Part 7 (2/2)

The general eight hours day is not quashed by the a.s.sertion that the united nationalities, or the bodies of labourers of different nationalities would never agree upon the matter. This is, indeed, possible, even very probable; but it remains to be proved what may be effected by international labour-agitation in an age of universal suffrages and of world congresses, and especially in England, which has already become so really democratic; an advance made by this country towards a reasonable experiment would be decisive. The possibility of attaining a sufficiently uniform, shortened, international working-day will always be conceivable. Moreover, the imposition of protective duties on the nations that hold back is held in reserve as a means towards the equalisation of social policy.

More important are those objections which are raised on grounds of protective policy against the eight hours day, not on account of its shortness, but of its universality. It is affirmed that it is unnecessary and could not be carried out without intolerable chicanery.

I am also inclined to think that the necessity for a maximum working-day, on grounds of protective policy, does not extend much beyond factory and quasi-factory labour (cf. Chaps. V. to VIII.), many wage-workers finding sufficient protection in the force of public opinion, in moral influence and custom.

The universalisation of the measure, it must be admitted, greatly increases the difficulties of carrying it out successfully, especially in non-continuous employments, in subsidiary and combined industries. It would be difficult to carry it out without an amount of espionage and control, intolerable, perhaps, to the sense of individual liberty in the most diligent workers. The supporters of the eight hours day cannot meet this objection by replying that under a real ”government by the people,”

the whole measure would be practicable, and the demand for it intelligible; for this is an attempt to thrust forward a proof having no application to the policy of the present, which has to deal with existing conditions of society; and it unwarrantably a.s.sumes that the practicability of a ”government by the people” has already been proved.

The supporter of the general legal eight hours day will be more successful in meeting the above objection if he maintains that the importance of so complete a universalization and so great a shortening of the maximum working-day, from the point of view of the wages question, more than outweighs any doubt as to the necessity of the measure on grounds of protective policy, or as to the practicability of carrying it out.

The decision for or against the general legal eight hours day lies therefore in the answer to these two questions: whether the cherished hope as to its effect on wages rests on a sure foundation, and whether the State is justified in so wide an exercise of power in the interests of one cla.s.s in the present generation.

With regard to the first question, no very strong probability of success has been shown, to say nothing of certainty.

We need only look at the practical aspect of the matter. By the legal enforcement of a sudden and general shortening of the industrial national working-time, by 20 to 30 per cent. of the working-time of hitherto, higher wages are to be obtained for less work, or at least room is to be given for the actual employment of the whole working force at the present rate of wage!

How would an increase of wage, or even the maintenance (and that a continuous one) of the present rate be conceivable in view of a sudden general reduction of working-time by 20 to 30 per cent.? Only, indeed, either by reduction of profits and interest on the part of the capitalists, corresponding to the increase of wage, or by an increase in the productivity of national industry, resulting from an improvement in technique, and progress in skill and a.s.siduity, or from both together.

Now no one can say exactly what proportion the profits and interest of industrial capitalists bear to the wages of the workmen; if one were to deduct what the ma.s.s of small and middle-cla.s.s employers derive from the work of their a.s.sistants (as distinct from what they draw from their capital) the industrial rent--in spite of numbers of enormous incomes--would probably not represent the large sum it is supposed to be. Hence it is very doubtful whether it would be possible to obtain the necessary sum out of profits.

Even if this were possible, it is by no means certain that the wage war between Labour and Capital would succeed in obtaining so great a reduction of industrial profits and interest, still less within any short or even definitely calculated limit of time. Some amount of capital might lie idle, or might pa.s.s out of Europe; or again, Capital might conquer to a great extent by means of combination; or it might turn away from its breast the pistol of the maximum working-day by limiting production, _i.e._ by employing fewer labourers than before. It might induce a rise in the price of commodities, which would diminish ”real” wages instead of raising them or of leaving them undiminished.

But even if Capital found it necessary in consequence of the legal enforcement of the eight hours day to employ a larger number of workers, it might draw supplies to meet this expense partly out of the countries which had not adopted the eight hours day, partly out of agricultural industry and forestry, and after half a generation, out of the increase in the working population. Capital would also make every effort to accomplish in a shorter time more than hitherto by exacting closer work and stricter control, and by introducing more and more perfect machinery.

