EIGHT HOURS WORKING DAY.

HC Deb 18 March 1908 vol 186 cc666-708

MR. CLYNES () Manchester, N.E.

in moving—" That, in the opinion of this House, the time has arrived when, in the interests of the workers generally, and in view of the present large number of unemployed, the working day in all trades and industries should be limited by law to a maximum of eight hours," said the proposal embodied in the Resolution had the merit of being an old one. It had for many years received the almost unanimous support of the organised workers of the country. It had been discussed at scores of conferences and congresses, and was not a proposal which was kept before the public mind by the energy or activity of labour advocates. The Labour Party submitted it to the House as a serious and reasonable proposal connected with existing industrial and social conditions. He was not going to consider the extravagant fancies and stupid arguments against it, such as the arguments that at the stroke of the eighth hour the fireman would step attending to a fire, or the lifeboat man would stop going to sea. Such arguments were too ridiculous to waste the time of the House upon or to ask them to consider. The Labour Party would not oppose proper and reasonable regulations to make due provision for seasonal trades which would safeguard any loss either of property or labour. In the course of the discussion no doubt arguments would be adduced as to the folly of interfering by legislation with adult labour. But the House for years had interfered with adult labour by legislation, and no such argument should be offered there. The House was the great repository of regulations for labour, and dealt daily with all manner of proposals to restrict, limit, and regulate various social and trading concerns of the nation. He was not sure that a shortening of the hours of that House itself would not be a good thing for the country. His experience of it led him to believe that the output would thereby improve both in quality and quantity. The President of the Board of Trade had recently said he would be glad to have the proposal applied to Cabinet Ministers. Bearing in mind the mischief some of them had done, there would be no objection on the part of the Labour Party to a considerable limitation of their hours of labour. The right hon. Gentleman some months previously had drawn a picture of the distressed condition of the workers in the slate quarries district in this country. He described the distress which prevailed, and told his audience that on account of their unemployment and low wages great suffering was entailed upon these men. He finished his picture by stating that two men who were employers of labour in the slate-quarry districts of Wales, received in profits from the labour of their men more than the men received altogether in the course of a year's work. These conditions had a very close relation to the question of the hours of labour, and he would later submit a, few facts to show how the results of the efforts of labour found their way too largely into the pockets of those who took no part in the industries and trades of the country. Between the work of the statesman and public servants and the work of the manual labourer there was a good deal of difference. Cabinet Ministers, for instance, would not like to have their services interrupted by any time limit, because there was a sense of Joy in their work, a sense of being of service to their country, which was a greater reward than any emolument attaching to their office. Their activity did not arise from any sordid motive. So that great personal pleasure and comfort formed not a small part in the lives of men engaged in those higher branches of service, generally termed mental labour. They were the men who had holidays and variety in their work, but these conditions were entirely absent from the life of the ordinary industrial drudge who, however, was a necessity in the nation. For the greatest of men, the finest of orators, the best of public servants, no matter how full of ability that man might be, must come down for his comfort, and for his daily maintenance to the work of the manual labourer of the country. He put it to the House that the industrial workers ought not to be worked so long, paid such meagre wages, or treated so badly as they were to-day. The work of the manual labourer was an essential element of civilised society. When any proposal was made to alter the hours of labour they were usually met by the statement that such changes would be followed by the ruin of the concerns in which such alterations were made, and dejected widows and persons of that class were held up as being dependent on the maintenance of the present state of things for their existence. The whole of the prophecies made as regarded the ruin that would follow from the adoption of the proposal had been falsified by events. Many firms in the face of keen competition had adopted the eight-hours system with success. There were great trades and industries in this country worked on that principle. The principals of those trades had not waited for State regulations, but prompted either by public duty or the fact that they saw some advantage to be derived from their action they had established the eight-hour day without any of the evil consequences which it was said would follow it. The Government he was assured had something over forty thousand workers at present on the eight-hours system. That arrangement was more largely the result of administrative action than the outcome of legislation in that House. Some years ago when this change was contemplated it was considered that it would produce greater regularity of attendance, an improvement in the physical condition of the workers, with a consequent increase in their powers of production. As the cost of production had not been increased in other cases, it was calculated it would not be increased in Government workshops. It had been stated by the War Office that these anticipations had been justified, that no extra cost had been incurred by the public, and that the output of work had not been diminished. He submitted that in view of this experience in the case of both Government servants and employees of private firms, they had successes which offered very substantial arguments in favour of a legislative eight-hours day for the country. The House was, he thought, prepared to approve of an eight-hours day by law for, at least, the miners. They were a class of workers for whom he claimed no special right to speak; still he thought it might be said that they had hitherto failed in their agitation and in their efforts to effect an arrangement between themselves and their employers. They had come to the conclusion that before their hours could be properly regulated and safely fixed, legislation would have to be the force to decide those conditions. As soon as the Bill promoted by the miners had reached a point when its passage appeared to be a certainty, a great agitation had been raised, and efforts were now being made to show that the passing of the Bill would be bad for the workers themselves. In short it was being said that if they lessened the hours of labour they would increase the price of the product, because the output would be diminished. But in the last three or four years there had been an annual increase in the output of coal to the amount of about 15,000,000 tons, yet the price had gone up. Now if they were told that a diminution of output due to the reduced hours of labour would bring about a consequent rise of price, how was it that there was an increase of price with an increase of output? He did not think that the House would be deterred, or that the country would be scared, by the alarmists who were now declaring that the regulation of the hours would mean an increase in the price of coal to the country. He was well aware that other reasons were given. It was pointed out that the great demand on our coal by foreign countries had tended to run up the prices. It was rather remarkable in these days of inflated patriotism that the English householder and manufacturer should be made to pay more for his coal by the coalowner because foreigners wanted our coal. He must ask the House to remember the dangers and fears that were always pursuing the colliers in the course of their work. They had seen at Ham-stead an awful lesson of how the collier's life was being ever carried in his hands. At such a time they were all full of pity and sympathy for the miner. He asked the House, not only in behalf of the miners, but in behalf of other workers whose occupations were very dangerous, to put some substance into their sorrow by giving relief and lightening the burden which the working classes had to bear. He wanted to say one or two words in connection with the cotton trade. The cotton operatives of Lancashire and the adjacent counties some years ago decided by ballot in favour of an eight-hours day for their trade as well as others. Some years ago, when a ballot vote was taken, a majority of the Members declared in favour of an eight-hours working day. They said low— The matter is now coming to the front again. At the last International Congress of Textile Workers the Lancashire delegates voted in favour of the proposal. The great extension of the trade by the erection of new mills will surely bring the question more within the range of practical polities, as there is certain to be much short time working whenever a depression comes. By a unanimous vote, the Weavers' Amalgamation on Saturday passed a resolution expressing an opinion that the time was opportune for a reduction in the working hours in textile cotton factories, and requesting their central Committee to bring before the United Textile Factory Workers' Association a resolution in favour of a reduction of five hours each week. The question will again receive ample discussion when it comes before the members of the United Textile Factory Workers' Association, and if it receives the assent of the representative body, a determined effort may be made to bring the subject within the range of Parliamentary action. It was presumed by those who had perhaps no experience of factory life that the Lancashire cotton operatives were generally speaking, very well off, both in point of money and labour. To