instability of the relations between capital and labour, and of the highly arbitrary fixation of prices during periods of industrial emergency, is afforded by the case of a colliery in Fifeshire, where coal was being sold at the relatively high price of 17s. 6d. per ton. The men insisted on an advance in wages, which the employers promptly refused on the ground that the rise in price was only temporary. The men thereupon threatened to strike, whereupon the colliery owners reduced the price of coal from 17s. 6d. to 10s. per ton.

B

rose from under 20s. to 40s. per ton. A coal famine was imminent, and stoppage of the gas supply in Glasgow and Edinburgh was no rem te probability. Coals were exported from the Tyne instead of from the Forth and the Clyde. Carts were employed to convey goods from the country manufacturing districts for distances up to thirty miles to Glasgow for shipment. Vessels waited for cargoes. Foreign merchants bought their goods elsewhere. On every hand one learned that trade was leaving the Scottish ports.

Even that part of the social loss which might be expressed in terms of money can hardly be estimated; the immediate effects were so widespread and the indirect effects quite incalculable, while the loss otherwise can only be dimly guessed at. Both sides were equally obstinate, and apparently equally indifferent to public opinion. The daily newspapers were, with three exceptions, opposed to the action of the men,2 and opinion on the exchanges was wholly against the strikers.

During a crisis such as that produced by the strike, the tension both of the public mind and of the minds of the strikers is very high, and the likelihood of causing important changes in the situation by the propagation even of an unfounded rumour is an inducement to some people to make the attempt. While spurious rumours are alleged to have been set afoot by strikers, the strikers declare that panic among them was artificially promoted by officials.

The prevailing feeling was undoubtedly one of condemnation that the men had, by striking without notice, at once embarrassed the railway companies and endangered the public safety, both as to transport of persons and of supplies. Yet there was an undercurrent of feeling, which found frequent expression at public meetings in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and

(1) See page 24.

(2) The important service rendered to the strikers even by the newspapers whose leading articles were antagonistic to them ought, however, to be specially noticed. The strike began at a time when Parliament was not in session, and pages were daily devoted to full and accurate reports of the meetings The prominent position in public attention occupied by the strike was due largely to this. The statements communicated to the newspapers, on behalf of both sides, as to the state of traffic from day to day are, however, to be received with caution.

otherwise, that the grievances of the railway men would have to be remedied somehow.

Aid came to the companies from local firms, who lent private engines with the services of drivers, and from the English railways in conducting the traffic to the south. Aid came to the men from trades unions, both in Scotland and in England, in shape of money and "agitators." Incidents familiar in the great English strikes became commonplaces. "Picketing" was extensively adopted.1 Collisions between the strikers and their sympathisers and the police took place. Outrages upon railway property occurred; and some of these were traced to men on strike. Railway accidents due to ignorance or want of skill on the part of the men employed to replace the strikers happened almost daily.

Apart from the various attempts at negotiations for settlement, which will be noticed later, two leading incidents happened in the course of the strike. These were the defection of the men employed by the Glasgow and South-Western Railway, and the eviction at Motherwell of the families of about a dozen of the strikers from houses belonging to the Caledonian Railway Company.

From the first it was felt by the general body of the men that their weakest section, from a combative point of view, was that which consisted of the employees of the smallest of the three railways concerned. It was known that the men on the Glasgow and South-Western Railway had less reason to be discontented that the conditions of their work generally were not nearly so severe, and that a much larger proportion of the men than on the other railways had an eight-hours day. The officials of the Glasgow and South-Western Railway, at all events, succeeded in winning back their men to work, long before the other lines saw their way out of the mess. The effect of this upon the morale of the remainder of the strikers was considerable, and it required all the powers of those who had stepped or had been thrust into the position of leaders to prevent wholesale defections from following.

(1) See pages 41 and 52. (2) See page 26.

On Monday, 5th January, the families of about a dozen engine-drivers and others on strike were evicted from houses belonging to the Caledonian Railway Company at Motherwell. These evictions were carried out with a great display of military and police force,1 under the command of the sheriff of the county, in presence of some twenty or thirty thousand people. The roof of the railway station and a signal-box were wrecked by rioters, and the Riot Act was read to a turbulent mob. In the excited state of popular feeling the agents of the railway company yielded to the representations of the authorities, and decided to refrain from risking further violence, by deferring proceedings for the eviction of the remainder of the striker-tenants.

One of the characteristics of the strike was the great amount of coming and going. Many men seem to have struck, returned, and struck again. The fear that the strike was collapsing, again and again produced more or less severe panic, and towards the close of the fifth week panic was really the chronic condition. After the Glasgow and South-Western Railway had overcome the strike, so far as their system was concerned, the Caledonian Railway succeeded to a certain extent in inducing return to its ranks, until by the close of the fifth week it was announced that the vacancies on the line were practically filled up. This seems to have led to a panic among some of the Caledonian men who still remained out, and they further weakened the position of the men on strike by taking service with the North British Railway. Meantime, however, there can be no doubt that many men who had been employed by both railways in the emergency became dissatisfied with the conditions of work and left the services. All this makes it difficult to form an estimate, but probably at the end of the fifth week the ranks of the strikers did not number more than 3,000.2

Notwithstanding the immense loss which was daily being

(1) It would appear from the reports in the newspapers that none of the strikers concerned offered any resistance to the proceedings, some of them even having previously removed from the houses.

(2) The aliment which had been paid by the strike committee. Glasgow, for four weeks at ios. was at the end of the fifth week raised to 12s. 6d. ; at Edinburgh it was 17s. 6d. for unmarried and 20s. for married men.