It is always instructive to compare the conditions offered by the best and the worst employers, respectively, in the same trade. In the matter of traffic, the best employer in London is the London County Council. To begin with, the men who work upon its trams pay nothing for their uniforms. Their working day is of ten hours. Time lost by such hindrances as fog, fire and processions is paid extra (at the rate known to the trade as “time and a half”). Work on a seventh day in the week when it occurs is paid at time-and-a-quarter rates. Moreover any horse driver in the Council’s service who desires to qualify as an electric driver can be trained, free of charge, in the municipal technical school; whereas the charge for training made by one of the private companies is £5. Not only does the London County Council issue to its inspectors special instructions to avoid arbitrary and domineering treatment of subordinates; it also affords to every man accused by an inspector the opportunity of meeting his accuser face to face, and of telling his own story. In short, the London County Council treats those deserving citizens who do its work, with justice and with respect; and they, in their turn, treat the public with a degree of kindly courtesy most refreshing after the asperities of the motor omnibus man. Nor can it be maintained by any truthful person that the comparatively comfortable conditions of the municipal tram men have cost the ratepayer too dear; since the profits of the Southern tramway lines alone in the year 1905 were assessed by the Exchequer for income tax purposes at £203,831; while, in addition to the large profits thus indicated, the reduction of fares on these lines must, by this time, have saved hundreds of pounds to the travelling public. With the exception, then, of that fortunate minority employed by the municipality, the workers on the public conveyances of London present no very cheering spectacle. In the beginning of this 20th century, and in the capital of a country that prides itself upon the freedom of its citizens and upon the representative character of its government, we find adult skilled male workers, performing valuable public services and occupying positions of great responsibility, apparently as powerless as any sweated home worker in her garret to secure for themselves either a reasonably short working day, or equitable treatment, or payment for the whole of the hours spent in the employer’s service. Yet one group of them is guaranteed by the licence of a public department as efficient; the services which they render are eagerly demanded by the public; their industry is one in which foreign competition is impossible; and the companies employing them are in many instances paying high dividends. These, surely, are facts very much worth the consideration of all those fellow citizens for whom, in the last resort, the railway man and the omnibus man are working.