those who had that view he would suggest that they should read the manifesto drawn up and signed by the accredited representatives of the various branches of the textile dustry, and published by the officials of the textile trade during last year. By that manifesto they emphasised the increasing strenuousness and difficulty of the textile operatives' work—its growing dangers and the sweated conditions in which many of the textile workers found themselves. A classic instance of excessive hours and bad treatment was afforded to that House by the conditions and pay of the railway workers of the country. The House might remember that about this time last year they were asked to consider a Motion with regard to the long hours of railway servants. Many figures were given during that debate, and it was shown that 58,000 railway servants worked not eight, or ten, or twelve hours a day, but thirteen hours a day; 21,000 worked fourteen hours per day; 8,000 worked fifteen hours a day, and thousands worked up to even eighteen hours a day. It was sometimes said by way of explanation or excuse that there were exceptional causes for these hours—the season, the weather, or some unforeseen contingencies. But the Return which gave these figures related to the middle of the year, to the month of June, and it was shown during the debate that if the railway servant; were called upon, through some sudden emergency, some special reason, to work for exceptionally long hours, they would not be opposed to it. It had been said sometimes that the long hours were worked because the directors of the railway companies were not able to find men to fill the positions. That argument contrasted strangely with the common boast of railway directors that so popular was the railway service that it was always attracting thousands of men in excess of the number required, and that they had always at hand practically as many men as they wanted if all their employees were to cease work in the event of any serious trouble arising between them and the companies. In regard to the work of railway servants, he might mention that dangerous as was the work of miners it was shown by the figures based on accidents and deaths in connection with the work of railways that the employees in some grades of railway work were engaged in a service which was really more dangerous than that of mining. There was another trade, a big trade, which he thought entirely escaped notice in connection with this question. It was a trade which was commanding a great deal of attention in the way of public discussion at the present moment. There were thousands of men and women employed in breweries and distilleries, hotels, public-houses, restaurants and so on, who were worked scandalously long hours; and he thought he could, with the approval of that House, say that if those who had control over that trade and its various branches were genuine in what they said in respect to the freedom and rights and interests of the working classes, they should set some better example than they were now doing in regard to the hours of labour of their servants, and their general treatment of them in point of pay and conditions. Then they had the building trade, to which the President of the Local Government Board had made special reference. In his speech at the gathering of the Associated Chambers of Commerce the other evening, the right hon. Gentleman enjoined upon the municipal authorities the desirability of better regulating the work which had to be done in painting, decoration and so on, of public offices and buildings. He submitted to the House that the only way in which such regulations could be imposed was by some statutory limitation that would prevent the workers in the building trade from being overworked in the summer-time, from being rushed in so many months of the year, and from being starved and robbed as they were now during the winter months. He had conversed with both employers and workmen in the building trades upon the argument so often brought forward that the work itself must necessarily be done and could only be done during the summer months. Their experience was that much of the work now done in the summer could be as well done in the winter, and only by legislative action could this regulation be imposed so as to give evenness and balance to that class of labour. Other trades and industries could be used for the purpose of argument, but it might be said that there was still the difficulty of competition. It would be asked, whatever would they do if the foreigners overcame them because they imposed an eight-hours day or further limited the hours of labour. They would probably be asked how would they be able to face foreign competition under those circumstances. Leaving aside the whole of the trades he had mentioned, and any of the trades which might be affected by foreign competition, they had any number of home industries and trade occupations in no way touched by even home competition. There were all the trades and occupations in connection with the railway service, tramroads, canals, public buildings, building trades generally, various forms of vehicular traffic work and other trades in which there were hundreds of thousands employed, the regulation of whose hours of labour would provide openings for the class of men who were now shut out from an opportunity of work altogether. Many workmen were compelled now to work a week and a half almost for one week's wages. So much was this the case that the overtime system had grown so great that it was now known in many trades and industries as systematic overtime. This was the condition of things which could only be removed by statutory enactment. Then there was the shareholder. It would be asked what were they going to do with that class of the community who were dependent for their living on their shares and dividends, if there were further burdens imposed upon them. The shareholder had his first concern, and all the time was the man who held himself ready to do his share of work for whatever he was able to get in the course of his life, and he declined to give undue consideration to that class who expected that another class should labour long and unduly, and altogether out of all reasonable expectation in order that they themselves should have their shares and returns maintained at their present level. The present profit from trade and business afforded ample proof of the way in which trades could stand a diminution in the hours of labour. The great gains from businesses, the ever-growing profit of the men at the head of vast business concerns showed that still our trades could stand any such proposal as they were making in this Motion. He would refer for a moment to the conditions which existed in the case of that great new vessel of which they were all so proud, the "Lusitania." It had been shown in connection with that vessel that the coal consumed on a return journey amounted to 16,800 tons. They had royalties in this country, and the royalties alone paid upon that tonnage at the rate of 9d. per ton in the course of a return journey was £630. The same vessel employed 333 men as trimmers, firemen, greasers, labourers and men doing the hard task down in the hold of the boat. The total wages of the whole of those men for a return trip for a fortnight's labour amounted to only £538 10s., or less than the royalty received on the amount of coal consumed for a return journey of that vessel. In view of those facts he thought the House would be willing to accept any proposal which would tend to equalise the burden and give fair play to the industrial workers of this county. The Leader of the Opposition had recently addressed himself to this subject, and said that production and not distribution was the fundamental fact. The sentence was a long one, but that was the kernel of it. In his view the great fundamental fact should not be merely to produce wealth but equitably and reasonably to distribute the wealth so produced. They wanted to give the working classes greater facilities for rest and recreation and of being better men and women, and the Motion would tend towards securing the more equitable distribution which they desired. The hon. Member for North Paddington had presented to the country facts and figures which he had not seen disputed, going to show that one-third of the entire income of the United Kingdom was enjoyed by one-thirtieth of its people. It might be said in the course of the debate that what they wanted to remedy this evil was protection and tariff reform. They had not only had an opportunity of visiting other lands, but they had also excellent newspaper communications to provide facts to shape their judgment upon this question. Last night one of the newspapers which every evening informed them that tariff reform meant work for all contained half a column of the most distressing news which any person could read. In that paper the reader was informed of how in Paris men and women were living under conditions of drudgery, the lives of slaves paid at the lowest possible rates, even when compared with the workers in this country. It also stated that the hours of labour in Paris were more irksome than in this country. In his opinion, the best way in which to deal with foreign competition was to improve the condition of English workers so as to make them more efficient not by overworking them, but by increasing their capacity for productiveness and improving their general character and power to make wealth. In asking the House to approve of this Resolution he contended that the claim of humanity should be above that of trade or commerce, because in considering the hours of labour they were considering the life of human beings. When they were considering what ought to be done with this class of people, they ought not to consider them as profit making material on which the commercial stability of the nation depended, but as human beings representing the life of the country. In conclusion he asked the House to agree with the proposition that the establishment of an eight-hours day would tend to equalise the burden which now so heavily pressed upon the shoulders of the industrial classes, tend to diminish unemployment, lessen accidents, and improve the character and the outlook for our industrial population.

