tend to raise wages and to draw some unemployed labourers. There would not be many of the latter, however, as there is nothing to increase either the foreign or home demand, prices not being lower, there would only be the same quantity of production required as before, and consequently only the same quantity of labour, and therefore only a fifth or less additional labourers at eight hours a day. We may say generally there would only be the same number or a little more required in both shifts taken together than before, that is a little more than half the number in each, or if the same number were kept on in each they must work only half time, that is the machines would be as idle as before, though to get fuller efficiency from them was the object of the double shifts. Such would be the rather absurd result if the labourers were spread equally over all the factories in the industry. What would happen, however, under the competition supposed, would rather be that the most able and energetic employers would perhaps get the double shifts if they paid sufficiently high wages; they would have a double number of the best labourers, while others would be working half-time in each shift, while others again would be obliged to quit the business altogether. After the weaker firms had disappeared, the labourers would have the eight hours' day and some leisure, at the cost of a certain change of habits, which might seem more than a counterbalance. There would also be higher profits to the survivors, and some additional labourers employed.

Such is the general result that would happen suppos

ing the labourers were generally willing to consent to a system of relays, but the system being for the present impracticable, if not undesirable, the only alternative to save profits in manufactories would be a reduction of wages in factories equal to the reduction in time: the labourers would then give a chance to some of the unemployed, because there would then be no need to raise the price, the foreign demand would not contract, and there would be additional labourers required to supply it, whom employers could take on at the same rate as the other labourers, or a slightly reduced rate, without loss of profit.

But the general objection to an eight hours' act for mills and factories, unaccompanied by any reduction in wages, would be greatly reduced if our foreign competitors made a similar reduction in working time, in which case the relative advantages or disadvantages of competing nations would remain as before, and we should have no fear of a reduction of our foreign markets by an advantage given to rivals. There would then only be a contracted demand to apprehend from the raised prices, which would affect our competitors equally with ourselves, while, if hours were everywhere reduced, and if labour generally became

2 A writer in the Nineteenth Century (July, 1889) thus explains its advantages:-"In the cotton trade it can be shown that if the hands, instead of working in one shift of nine and a half hours a day, worked in two shifts of eight hours each, the extra work got out of the machinery would more than compensate the millowner for the diminution of hours,”—which implies that every mill-owner could recover and more than recover profits, and that the hands are willing to work in the two shifts; the second proposition being very doubtful, and the first requiring large qualification, as shown above.

more efficient through the additional heart and energy thrown into it, as to some extent it certainly would, it might not even be necessary to raise prices, in which case the gain would be more than the loss. Leisure, a most important thing for the labourers, would be gained; and if the labour was only sufficiently productive, the employers would not lose. There would not, however, in this case be any additional and unemployed labourers required. The whole gain would be reaped in leisure by those already employed.

As much might be gained, even though the labour were less efficient than we have supposed, if employers would be content to forego a part of their profits, not necessarily large, which probably a small rise of price would restore without much lowering of the demand. But all this postulates, in addition to very effective labour, an international understanding between our Government and that of competing countries with respect to the reduction of working hours; except indeed in those industries where our superiority is great, or we have a monopoly of the foreign market, in which cases we might act independently within the limits of our advantage.

II.

What we have said hitherto applies to our great national industries, the greater part of the production in which is for the foreign market. In these industries the amount of the product required, or the demand, is never fixed, but is essentially elastic. The same may be said of a great variety of other industries which produce commodities not absolutely indis

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pensable. The consumption is not fixed: people consume more or less according to the cheapness or dearness in the case of things which, without being precisely luxuries, can be done without wholly or partly. In these cases reduced hours would result in elevated prices, in diminished demand, perhaps in greater proportion than the diminished production, in which case there would be lessened employment, or else lessened wages for the same number of employed. This is the case as regards a great number of products consumed by the middle and even the best paid of the labouring class, such products including all the more or less cheap luxuries. In these cases the contraction in demand following a rise in price differs in different cases, being less as the luxury approaches nearer to the character of a necessary. On the other hand, the amount of necessaries consumed in a country, the amount of food, clothes, coal, light, is tolerably, though not absolutely, fixed. The amount of food in particular is fixed, though not any particular article of diet, except perhaps bread. A fixed amount of bread is required, and consequently a certain quantity of baker's labour, but not of English agricultural labour, since much of the required wheat is raised in America. We may say, however, that a tolerably constant quantity of baker's labour is required, as well as of miner's labour; of the different kinds of labour in the building trades (masons', house carpenters', &c.,) in the clothing trades, in the furniture trades; and in these cases the reduction of hours would require the taking on of more labourers. The reduction of baker's hours, unless machinery could

take the place of men, would give employment to more bakers; of miner's hours, to more miners; of gas worker's, to more gas workers (unless people should prefer oil-lamps to gas); of tailor's hours, to more tailors. In all these cases the employer could accept reduced hours without losing profits. But he must raise the price; though not necessarily in the same proportion as the hours have been reduced, because the price of the raw material, the cloth or flour, has not been affected by the more costly labour of the baker or tailor. The price of bread, of clothes, of fuel, of house-rent, of gas would all rise though in different degrees. Some of the unemployed would be required in all these trades, especially in the mining and building industries; but the chief contributors to their support would be, not the employers, who will have got their usual profits, nor the well-to-do part of the public, who might otherwise have had to maintain them by increased rates, but the labouring class in general, as being the great consumers of necessaries, all of which will be somewhat raised in price. The better part of them, if they agitate for an eight hours' day, and are successful in getting it, will virtually have taxed their own necessaries for the benefit of some inferior members of their class.

In this class of industries they would have merely submitted to a reduction of wages for the benefit of some of the unemployed. They would themselves also gain more leisure, but the question is, are they willing and anxious to submit to a virtual reduction of wages in order to get it? As regards the general question, even if all the labourers, or a