When one comes to the question of the shop-craft unions (I shall speak of still other branches of railroad endeavor before I am done) the problem becomes infinitely more perplexing. It is indeed with these newer union affiliations that the railroads are to-day having their greatest difficulties. For the old-time brotherhoods, in which there is a fine flavor of reasonable conservatism, the average working railroad executive has a deal of real respect. Perhaps he realizes how much worse off he and his fellows would be if he had to substitute for them in train operation unions of the sort that are driving him mad in his shop-work. But the shops represent a real perplexity. Some of the roads, beginning with the Erie, have gone so far as to rent their repair-shops at division points for operation by privately organized corporations. In fact the Erie has gone so far as to follow this practice for its track maintenance in certain instances. A private corporation is bound neither by the national agreements of the Railroad Administration or by the rulings of the Railroad Labor Board out at Chicago. It can buy its labor in the open market and at the prevailing market prices--and at the present moment at obvious savings. But the effect upon the morale of a railroad of this remarkable practice of "farming out" inherent parts of its operation I shall leave to your imagination. That the outside shop can and does work cheaply is shown by the experience of a plant in Buffalo which upon an actual invested capital of $80,000 cleaned up more than $100,000 actual profits in 1920 and expected to double this figure in 1921. Yet it was able to repair freight-cars for the railroads entering that important railroad point for about $600 each, which was about $200 less than the roads could do it for themselves. * * * * * There is a railroad executives' side to this situation, and it is a big side indeed. A certain large road in the central portion of the country decided to put the matter squarely up to its shop forces before proceeding toward the leasing of its repair facilities to outside companies, as we have just seen. It called in the heads of its shop-crafts unions and put the cards squarely on the table before them. It wanted to go back to piece-work, the method by which each and every man was paid for what he actually accomplished, a good old-fashioned American way of running a shop or any other sort of business. The McAdoo administration abolished piece-work in the railroad shops across the land, and the output fell off greatly both in quality and in quantity. The railroads to-day are having a fearful time getting it installed again.