*MR. KELLEY ( Manchester, S.W.),

in seconding the Resolution, said that the question did not come before the House in exactly the same position as it had come before trade union congresses, where for many years it had been looked upon as a hardy annual. He thought it was fast becoming a hardy annual as far as the House was concerned, the Resolution having been moved over and over again by Members representing various trades and industries. The principle had been demanded by miners and bakers and it had actually been asked for by the attendants in lunatic asylums, and when a principle had got that far he thought it was time that the question should be dealt with in the House of Commons. The reason they were asking for an eight-hours day or a forty-eight hours week by legal enactment was that these who had had experience in the labour world knew the difficulties, trouble, and expense of obtaining a reduction of hours in any particular trade. Some years ago he was engaged in a movement which asked not for a forty-eight but a fifty-hours week, and after fighting for sixteen weeks, losing every penny they had got, mortgaging the future and putting the General Secretary in pawn at the bank, they had to give up the struggle as useless because they were not strong enough to carry it through. That was his experience in regard to demanding a fifty-hours week, and a similar experience had been gone through in other industries. Therefore, they had concluded that it was a waste of energy and money that a process of that kind should be gone through when common sense pointed to this House having the power to grant a concession of the kind asked for as an act of justice to be meted out without undergoing the painful process he had described. The conditions of labour had in recent years been very much altered. When he worked at his own particular trade the conditions were altogether different: new machines had been introduced, the speed of old machines had been very much increased, 'and as a result the output had also very much increased. He ventured to say that under all these circumstances an eight-hours day would take more of the life out of a man than a ten or twelve - hours day would do twelve or fifteen years ago. That was the case in his own trade union and in a large number of others, and that was another reason why they sought an eight-hours day. Then, as had been stated by the mover of the Resolution, it would tend very largely to decrease the number of men who were out of employment. That was a growing difficulty from year to year, and he was quite sure that the whole country ought to be particularly grateful to the trade unions for what they did in spending such a large amount of money in keeping from the rates men who without those payments would have to go upon them. The immense sums of money spent year by year by the trade unions should commend them and the requests made by them to the consideration of the House. The returns showed that one large society of which he had personal knowledge, out of something like 35,000 members had about 14,000 members unemployed, whilst another large society with close upon 70,000 Members had nearly 10,000 members unemployed. Let the House imagine for a moment the number of unemployed in those two particular skilled trades which were in every day request, while those employed worked nine, ten and eleven hours a day! Did it not stand to reason that some effort should be made to equalise employment by which these men should be prevented from working such a large number of hours? Then a great deal had been made at different times in argument and debate as to the impracticability of carrying out the eight-hours day. They heard many Members say the thing could not pay and that it meant ruin. Evidences and experiences they had went to prove that that was not altogether the the thing could not pay and that case. He remembered something like twenty years ago the head of a large engineering house in the North of England doing him and two or three of his colleagues the honour of discussing the practicability of introducing an eight-hours day into his establishment, no doubt in doing so giving them the credit of having some practical experience. They pointed out how it could be done and he fell in with their views, with the result that the system was introduced. The employer afterwards informed him it had exceeded his expectations, and that under no condition would he go back to the old state of things. There was another firm he could refer to further north still which had introduced a forty-eight hour week, where previously they had worked fifty-three hours. Being desirous of knowing how it was working inquiries were made and the reply was that the alteration was beneficial to both employers and employees. From 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. of the workmen had previously lost quarters in the morning and if the men were losing two quarters during the week, and those quarters were the shortest part of the working day, it must be apparent that the conditions they were imposing on the workmen were such as they were physically incapable of fulfilling. After the change in the working hours that was not the case. As regarded workmen on piece - work, they invariably worked in squad and where one or two men had been unfortunate enough to lose the first quarter in the day it had upset the whole of the arrangements. They found it now decidedly to their advantage and decidedly to the advantage of the men to start work at an early hour, let them have their breakfast before they went to work, and work the whole day with simply one break for meals. The fifty-three hours system occasioned two breaks for meals, which entailed a certain amount of loss to the employer, and the one break was a decided advantage. Then again to go a little further a field, they in the trade union and industrial world were apt to look upon Russia and everything connected with Russia with a feeling of horror and dread, and a thankful feeling that they were not in Russia. Nevertheless he found that in Russia there was a large firm engaged in paper-making. He noticed that the paper-makers in this country were trying to bring about a change in the direction of reducing hours to forty-eight per week. This Russian firm some time ago tried the experiment. He had obtained a pamphlet from the Consul at St. Petersburg which stated that the mill manager expressed the greatest satisfaction with the change and concluded with these words— The operatives have conscientiously fulfilled the obligations they undertook in return for the more favourable conditions of work. The production has not suffered cither in quality or quantity and a great improvement is observable in the health and spirits of the men. That was Russia—terrorised and tyrannical Russia. Perhaps they might apply that a little nearer home and try the experiment here. Then they had another large firm on the Thames, the Thames Ironworks, which had introduced the eight-hours day. He was not quite sure of his facts in regard to it, but he was inclined to believe it had turned out a success. At any rate, he remembered speaking to Mr. Hill on the subject some years ago, and he had told him that while he used to pay £99,000 a year in wages at the time they worked fifty-four hours, he now paid £242,000. That was the difference in five years. That might be taken to show that the eight-hours day had not killed trade. Of course, the mere increase in the wages bill, irrespective of any other consideration could not have any special attraction for employers, but this great increase in the wage bill had been accompanied by increased output at a decreased cost. Those who had any knowledge of Mr. Hill knew perfectly well that he might be relied upon with regard to anything he might have to say. He would like to get a little nearer a trade of which he had a better knowledge. There was in this country a society called the Co-operative Printing Society, with three branches, one in Manchester, one in Newcastle, and one in London. In these three branches they had nearly 1,000 hands employed. He had been a director of that committee now for ten or twelve years, and the experience that he had had there was sufficient to convince him of the practicability of the establishment of a forty-eight-hours week with fairness, and without any likely loss to those firms who might adopt it. They paid the highest wages paid in those trades—printing, lithographic printing, book-binding, and everything in connection with the printing trade—and in many instances they went considerably higher than the recognised rate. At the same time all employees throughout the works were granted a holiday each year of one, two, or three weeks, according to their position and the time they had been there, and the holidays were paid for. He would be better pleased if some other printing houses would take that view. Moreover, every year they had a bonus in wages, and all this was done on a forty-eight hours week, while other firms in Manchester were working fifty hours, in Newcastle fifty-one, and in London fifty-two and a half. It might be said that the co-operative society was subject to the same keen competition to be found in regard to other trades. Nearly every job that came into those printing offices was obtained by competition with other houses, who were working fifty-two to fifty-four hours per week. If the forty-eight hour week could be worked with success in this case it could also be worked in others. But here came the point. It might be asked why, if this could be done in these offices, they should come and trouble the House to obtain a forty-eight-hours week. It was very easy to explain. He did not find fault with employers as a class, but they were not ad of a generous character. Each employer generally wanted as much as he could get out of his business. It was generally the greatest amount of work for the least amount of pay. So far as his union was concerned they knew perfectly well that before they could get a forty-eight hours week a large amount of money would be expended, and bitter feeling engendered, and the country would like, if possible, to prevent that being done. He was quite sure that if Gentlemen above the gangway had paid greater attention to social questions whilst in power their ranks would not have been decimated in the manner they had been. There was plenty of room to take a hand in this, and show their sympathy with the worker A member of the Institute of Civil Engineers said— It is possible to combine shorter hours of labour at the full previous wages with an increase of net profits on capital, and without any increase in the selling price of the goods. And the same speaker finished up by saying— It is an undeniable fact that those who receive the highest remuneration give the least number of hours in return for it. There was painful evidence of the truth of that statement. The weekly hours of public officials would not exceed thirty three if holidays were reckoned off. On the other hand, the best situated of the artisan class worked fifty-two to fifty-lour hours per week, and they lost their pay if they had oft time. There were other classes who worked sixty, seventy, eighty, or ninety hours per week. In London the Wages of men who worked over ninety hours per week often did not exceed 17s. to 20s. That was a fact which should bring a blush to the face of anyone who hesitated to lend a hand in bringing about an eight-hours day. He and his friends made this request on the ground that if the proposal were Carried out it would reduce the number of unemployed, as some men would be prevented from working long hours while others were starving. That was the main object they had in view in connection with the whole thing. He sincerely hoped that the House would show a kindly feeling towards the request.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, in the opinion of this House, the time has arrived when, in the interests of the workers generally, and in view of the present large number of unemployed, the working day in all trades and industries should be limited by law to a maximum of eight hours."—(Mr. Clynes.)

