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Show ARBITRATE THE RAILROAD WAGE QUESTION. The Standard is In receipt of the following communication from the Southern Pacific headquarters: "Should the quoted declarations of the heads of the four great railroad brotherhoods be substantiated, the entire railway transportation system of the United States and a portion of Canada will bo locked up for the first time in history. Should a strike materialize ma-terialize a stagnation of Industry' will result that has only been approximated approxi-mated by the railway strike of a few years ago in France, where the miles of lines involved were but a tenth of those now threatened. Train service men are asking for what amounts to a U5 per cent increase In wages and an 87 1-2 per cent Increase In overtime over-time pay. The railroad officials reply that such a marked advance would bo prohibitive; that the railroads already al-ready pay 45 cents out of every dollar dol-lar taken in to their men and that grant of the Increase would only add thousands of miles of lines to the 42,-000 42,-000 already in receivership. "The situation, according to the viewpoint of railway officials. Is one that affects the entire country the men who ship and the men who travel. trav-el. They base this belief on the grounds that none of the other items for which the other 65 cents of the railway dollar goes new equipment, extensions, supplies, taxeB, etc, can be reduced without impairing the service ser-vice to the public The only way in which more money could be obtained by the railroads to pay out again as increased wages would be from a greater source of Income, or, in other words, higher transportation charges. There are but two ways, they say, in which the demands could be granted. One is to cut down the service; the other to raise rates. That is why they see the public's interest in the situation one fully as groat as that of the railroads." The best reply to this Is to be fcrund in tho resolutions of the National Na-tional Chamber of Commerce calling on both the railroads and their employes em-ployes to submit tho whole controversy contro-versy to arbitration. The rights of the publio are equal, If not greater, than those of either elde to the disagreement, and the one way by which to respect those rights is to submit tho difference to an Impartial coult of arbitration. oo Everybody is going to the W. O. W. Card Party, arc you? |