CHAPTER XI.

AN EIGHT HOURS' WORKING DAY.

I.

A FAVOURITE plan at the present time for absorbing unemployed labour, as well as for improving the general condition of all labourers, is to make eight hours the legal working day, overtime to be paid extra, and at higher rates. This proposal has found. more general support than any other, both amongst labourers and social philosophers; it is therefore deserving of a careful consideration.

The view held by its supporters is, that the reduction in time of work would result in an equivalent reduction in the amount of products and services, while society, requiring the same total of both as before, would be obliged to draw on the unemployed labour to supply the deficiency. Those employed would thus have more leisure, with wages undiminished; they might still add to their wages by overtime, while there would be few or none out of work.

Such, in brief, is the theory. Or in figures: the working time being reduced from ten hours (which is about the present average day's work) to eight hours, the resulting quantity of products and services will be

reduced in the same proportion, that is, to four-fifths, leaving one-fifth unsupplied, which the unemployed can furnish. It is assumed in the argument that the quantity of work required, the amount of commodities (the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries), including the amount of services, is a constant amount, though such is by no means the case, as Professor Cairnes justly points out.' Society can dispense with a large part of the amount if necessary, just as it could stomach far more commodities, conveniences, and luxuries, if it could get them easily.

And in the case supposed of a general reduction in working hours, society will and must reduce the amount of its consumption of all things except absolute necessaries; more especially as a large part of the society that is supposed to require a constant amount of commodities and services is composed of foreigners who purchase our manufactures, and who would certainly purchase less if the prices were raised, which would be the consequence of reduced hours unless wages were reduced, or unless more energetic labour for the shorter day resulted in as great production as before.

Let us trace the possible consequences more fully and specially. Employers will get eight hours' work from their employés instead of ten; that is, they will get only four-fifths work from them, and by consequence only four-fifths the amount of production (or of services) for the same wages, assuming the efficiency of labour to remain the same. Omitting the consideration of services (though the argument equally

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Leading Principles of Political Economy," Part II. c. iv. § 3.

applies to them), and considering only the case of productive labour, the first obvious result in our largest and most important industries would be the reduction (and in some cases the annihilation) of employers' profits, as well as of interest on investments in such industries.

That such result would follow, assuming the efficiency of labour not to increase, can be easily demonstrated. The product will be less by one-fifth ; and as it is the price of the product which pays wages and profits (including interest), unless the diminished product can be sold for the same price as the previous larger product, that is, unless the price of a given quantity or measure can be raised, profits must suffer. Now if the price cannot be raised with any advantage to the producer, as is the case in many manufactures, and if wages are not to be reduced, of course profits would bear the whole brunt of the diminished production; and they might sink to zero or a negative quantity in some cases.

In our great staple industries, prices could not be raised to recoup loss of profits without causing a diminished demand, which would soon result in diminished employment, that is, the unemployed would be increased. The diminished demand would be more diminished wherever we are closely pressed by foreign competitors, as in the linen and cotton trade, the iron and steel trade, machine-making and other industries, and the result might even be our exclusion from some foreign markets, and even the occupation of a part of the home market by cheaper foreign production. But if prices could not be raised, what

would employers do? Would they be likely to take on additional hands, thereby making their losses still greater, as the additional hands would be inferior hands? Moreover, whence would come the additional capital under the circumstances of declining profits and interest?

What would happen under the circumstances in the trades in question (assuming that the nature of employers and investors remains the same) would be a reduction of wages all round in the same or nearly the same proportion as the reduction of working hours. The employed might strike, but if the employers were firm, the former would have to give in. Even making the extreme supposition that the State forbade the reduction of wages as the natural consequence of the reduction of hours of work, it would not benefit the labourers, because fewer of them would be employed at the wage which did not allow average profits. Under the circumstances, if wages were not reduced, capital would decrease. There would be less possibility of saving. The normal increase of capital required each year beyond the preceding one to keep pace with normal increase of population would not be forthcoming. There would be less possibility of saving, both because incomes would be narrower, and there would be less inducements to save for home investments yielding less interest, so that a larger proportion of the smaller saved capital would go abroad, unless, indeed, the eight hours' movement, or an equivalent reduction in hours, was universal, in which case the capital would stay at home, but there would be less of it. New companies

would cease to be formed at home; old ones would be wound up, as well as private firms; from all which causes the number of unemployed labourers would be greatly increased, instead of being lessened.

Nor should too much reliance be placed on the "double shift" argument, which maintains that in certain industries, by taking on two successive sets of operatives for eight hours, profits can be saved. Thus we are told that many manufacturers in the industries requiring much fixed capital would not object to an eight hours' day, if they could get a second set of operatives for another eight hours, as they would recover any possible loss on the result of the labour of the first set by the additional labour they would get out of their machinery without having to pay any more for it; that is to say, their expenses as regards machinery, consisting of interest and depreciation to be made good, being the same whether the machinery works eight or sixteen hours, if they could get a second set of labourers they would, as it were, be getting the use of the machinery for nothing, since they will be at no additional expense as respects it save a little faster wear and tear.

The argument is theoretically sound; and it would be good for some manufacturers if they could get the second shift to come after the first. But it seems they can't, for if they could—the argument holding equally good for a nine hours' day-they would have done it already. But supposing the workers were willing to go for a second shift, what would be the likely result? There would be a competition to get the best hands for the second shift, which would