Railways a National Industry 443 



compared with the averages for earlier years, there appears to 

 be a substantial increase ; but a " Note " thereon is given in 

 the official returns to the following effect : " An order of the 

 Board of Trade on the 2ist December, 1906, required non- 

 fatal accidents to be reported whenever they caused absence 

 from ordinary work for a whole day (instead of absence pre- 

 venting five hours' work on any of the next three days). This 

 alteration caused a large apparent increase in the number of 

 non-fatal accidents in 1907 and later years." The details in 

 regard to the killed afford, therefore, safer guidance if one 

 wishes to see whether the various appliances, precautions and 

 regulations adopted by the railway companies to ensure the 

 greater safety of those of their servants who are exposed to 

 danger from the movement of railway vehicles are having 

 the desired effect. Turning to Table X in the official returns, 

 I extract therefrom the following figures : 



PROPORTION OF KILLED TO NUMBERS 

 YEAR. EMPLOYED. 



1885-1894 (average) . . . . i in 501 



1895-1904 .... i 665 



1905-1909 . . . . i 879 



1910 i 900 



Here, therefore, we have distinct evidence of improvement 

 in the element of risk in railway operation. 



A third group of accidents to which railway servants are 

 liable relates to those that arise in the handling of goods, 

 in attending to engines at rest, or in other ways not connected 

 with the movement of trains or of railway vehicles. Here the 

 figures for 1910 are : Killed, 36 ; injured, 20,305. " The 

 number of injured is large," says the return, " but the pro- 

 portion of serious injuries is smaller than it is in the case of 

 railway accidents proper, and it will be seen that the pro- 

 portion of killed to injured is relatively low." The proportion 

 of killed, in this third group, to the average number of railway 

 servants exposed to risk was one in 12,546, and the proportion 

 of injured was one in 22. A considerable number of accidents 

 in railway goods sheds and warehouses which at one time 

 were included in the returns of accidents in factories are now 

 included in the returns of railway accidents. 



Liability to accident, whether grave or slight, lends 

 additional importance to the encouragement given to railway- 