MR. MOND () Chester

said that so far as he was concerned the mover and seconder of the Motion had been preaching to the converted. His firm were certainly one of the pioneers of the eight-hours movement in respect of continuous work, and their experience had convinced them that so far as continuous work was concerned—work that went on both night and day—eight hours was long enough time for a man to do good work. Their experience had taught thorn that on account of the increased efficiency they could get out of men working eight-hours shifts, instead of twelve hours, even at the same rate of wages, or a slightly higher rate of wages, the reduction in the hours did not necessarily increase the cost of production. It seemed to him, therefore, that it was a very great pity that the mover and seconder of the Resolution had framed it in a manner which made it impossible for him and many who were in favour of a more general introduction of an eight-hours day to support it as it stood. Although the hon. Members had argued with some force on the case of a certain number of industries, and also on the case of a certain number of isolated facts, they had not demonstrated to the House how it would be possible, for instance, to apply a maximum eight-hours day to agricultural labourers and domestic servants, or to the whole of the large number of industries in which the labour was not carried on in a regular manner, as in a factory, hour after hour. If the hon. Members could have seen their way to mend the Resolution and to be satisfied for the present with an eight-hours day in all continuous work, he personally would have been ready to support them. But a good many of their arguments seemed to him to be intended more for the members of their own trade unions. As to the question of overtime, he was really surprised at the attitude taken up on the Labour Benches. Overtime was really the great joy of the trade union worker. [Cries of "No."] Certainly. Most employers spent a great deal of their time in trying to avoid overtime. It was almost a perpetual struggle.

MR. CLYNES

May I point out that at the last Trade Union Congress, and, at other similar gatherings of the representatives of labour, the system of overtime was absolutely condemned?

MR. MOND

said he did not doubt that, but a great many resolutions were passed at these congresses which received very little attention from the members of the unions. Surely it was in the power of trade unions to prohibit men from working overtime. Surely no one with practical experience would tell him that there was not a large percentage of men who liked to work overtime, whenever they got the opportunity, because they got larger wages. He knew that among Labour leaders it had been very much discouraged, but he wondered if all the members of the unions knew that under this proposal they were only to work eight hours, and that there was to be no overtime with extra pay, how many would be anxious to support the Resolution. There was one point on which certainly the Resolution and the arguments which had been used in support of it seemed to him to be contradictory, and that was the question of unemployment. They had been assured and he agreed to a certain extent that a reduction in hours did not necessarily mean a smaller output per man. As a matter of fact, they might with a smaller number of hours get equal or greater efficiency.

MR. CLYNES

In the case of trades where machinery is used.

MR. MOND

said that that was so, but he went further. Surely it was a shortsighted view of the unemployed question to hang it on the hours question. After all, the main factor in unemployment was population. If every man in the country was employed to-morrow, and if the population went on increasing, they would soon have a number of unemployed. Were they going to reduce the number of hours from eight to six, from six to four, from four to two, as the population increased, in order to deal with the problem of the unemployed, for that was the logical outcome of the argument? He did not think that that was an argument that could be very successfully pursued. He was told the other day of a case in connection with some carpenters. A gentleman who was employing seven trade unionists wanted to work them on short time instead of dismissing some and working the others on full time. The people who objected were the trade unionists, who were anxious that the three should be turned out of work and that the other four should work full time. On a great many of these questions he thought the trade union rules of to-day were antiquated and wanted revising. The whole overtime question wanted to be taken in hand in a much more serious way than it has been in many industries. One of the great difficulties in connection with the engineering industry was the question of working double shifts. He knew some cases where double shifts could have been worked, but it had been made impossible because the trade union rules would not allow them to employ two sets of men on shifts of eight hours each at the ordinary rate, but insisted that the second set should be paid at overtime rates. Hon. Gentlemen should address themselves to these questions of which they were fully aware and overhaul a great many of their own regulations which were now out of date, and by altering which they could achieve a great many of the objects they all had in view without coming to this House in order to try to impose a kind of penal Act of Parliament, while not showing how it was to be carried out. The great difficulty was how to carry out this proposal. If they were to have millions of inspectors going about checking the hour book of every workman in the country, who was to be punished if the eight hours were exceeded? Were the employers to be fined and the workmen put in prison? How were they to carry out the enormous undertaking of a legal maximum in varying conditions? Were they to put an inspector on every hansom cab in order to find whether the driver had worked eight hours or eight hours and a half? Sympathetic as they must all be, and convinced as he was himself that the eight-hours movement must and would come along, a general Resolution of this kind, although it might sound well at a Trade Union Congress, was not one which he himself would recommend the House of Commons to place on its records. They had been too fond in the past of placing abstract Resolutions on their records without thinking how they were going to carry them into effect. They thereby awakened expectations in the country which afterwards they could not carry out. He thought that was a very bad thing. They ought not to pass Resolutions unless they saw their way to carry them into legislative effect, and neither the proposer nor the seconder had outlined in the slightest degree how he would draft a Bill to carry the Resolution into effect, and how he would convince the workmen he represented that it would be workable. For these reasons he would certainly vote against the Resolution if it went to a division.

*MR. W. H. LEVER () Cheshire, Wirral

said that he also was unable to vote for the Resolution, although strongly in favour of the principle of an eight-hours day. He much regretted that the mover and seconder of the Resolution had not given the House some enlightenment as to how they would apply such a very far-reaching principle. With all they had said of the beneficial effects of an eight-hours day he cordially agreed, both from his reading and from his own experience; and he was certain that in all sections of the House there were employers who shared his opinion. But the House had not been told a great deal that it ought to have been told as to the proposal to enact short time for the whole of the workers of the country. If they were going to limit the hours universally to eight per day it would raise the whole question of wages. Eight hours a day, which, as he considered it, ought to be arranged for, would mean forty-eight hours work in the week, while the worker would receive the same pay as he received for working fifty or fifty-two hours. Anything less than that would be simply equivalent to short time. Further, if such an Act was passed by this House, and any trade, by their own volition, preferred to continue to work a greater number of hours than forty-eight in the week, was the penalty to fall on the employer alone, or on both the employer and the workmen? [An HON. MEMBER: It is to fall on both.] All the references to the subject which he had seen generally proposed that the employer alone should be penalised? [An HON. MEMBER on the LABOUR Benches: Both must be penalised.] In that case the House would, in a very light mood, be creating a law which would make law-breakers of both the employers and the employees in the vast majority of industries where an eight-hours day would be impossible. He did not think that the supporters of the Resolution seriously proposed that such a law should come into operation. Moreover, such an Act of Parliament would undermine the trade unions of the country. He was a convinced trade unionist; he believed that combinations amongst workmen were not only necessary and desirable, but the only means of giving voice to the workers. But such an Act of Parliament would group all workers together, and he was convinced that the workers did not wish to be grouped together. They had a scheme in the building trade in his neighbourhood by which the men worked forty-two and a half hours a week in the winter months, and fifty-two or fifty-four hours per week in the summer months; but such a scheme would be destroyed if universal forty-eight hours work per week were made compulsory. The question of shifts had been referred to. He agreed that in all continuous work the rule should be that no man should work too long a shift, and that the shifts should be divided into three sections of eight hours each. That was an easy matter, and would not affect any other trade. As to railway men, when he heard statements about their working eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, was reference made to employment at wayside stations where there was one station-master and one porter, four or five trains a day, with sometimes not a single passenger, and not many with luggage? There was an illustration of the difficulty of making a hard and fast line of an eight-hours day. There were industries where eight hours was more than a full day's work, which a man could perform, but there were other industries where the work was in the open air and where the duty was such that they could work for more than eight hours a day. As to the bogey of foreign competition, so far from any danger arising as the result of beneficial legislation or arrangements adopted by individual trade unions, they need not fear foreign competition. The one trade which was in the most deplorable conditions to-day in the United Kingdom was the building trade, and that was a trade which was never affected by foreign competition. There was no country in the world where the employer worked so well with his men and felt with them so much as in this country. During the last fifty years the hours of labour had, by friendly arrangement between the employer and his workman, been reduced from twelve to eleven, from eleven to ten, from ten to nine, and now they stood at eight-and-a-half, and he hoped it would shortly come to eight hours. He thought this policy of friendly arrangement should be continued, and that there was nowadays too great a tendency to come to the House of Commons and ask the House to make bargains for the whole country. The House could only legislate on broad lines, whereas trade unions could make their relations with the employers in accordance to their own individual and collective requirements. They should continue to work along these lines, instead of appealing to Parliament for legislation which would make a large number of people lawbreakers. It was on these lines that he believed that they would be able to lift the workmen of the country to the highest pinnacle of any workman in any country in the world.

