TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 118} 
every unnecessary minute's delay of the journey, and a consequent struggle on the 
part of the principals and staff during the day to overtake the time so lost in 
the journey. In the afternoon the jaded powers are again placed under irritating 
influences ; the garden exercise before dinner shorn of its proportions or altogether 
lost, or the evening meal delayed or hurried, with corresponding injury to the 
system. When I hear of men giving up country residence after a few years’ trial, 
on the plea perhaps that railway travelling daily does not suit them, I wonder how 
much of the trouble arises from these conditions of unpunctual time-keeping and 
its concomitant mischiefs. 
I have not desired in this short paper in any way to overstate the case as. 
against the railway companies. No good end would be served thereby. The 
question is one capable of some elucidation by every one concerned. It may be 
that it will be found by railway companies that the purely surburban traflic does 
not pay—does not or will not pay for the terminal expenditure necessary to render 
the stations of our great cities equal to the stress entailed during certain hours of 
the day. If this be so it had better be known, and the tramways—when the 
ignorance of vestries and local boards shall be ovyercome—may be found equal to 
the emergency. 
I commend some of the reflections here offered to the careful consideration of 
our friends of the medical faculty. For some years I travelled about eighty miles 
a day up and down to business by trains that were reasonably punctual, and found 
my health benefited rather than otherwise by the repose of the journey. .~ 
4, On the Industrial Remuneration Conference. 
By the Rev. W. Cunnincuam, B.D. 
This Conference was organised under the auspices of the Statistical Society to 
carry out the wishes of an Edinburgh gentleman, who had devoted 1,000/. to the 
purpose of discussing how far the existing system for the distribution of the pro- 
ducts of industry was satisfactory, and how far capable of improvement. Many 
practical suggestions of importance had been thrown out, but it was hardly worth 
while to commence a discussion of them in detail. It was more desirable to try 
and understand how a representative Conference of this kind regarded the studies 
to which Section F was devoted. While there was a very general wish that the 
Government should collect and publish statistics of wages and prices, this was 
sought for purely practical purposes, and was no evidence of interest in statistical 
science. This was further illustrated by the attitude assumed towards statistical 
inquiries about the progress of the working classes. There was evidently a strong 
feeling among artisans that the recent inquiries were inaccurate, as no sufficient 
account was taken of the intensity of labour, or of the irregularity of employ- 
ment. Besides being inaccurate, the inquiries seemed to many to be irrelevant ; 
they dealt with the individual as isolated, while many wanted to estimate the 
improvement in the lot of the labourer relatively to the progress of society, and 
held that when the question was put in this form, there had been no progress 
among the working classes, and that the attempts to measure it were worse than 
useless. The discussions at the Conference also showed that economic science was- 
little appreciated, and much remained to be done before the public could be 
convinced that there is such a science, or cultivated men could be found to agree- 
as to its nature. The Conference also proved that the land agitation had a wider 
hold than might have been expected, and gave indications of a similar agitation in 
the immediate future against credit and banking which might be very much more: 
difficult to oppose. 
