336 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
The basis of comparison might be either the rates of wages 
or the actual earnings, and should take cognisance of the length 
of service, prospects of promotion, extent of boy labour, hours, 
overtime allowances, and relative importance of concessions to 
the staff. To illustrate the latter, it may be mentioned that in 
the year 1898 the Cape Colony railway employees were supplied 
with £100,000 worth of provisions at cost price, carriage free. 
In comparing railway wages, it is desirable that the special 
circumstances of the place and the time should also be taken into 
account. Some years ago two of the Government systems in 
Australia had to shorten hands; in one the older employees, 
who, in accordance with railway practice, were the most highly 
paid, were dispensed with ; in the other colony it was the short- 
service men, recenily taken on at lowest rates, who had to go. 
The contrasted policy affected the averages on both sides, and 
vitiated the comparison. 
The English railway wages, which averaged £65 per annum, 
are a good deal higher than those on the Continent. Contrasted 
with ourselves, however, the Home wages are half, while, sin- 
gularly enough, the pay of the leading officers is double. The 
latter circumstance, however, has a very slight direct effect on 
the total of the railway charges, the large salaries on a big rail- 
way system being in any case but a very small proportion of 
the pay. 
In Victoria the direct payment for railway salaries and wages 
is about 75 per cent. of the expenditure and 45 per cent. of the 
receipts. Including labour in coal, sleepers, and other material 
paid for in the colonies, these proportions are raised to 85 per 
cent. of expenditure and 50 per cent. of receipts. 
Turning now for a few moments from labour charges in work- 
ing railways to labour in constructing the lines, it may prove 
interesting to note the rates paid by Mr. Thomas Brassey, the 
father of His Excellency, our respected Governor. This most 
eminent of railway contractors, whose contracts totalled 
£78,000,000, paid English navvies 2s. 4d. to 3s. 6d. per day, 
exceptionally high rates in those early days of railways, for it 
was Mr. Brassey’s policy to get the best men and give the best 
pay. In France the corresponding rate was Is. 8d. to 2s. 3d. ; 
in Belgium, 1s. 3d. to Is. 11ld.; in India, 4$d. to 6d.; in 
Queensland, 7s. to 9s. The Victorian rate to-day is 6s. A 
dollar was for a lone time the American standard. 
The United States Inter-State Commerce Commission gives the 
following average earnings of the respective grades of men on 
working railways for the year ending June, 1897 :— 
+ Written January, 1900.—The rate has since been raised. 