*MR. MACPHERSON () Preston

said the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had again expressed, as they had heard recently expressed in other directions, sympathy with the trade union movement, while at the same time stating that the proposals emanating from the Labour Benches would be most decidedly injurious to the trade union movement. They welcomed sympathy, but he could assure the hon. Gentleman and his friends that the trade union movement could take care of itself. They did not say that any social problem could be solved in a simple manner, but they did say that it was the duty of statesmen to attempt to solve all problems connected with the social condition of the people. Trade unionists were most interested in this question, and had tried to solve it with reference to their own members. They had made proposals to their employers, which had been rejected and almost thrown back in their teeth. He represented the steel-smelting industry, and they had converted the members of then-unions in different parts of the country to make a personal sacrifice of wages so that they could put an eight-hours day into operation. At a conference with the employers held in Newcastle-on-Tyne, a proposal by the trade union was made to the employers that instead of running two shifts of twelve hours each as at present, they should run three shifts of eight hours each, and that the present earnings of two shifts should be divided between the three shifts. The union guaranteed to the employers that this arrangement would not increase the cost of production by one cent. They showed the employers that that principle was in operation in South Wales and on the North-East coast of England, yet the employers, when the men were prepared to sacrifice 33 per cent. of their wages for an eight-hours day, had not sufficient faith in the success of their industry under these conditions, and refused to accept the proposals. If this arrangement were followed in his own trade in the North-East of England and the West of Scotland, it would instantly absorb 1,500 more men into the industry, and thus be a factor in dealing with unemployment. It should be remembered that they were not that evening introducing a Bill, but only a Resolution which affirmed a principle which they on the Labour Benches thought was necessary for the welfare of the industrial community. He would remind hon. Members of the progress they were making in production and in the extension of machinery. The Lancashire textile trade had just perfected a piece of machinery by means of which one man operating was going to throw six men on the labour market. In all branches of trade to-day machinery was decreasing labour and sending men on the streets where they were idle. What was the result? Men drifted into our distributive trades which did not depend upon machinery. There was therefore a larger capacity in the distributive trades to absorb unemployment than in any other industry. He believed that if business men would apply their business capacity, if the statesman would apply his statesmanship, the difficulty of the agricultural labourer and of the domestic servant could be overcome, if they put into the human side of industry the same amount and the same capacity of thought that they put into merely the percentage and dividend side of it. They heard a lot in the country and in this House about the interests of capital and labour being identical. But if they were, why this contest over an eight-hours day? If the interests of capital and labour were identical, why was the pathway of reform ever the pathway of conflict? He appealed to the House of Commons not to dismiss this Resolution in a light manner or to throw it in any shape or form contemptuously on one side. He appealed to them to accept the Resolution simply as a statement of principle which if it was ever embodied in a Bill could have its weaknesses indicated both inside and outside the House. They wanted the workers of the country not to be the beasts of burden that they had been up to now, and as their altitude of life increased and as their education increased their needs would increase and would demand a reduction of their hours of labour. He therefore hoped that the House would accept the Resolution and that in the near future something would be done to give effect to it.

*MR. HAROLD COX () Preston

said it was quite true as the hon. Member for Preston had told them, that this was not a Bill, but it was a very definite Resolution. It was a Resolution declaring: "That in the opinion of this House the time has arrived when in the interests of the workers generally and in view of the present large number of unemployed, the working day in all trades and industries should be limited by law to a maximum of eight hours." The seconder of the Resolution had spoken of a forty-eight hours week, but if we were to preserve the happy custom in this country of having a Saturday afternoon holiday it would not be a forty-eight hours week, but a forty-four or forty-five hours week. Otherwise the Saturday afternoon would go, because under the Resolution the working day was to be limited to eight hours in every day. [Cries of "No no."] His hon. friends had not read the Resolution or they would find that the working day was to be limited to a maximum of eight hours. They were asked to vote that Parliament should pass a law that no man should work more than eight hours at any trade or occupation in the United Kingdom on any one day out of the 365. He had had the pleasure if he might say so of opposing hon. Members opposite when they had made proposals to the House on previous occasions, but he would go so far in accord with them as to say that he was perfectly willing to admit as a principle that there were cases in which it was desirable and justifiable that the State should regulate the hours of labour. He was not one of those who drew a hard and fast line and said that the State should never regulate the hours of labour. He thought cases might arise in which that was the most convenient way of arriving at a working rule. He sympathised with what his hon. friend had just said in dealing with the case of the steel-smelters and their condition. The hon. Member had said that although his union had offered to reduce wages in order to get a three-shift day instead of a two-shift day the employers would not give way. That reminded him of the story of a bishop who came late at a certain meeting, and said he had been bitten by a mad dog, whereupon Sydney Smith said he should like to hear the dog's account of the story. He agreed that it would be well that the smelter whose labour was very hard should not work more than eight hours a day, but it did not follow from that that a porter at a country railway station should work only eight hours a day. If justice was aimed at, what was the reason for limiting these two classes of men, the intensity of whose work was so different, to exactly eight hours a day each? There was one point upon which he thought that employers and trade unions should cooperate to get a better condition of things, and that was with regard to work before breakfast. It had always seemed to him to be one of the most unfortunate features in the industrial system of this country that a man should have to do an hour and a half or two hours labour before breakfast when he was not able to put forward his full strength, and if employers and employed would co-operate so as to get one break in the day instead of two, he thought it would be an advantage all round. But even on this point, one could not dogmatise, as there was the wife to consider and her unwillingness to get up in order to prepare her husband's breakfast. Was the hon. Member for Clitheroe prepared to say that henceforth no one in the cotton trade should work more than eight hours a day? If he did, it was a very serious statement to make, because it was the most important and valuable of our export trades, and it lived on the narrowest margin of profit. He could not conceive any greater madness than for the House to say, without going into details, that in future this enormous industry should have its hours reduced to eight hours a day, or forty-four or forty-five hours a week. If men in this country were only to work eight hours, how was the regulation to be enforced? Were they going to send a policeman all round the country to see that the new small holders did not work more than eight hours a day? What was to happen to the beasts if they fell ill? Were they to remain in the fields and die, because the man who looked after them had done his eight hours work? That reminded him of the story of some of the London unemployed who were sent down to work in the country, and were horrified to find that there was no Saturday half-holiday and that the beasts wanted food on Sundays as well as on week-days. He was quite certain that every Member on that side of the House was as anxious to get the working-day reduced as any hon. Member opposite, but Liberals did not accept the fallacy that by making an eight-hours day and reducing the hours of labour they could make room for an unlimited number of the unemployed. That fallacy was based on the assumption that wages were drawn from the pockets of the well-to-do classes. Hon. Members forgot that the wages were produced by the workman himself, and that ultimately each workman had to make his own wages and a little bit over to bear the cost of the business. [Ironical LABOUR cries of: A little bit over.] Sometimes a little bit over, sometimes a big bit over, and sometimes nothing at all. If hon. Members were going on the assumption that by reducing the number of hours, they could make two men do one man's work they would find ultimately that two men would have one man's pay. It was conceivable that, by passing a Bill, they might make railway companies, who were bound by their obligations to the State, decrease the hours of labour of their servants at the expense of dividends. The some might be said in the case of tramway servants. But such a transference of wealth from one class to another by Act of Parliament would be an extremely arbitrary proceeding, and would in effect create a privileged class. Taking our industries as a whole no such proceeding was possible. The employer was not a man who provided wages out of his own bottomless pocket. He had to secure from his customers the wages he paid, and in nine cases out of ten his customers were themselves working men. The employer was in fact the go-between between one set of workmen and another set of workmen, so that in effect the workmen of this country were their own employers. The share of wealth that went to them might well be increased, and that of the capitalist decreased, but how were they to do that? The only way was by increasing the supply of capital which would make it cheaper, and the fault of most of the proposals from the other side was to make capital scarce and dearer. The ultimate solution was for the workers themselves to accumulate capital and become capitalists and wage-earners at the same time.