With all these possibilities the eight hours day will not necessarily, suddenly, and in the long run, increase the demand for labour to such a degree that the employer will need to draw upon his interest, profits, and ground rents for a large and general rise of wages, or for the maintenance of the former rate of wage. At least, the contrary is equally possible, and perhaps even highly probable.

Such an increased demand for labour would indeed ensue if the growth of population were to be permanently r.e.t.a.r.ded. But that it should be so r.e.t.a.r.ded is the very last thing to be expected under the conditions supposed, viz. a general increase of ”real” wages, which would obviously render it more easy to bring up a family.

Hence the a.s.sumption that the eight hours day would lead to an increase of wage, or the maintenance of the present rate of wage at the cost of profits and interest, is not proven; so far from being certain, it is not even probable. Therefore, it cannot serve to justify so violent an interference on the part of the State, as the enforcement of the general legal eight hours' day on January 1st, 1898. Such an interference would be calculated to bring a terrible disappointment of hopes to the very labourers whom it is intended to benefit.

Just as little can it be justified by the a.s.sumption that as much would be produced (hence as high a wage be given) in a shorter working-day, through the improvement of technique, and increased energy in work, as in a working-day of 10 or 12 hours.

The increase in productivity could not be expected with any certainty to be general, uniform, and sudden. The success of the experiment which has been made with the 11 hours day, which prevents such excessive work as is not really productive, cannot be advanced to justify the further a.s.sumption that the productivity of labour increases in inverse ratio to the duration of time. The increase of productivity through limiting the duration of work does justify the 10 or 11 hours day of protective policy precisely because the latter evidently stops short at that point beyond which labour begins to be less efficient; we have no grounds for a.s.suming that the same justification exists for the eight hours day demanded in the supposed interests of a wage policy. The increase of productivity through the operation of the eight hours day would be more than ever unlikely if the abolition of ”efficiency” wage in favour of exclusive time wage, which is one measure proposed, were to destroy the inducement to compensate for loss of time by more a.s.siduous work, and if a fall in the profits were to curtail industrial activity.

But even supposing it certain, which it clearly is not, that an increase of productivity would take place sufficient to compensate for the shortening of time, it would still be doubtful whether the effect would be felt in a rise or maintenance of the rate of wage, and not rather in a rise in profit and interest. For the steadily increasing use of machinery, which is a.s.signed as one of the reasons why productivity would remain unimpaired in spite of the shortening of hours, and more especially if this should coincide with a rapid increase of population, would actually lessen the demand for labour, and thus would improve the position of Capital in the Labour market. On this second ground also, we are precluded from supposing that the eight hours day would result in an increase of wages.

But if it be granted that the balance would not be restored, either by pressure upon profits and interest or by increased productivity, it then follows that the wages of labour must necessarily _fall_ 20 to 30 per cent. through such a shortening of the working-day. And this, as we have seen, is not at all an unlikely issue.

The absorption of all the unemployed labour force, the industrial ”reserve army,” in consequence of the adoption of the eight hours day, is an a.s.sumption quite as unproven as the one with which we have been dealing.

This result would not necessarily ensue even in the first generation, since production might be limited, and even if the hopes of increased productivity are not quite vain, it is quite possible that more machinery might be employed without necessarily increasing the number of workmen.

It is still more difficult to determine what in all these respects will be the ultimate effect of the eight hours day. The further increase of the working population--and, _ceteris paribus_, this would be the most probable result of the expected increase in the rate of wage per hour--may produce fresh supplies of superfluous labour; but the eventual fall of wages consequent on a decrease in the productivity of national work would necessarily increase the industrial ”reserve army,”

through the diminished consumption and the consequent restriction of production to more or less necessary commodities.

If a diminution of national production were really to result from the adoption of the eight hours day, it would affect precisely the least capable bodies of workers, and those engaged in furnis.h.i.+ng luxuries, for the demand for luxuries is the first to fall off; and the less capable workers finally become the worst paid because they are able to accomplish less in eight hours. Hence it follows that the uniform, universal, and national eight hours day would have very different results on the labouring bodies of each nation, and on the competing bodies of labourers in separate industrial districts in the same nation.

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