The Act further provided that councils on the lines of the Whitley Councils should be established for each railway company on the general basis of schemes to be prepared by a committee consisting of six representatives of the General Managers’ Committee of the Railway Clearing House and six representatives of the National Union of Railwaymen, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, and the Railway Clerks’ Association. These schemes, which have now been prepared, provide for: (1) local consultation; (2) local departmental committees; (3) Sectional Railway Councils, and (4) Railway Councils. At stations or depôts with a number of employees in a department or group of grades less than seventy-five, such employees are to be entitled to appoint representatives to discuss local matters with the Company’s local officials. At stations or depôts where the number exceeds seventy-five, a committee is to be set up, consisting of not more than four elected representatives of the employees in the department or group of grades concerned, and not more than four representatives of the company. The objects of the local committee are to provide a recognized means of communication between the employees and the local officials, and to give the employees a wider interest in the conditions under which their work is performed. A local committee is to discuss: (_a_) suggestions for the satisfactory arrangement of working hours, breaks, time-recording, etc.; (_b_) questions of physical welfare; (_c_) holiday arrangements; (_d_) publicity in regard to rules; (_e_) suggestions as to improvements in organization of work, labour-saving appliances and other matters; (_f_) investigation of circumstances tending to reduce efficiency, and (_g_) the correct loading of traffic to ensure safe transit and the reduction of claims. Before a matter is discussed by a local committee it must first be submitted by the employees to the officials of the company in the ordinary manner, but, failing a satisfactory reply within fourteen days, it may be reported to the secretary of the employees’ side of the committee. The company in the same way must exhaust the constitutional machinery. Sectional Railway Councils