*MR. NICHOLLS () Northamptonshire, N.

said that from the speeches they had listened to from both sides he thought there was a point in this Resolution up to which all of them could agree, but he was bound to say that when he came to that little word "all" he had to part company with his friends on that side of the House. Even at trade congresses it seemed to him that the agricultural labourers had been seldom thought of, or anything said about them, but, after all, they were a very large section of what they might call industrial workmen, and hon. Members must know that this Mot on could not be applied to all classes of labour, for example, such as the work of the agricultural labourer. At the best the principle for which his hon. friends were contending could only be applied to certain special industries in the large manufacturing towns. He would not say anything about the miners who had fought their case and won their right for an eight-hours day. The railwaymen also had shown that they had been kept too long at their duty. The men on the tramways might also be dealt with by the Resolution, together with all Government workers, and he was bound to say that he believed when men worked fewer hours probably more men would be employed, and something done to solve the question of unemployment. He did not part company with his friends upon that point, but they had to face these difficulties. Let them take the case of a horsekeeper, whose hours, as a rule, lasted from 5.30 a.m. until 6 p.m. If hon. Members tied this man down to an eight-hours day, then it was needful that in some portion of the day's work he should be resting. Another case was that of the small landholder, who in the spring time was in the midst of his seeding operations and could not be told that he must not work more than the stipulated time contained in this Motion. In his opinion the Motion contained a bad principle as far as these men were concerned, and, if hon. Members were to say that the eight-hours day should apply to agriculture as well as to other industries, and that even in the busy season they should not be allowed to work extra hours to earn more money, the labourers would kick them. However dull a person the agricultural labourer might look, he liked a little bit of freedom all the same, especially when there was a chance of earning something extra. Then there was work in the fields in the hay season, work at which he had been engaged from 5 o'clock in the morning until 7 o'clock at night—much too long hours he admitted. Workers in agriculture knew well that there were certain times in the year when they could not earn enough for food, and when the opportunity arose to work longer at other times these labourers were willing to earn extra pay in order to help them to tide over the periods of stress and difficulty. Through the harvest the same thing happened. But what was this Resolution going to do? It was going to say that agricultural labourers were not to start before 7 in the morning, and if they had an hour's rest at mid-day were to leave off at 4 in the afternoon. If an agricultural labourer was compelled to have an eight-hours day, he could not be allowed to go on his allotment after working hours, for he would be told that it was the same industry at which he had been engaged all day long, that having tied himself down to eight hours a day he must not attend to his allotment, but give some other man the job to manage it for him. He, therefore, believed that the agricultural labourers did not want the eight-hours day. If they were in the House they would say for themselves, "We do not want it, and we are not going to have it," but as they could not be present, he was there to say that for them.

MR. H. J. WILSON () Yorkshire, W.R., Holmfirth

said the business with which he was connected established the eight-hours system some years ago, and they had found it made no difference to them. He did not think they had either gained or lost by it, and he was sure it had been an enormous advantage to those employed. They were better in every way. They were healthier and more ready for work, and there was more goodwill about than before. As had been pointed out, however, the Resolution was of a most sweeping character. The mover had pointed to trades in which terribly, and he might almost say wickedly, long hours prevailed. For instance, the conductors of the omnibuses by which some hon. Members went home worked, he was told, in some cases sixteen hours a day, and had to walk to and from their homes, making really sixteen and a half or seventeen hours a day. He was sure there was not a man in the House who would justify that state of things, or who would not be glad to see it altered. He asked the Labour Members, however, whether the object would not be better obtained by limiting the number of hours, say, to twelve, in the first place, and so dealing with it by degrees. Our factory legislation, he would point out, was not reached at once, but by stages, and so it was with sanitary legislation. He asked hon. Members at least to show good reason why it would not be more feasible and more practicable to limit hours of working by degrees.

*THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL,) Yorkshire, Cleveland

We agree in the main with hon. Members who have taken part in this debate to-night and who have said that it is impossible to ask the House to accept so sweeping and unqualified a proposal. The hours of every trade regardless of its conditions, cannot be dealt with by a sudden and large restriction such as is proposed, and since every Member knows that effect could not be given to it by legislation, a Resolution of this kind ought not to be placed on the records of the House. But to say that is not to deny that a shortening of the hours of labour in many cases is desirable or that the State could do nothing to effect the shortening of the hours. Some years ago the Royal Commission on Labour, which sat under the presidency of the Duke of Devonshire, took evidence extending over a period of some years with regard to the condition of the working classes. Among that evidence was much that related to the hours of labour in various occupations. That evidence showed that the majority of the English working classes worked ten hours or more, that a considerable number worked eleven hours, and not a few worked twelve hours a day. Since that time probably no very great alteration has been effected in the conditions. It is notorious that many classes of labour are grievously overworked, and that shop assistants, employees in public-houses, vanmen, carters, and persons engaged in many other trades work hours which are excessive. Hundreds and thousands of men and women day by day go to their work in the early hours of the morning, and return to their homes late at night, exhausted by their labour, with few intervals of repose beyond the Sunday rest, and even that is sometimes denied. In the constant endeavour to obtain the means of livelihood they find their lives absorbed and lost. They have no opportunity for self-education or receation, for enjoying family life or undertaking the duties of citizenship. This is not merely an individual loss to them; it must be regarded as a national evil. Of the population of this country four-fifths belong to the labour classes, and the nation cannot be great if a large proportion of them are degraged. The hon. Member who moved the Resolution made a remarkably able and thoughtful speech, but I think the House will scarcely agree with him and those who spoke in support of the Motion in the argument that in a general and permanent reduction of hours of labour will be found any effective solution of the problem of unemployment. It is perfectly true that a temporary reduction of hours in a time of trade depression may spread the sacrifice which falls upon the industrial community over a larger area. Instead of a few men being thrown out of work altogether and being reduced to extreme poverty, a large number of men make a sacrifice and work lesser hours for a lessened payment. Arrangements of that kind are eminently desirable between employers and employed in order to diminish suffering and loss, but I venture to suggest to hon. Members opposite that, if they think a permanent reduction of the hours of labour to eight hours will in the long run increase employment, they have fallen into a very old economical fallacy. The solution of this great difficulty is not to be found on those lines. In the first place, as has been pointed out in this debate, a reduction of hours of labour does not necessarily mean a reduction of production. The same number of men may do as much more work in less hours, and in that case it is obvious there is no room for the unemployed, for there is no demand for additional labour. But suppose the opposite case, where the same amount of work per man is not done in the shortened hours. Let me take a simple illustration. Take the case of tramwaymen. In this industry if you reduce the number of hours you will require a correspondingly increased number of employees to perform the work. Supposing, for example, you have 1,000 tramwaymen employed twelve hours per day and their hours are reduced to eight hours. The obvious and immediate effect is you will require 500 more men to do the same work. That is the immediate and obvious effect which hon. Member's see and emphasise. If you employ 1,500 men where previously you employed 1,000, you have, they say, gone far to solve the problem. But there is an indirect and less obvious, but not less certain effect. These 500 men must be paid from somewhere. Their remuneration does not descend from heaven. They will cost, say at 30s. per week, some £40,000. That £40,000 is an additional expense, not to bring about any increased production or an additional service, but an additional expense merely to pay for the service previously performed by 1,000 men working twelve hours a day. The £40,000 must either be obtained from increased fares, or decreased profits, or subsidies from the rates, and from whatever source it comes it must throw out of employment a corresponding number of men in other directions. That £40,000 represents a demand for labour, a certain bulk of commodities, now devoted to the maintenance of 500 tramwaymen. It had previously gone to the maintenance of some other body of men. You give employment to additional men in one direction, but inevitably in the long run you must be reducing employment, and throwing men out of employment in another. The fact may be made abundantly clear by carrying the argument to its logical conclusion. If a reduction of hours from ten to eight will bring into employment a large additional number of men, so will a further reduction of hours from eight till six. The process can thus be continued till you reach the absurd conclusion that, if, only the working-class work one hour per day instead of ten, we shall be able to support in prosperity and comfort ten times the population we do now. It may be desirable—I do not say it is not—in the case of the tramwaymen working twelve hours per day to reduce their hours. Obviously that is a change which should be accomplished, but, although desirable, it is, as a means of settling the unemployment problem, useless and delusive. If the working classes set their hopes upon this method of solution, they are treading upon wrong lines and towards a goal wholly unattainable. There is no sound economist who will sanction the doctrine contained in this Resolution that a general reduction of the hours of labour can be relied upon to solve the problem of unemployment.

Nevertheless a reduction of hours and an extension of leisure are obviously desirable in themselves, and what this House has to consider on this and similar occasions is how far it is legitimate and practicable for the State to intervene to secure them. One of the most remarkable features of the debate has been that not one Member has risen from any quarter of the House to lay down the old doctrine that in no case should the State interfere to fix the hours of adult labour.

SIR F. BANBURY

I will.

*MR. HERBERT SAMUEL

The hon. Member has hitherto been silent. I noticed his absence and his silence with much surprise. Had this debate taken place sixty years ago, the whole evening would have been spent in discussing whether it was on any occasion legitimate to use the power of the law to interfere in contracts between master and employed and fix hours of labour of those who are assumed to be capable of looking after themselves. This change of attitude which has been so remarkably exemplified to-night has been due to the fact that we have come to regard the principles of liberty in a somewhat different light. The hon. Member for the City of London is, I think, the only Member left in the House who retains the old view. Even the hon. Member for Preston has deserted him. Some years ago he wrote a very able and cogent book, in collaboration with Mr. Sydney Webb, strenuously advocating a general eight - hours day, to be established by Act of Parliament. The hon. Member for the City of London, I think, has never written such a book, and is probably never likely to do so. He still adheres to the old individualistic doctrine of the sacred-ness of liberty, and by liberty he means the absence of legal interference. But does the hon. Baronet really think when men work twelve hours a day for six days a week they work those hours because they want to? There may be other forms of compulsion besides legal compulsion. There is the compulsion of economic conditions. There are few people now who deny that the relations of the Factory Acts extend liberty. They do not stop people from doing what they want to do, bat prevent people being compelled to do what they do not want to do. And so it is in the case of other regulations limiting the hours of labour.

It is quite true, as has been urged by the supporters of this Motion, that frequently and in many trades a short day can be established without any cost to anyone. The production in an eight-hours day is as great as it was in the longer day. That has been remarkably shown by the experience of the Government Departments. In 1894, when the present Prime Minister was Secretary of State for War the hours of labour in the War Office establishments were reduced by an average of five and three-quarter hours per week; some 20,000 work-people had their hours reduced to that extent. An inquiry made by the Board of Trade after an interval of ten years showed that this had been done without any reduction of wages and without any extra cost to the public; and the production at the War Office establishments in an eight-hours day, in a forty-eight hours week, was roughly just the same as it had been in previous years when hours of labour were fifty-three and three-quarters per week. The experience of a large number of private firms has of course been the same. It is obvious that the man who begins his work after an evening's leisure, after a good night's rest, and after a meal in the morning, works briskly and persistently and may be expected to do much more than the man who goes to his labour hungry and already tired. Rut although this may be the rule in many instances, the House cannot assume that the rule will universally apply and that this will always be so in all trades. It has been found from returns supplied to the Board of Trade that an eight-hours day has been established in private firms for only 60,000 work-people in fourteen years. The movement towards an eight-hours-day in private industry has been exceedingly slow. If it were the case that equal production could generally be obtained in shorter hours of labour we might have expected that this process of reduction would have been far more rapid than in practice it has been found to be. It is obvious, when we come to particular industries, that we cannot expect that shorter hours will result in an equal measure of work. Hon. Members opposite have said that the House is discussing a Resolution and that there is no Bill before us. But there has been a Bill before this House, emanating from hon. Member's opposite and introduced in this Parliament each session by the hon. Member for South-West Ham. The purpose of it is the same as this Resolution. The Bill would establish a rigid eight-hours day in every employment on sea and land without any exception and without any exemptions for any circumstances other than actual accident. The penalty on any employer who employed any person for a longer period would be a fine of not less than £100 for each offence. Let us take certain staple trades, some of which have been mentioned. Take, for example, agriculture, the textile trade, shipping, and domestic service. There are four great branches of industry, employing about one-third of the population. Mark how impracticable it would be by a stroke of the pen to enforce any such rigid rule in such cases. In agriculture, for example, as the hon. Member for Northamptonshire has illustrated, it would be utterly impracticable to apply rigid hours of labour. Nature pays no regard whatever to Acts of Parliament. She is totally disrespectful of our laws. You cannot bring the seasons before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction. To suppose that you can establish a rigid eight-hours day for agricultural labourers in an industry which in every country and in every age has always had irregular periods of employment necessarily varying with the seasons, is to flout the intelligence of the House. Then with regard to the textile trades, it may be possible gradually to secure a further reduction of the hours of labour, but at one blow to strike off a seventh—for that would be the result of reducing hours from fifty-six to forty-eight—of the productive time of the whole cotton and woollen industry—an industry continually faced by very close and dangerous foreign competition and which in the case of the cotton trade sends some three-quarters of its whole products to foreign markets in competition with foreign manufacturers—to suppose that, is to imagine a change which every Member knows cannot be carried into effect by one single step. Then again, take the case of shipping. An eight-hours day established in the shipping industry would involve an increase of 50 per cent. in the cost of manning our ships, an overwhelmingly heavy change. Lastly, with regard to domestic service, an intermittent employment, there is no possibility in practice of enforcing any such State regulations. I venture to think if hon. Gentleman opposite below the Gangway were on this side of the House instead of that, and if their leaders were seated on this bench instead of on that, and if the hon. Member for South-West Ham were now Home Secretary, he would not lay before the House the Bill which has been proposed with the authority of the Independent Labour Party, and he would find that a measure of that sort would not seem so practicable and feasible viewed from this corner of the House as viewed from that. There are two lines of action on which it is possible and practicable for the State to proceed. In the first place, it is clearly the duty of the Government to make its own employment a model employment. That principle has long been accepted by the House and acted upon by different Governments, and in the War Office, in the Admiralty, in the Post Office, and in all the cases in which the rule is practicable an eight-hours day has already been established by administrative action. Farther than that, the State can in many ways take steps to get rid of the worst evils of excessive hours in private industry. The Factory Acts have that in view. They have been successful in removing the worst abuses of the over-work of women and children. The Factory Act of 1895 enabled the Home Secretary to reduce also the hours of labour of adult males engaged in dangerous processes and that power has been used in various trades. The Railway Servants' Hours of Labour Act has proceeded on the same lines, and has, I think, been effectively enforced. The Early Closing of Shops Act has had the same purpose in view and has achieved some good, but as the Home Secretary has announced, that Act clearly wants strengthening, and it should be the duty of Parliament to carry its methods further. And this year we are asking the House to take the longest step forward that will yet have been taken for the limitation of excessive hours of labour in the Mines Eight Hours Bill. It is often thought that already the great majority of miners underground are employed for eight hours or less, but that is not the case. Of the 700,000 workers employed underground three fourths now work more than eight hours, and many of them work very excessive hours. In Lancashire the ordinary hours of hewers below ground are nine and a half, and other workers ten and a half.

MR. CARLILE () Hertfordshire, St. Albans

How many days a week:

*MR. HERBERT SAMUEL

That does not alter the fact. It is not surprising that being called upon to work excessive hours they take certain days of the week as holidays, and that is one of the reasons why the opposition to this Bill must be regarded as exaggerated, see- ing that the opponents of the Bill have never made allowance for the fact that under the eight-hours day the hours of work will be distributed more reasonably and regularly. In South Wales again the hours underground are ten and a half a day. In these cases there are clearly very excessive hours worked. The opposition to which I have just referred is based upon the most exaggerated estimate of the possible cost of introducing the eight-hours day in mines. I have sat behind the Home Secretary when he has received deputation after deputation presenting in the most gloomy terms the disastrous effects of carrying this legislation. All these deputations base their case upon the assumption that a permanent increased cost of coal would follow, of from 1s. 6d. to 2s. a ton—a fantastic estimate based on no facts whatever and supported by no argument, an absurd exaggeration of the probable or even the possible effects of passing the Mines Eight Hours Bill, borne out in no degree by the findings of the Committee which examined the economic effects of establishing the eight-hours day. However, to-night, it is not my task to argue the merits of the Mines Eight Hours Bill. I only wish to make it clear to the House in connection with this Resolution that it is the intention of the Government in this session of Parliament to proceed actively with this Bill, and though some Amendments in matters of detail may be needed, we trust that we shall be able to secure this year for a very large class of men engaged in exceptionally arduous, dangerous and unattractive labour, that larger leisure which we agree with Members who have moved the Resolution is one of the first conditions of a satisfactory life.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR () City of London

Certainly when I came down to the House I had not intended to intervene in the debate, but I am urged to occupy the time of the House for a very few minutes by the interesting address of the Under-Secretary. I did not quite make out whether that speech was intended to be one in favour of an eight-hours Bill for miners or one against an eight-hours Bill for anybody else. It was a most curious speech. He gave us in very terse and powerful language an argument to show that the great textile industries ought certainly not to be limited to eight hours, because he said, they had to meet foreign competition of a very serious character, and if you limit the output of those industries, as you would limit it by reducing the hours from ten to eight, they would not be able to meet their rivals in neutral and in foreign markets. Then he turns to the coal trade and tells us quite incorrectly, I think, that the coal trade is a specially dangerous trade. That is not found to be the case by the Report of the Commission.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,) Leeds, W

They found it was a healthy trade, but they never said it was not dangerous.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

That it is a trade to which there are occasionally great risks attached, and in which great tragedies occur we all know, unhappily by recent and painful experience, but I certainly understood that the average of life in that trade was a good average of life, comparing extremely favourably with the lives of operatives engaged in other industries. I am talking of the length of life where life is brought to a conclusion by disease or by accident, and if you take length of life as a test of the desirability of a profession, I believe coal mining is a healthy trade, and that those engaged in it have more than the ordinary expectation of life which attaches to operatives in other trades. The hon. Gentleman comes down and tells us that this trade, unlike the textile trade, is one which ought to have special consideration, and with a singular want of appropriateness he drags in a defence of the Bill which the Government will have to defend at length later in the session when he is engaged in arguing against limiting the hours in other trades; because when you limit the hours of labour you diminish the output, and when you limit the output you diminish efficiency, and when you diminish efficiency you diminish the power of competing with rivals in other markets, is there no foreign market for coal? He knows well enough that there is a large and increasing foreign market for coal, in which this country has to suffer great competition. The Government of which the hon. Gentleman is a Member boasts that, when they repealed the coal duty, they enabled the coal trade to compete more effectively in these foreign markets than they could when the coal duty was imposed. I fail altogether to understand how the same hon. Gentleman can get up and give his views on the economics of an Eight-Hours Bill, showing how absolutely injurious it is, not merely to the trade, but to the operatives engaged in the trade, when he is dealing with agriculture, the textile industry and other great staple manufactures, and then turn round and tell us at the end of his speech, without a shadow of justification, that there is one trade which escapes from the net of this argument, which gets through the meshes of the dialectic with which he has instructed and entertained the House in the earlier part of his speech, and that is the coal trade. I think when he was dealing with this question on the broad lines which he adopted, the least he could do was to show in what relevant respect the coal trade, for which he proposed to legislate, differs from the other trades which hon. Members below the Gangway have taken under their protection. One other observation, and only one shall I make to the House. The hon. Gentleman in an interesting parenthesis in the middle of his speech told us that not a single Member of the House, except my hon. colleague in the representation of the City of London, had suggested that it was not desirable or competent to deal with the hours of male adult labour. I listened with pain and surprise to the hon. Gentleman. I thought he was an economist of the old school. I thought he carried on the traditions of Adam Smith, Ricardo, James Mill, John Mill, Bright, and Cobden.

*MR. HERBERT SAMUEL

Heaven forbid! There are very few of us to-day who share the hostility to interfering with the regulation of labour which was entertained by the Manchester school. As the Duke of Argyll said in one of his books some time ago, it was one of the most valuable discoveries of economic science in the nineteenth century that, while it is essential to limit by law the conditions of labour, it is disastrous to limit by law the movements of trade.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

There is another discovery which will come he me to the mind and conscience of the hon. Gentleman before he is much older. The doctrine which he now thanks Heaven he does not share was really part of a system, not an isolated opinion on the part of the eminent men whose names I have quoted, but it was part of a general system of laissez faire, of which those particular forms of fiscal orthodoxy which he believes were a part, but only a part. It was a large, coherent, and logical system. The hon. Gentleman not only rejected, but rejected with contumely and contempt, that part of it. He thanks Heaven he is not as they were. He separates himself from these distinguished individualists and advocates of freedom as they understood it, not with regret but with triumph. I cannot help thinking that when the hon. Gentleman has carried his studies still further, he will see that there are other points in which the doctrines of those eminent men required modification, and he may discover that the differences which separate him from hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House are not so profound as he appears, at all events on the platform, occasionally to imagine.

MR. ARTHUR HENDERSON () Durham, Barnard Castle

said the criticisms against the Resolution seemed to overlook the fact that it was not a Bill. In the Session of 1893–4 the present President of the Local Government Board introduced a general Eight-Hours Bill almost as comprehensive as this Resolution, on behalf of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Congress of which he was then a member. They were justified in specifying no trades, because they did not wish discussion to centre round objections on behalf of any particular trade, and the value of the discussion to be lost. The speech of the Under-Secretary had made clear the intention of the Government to pass this session the Mines (Eight-Hours) Bill. If they had raised this discussion for no other purpose, in view of what had been going on in the country and the suggestions in the Press, it was a great satisfaction that they had got from the hon. Gentleman that declaration. That was a great satisfaction to those who supported this resolution. Another interesting result of the debate was the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, in which the right hon. Gentleman revealed that one more article in the social programme of 1894, which very largely assisted the Conservative Party to power, had been discarded. One of the most important items in the programme of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and supported by the late Lord Salisbury, was an eight-hours day for mine s, and after having used that item in that programme for vote-catching purposes they were in 1908 to be told—for that was the only interpretation which could be put upon the speech of the Leader of the Opposition to which they had just listened—that this item was no longer in the programme of the Party which the right hon. Gentleman represented. If the debate had done nothing more than make it clear, on the one hand, that this item was no longer in the Unionist social programme, and on the other hand, that the Government intended to make themselves responsible for the introduction this session of the Miners (Eight Hours) Bill, those sitting on the Labour Benches were satisfied, and these two points had made the debate full of interest. In view of the declaration of the Government in regard to the Eight Hours Bill for miners, he advised his hon. friend to withdraw the Motion. [UNIONIST laughter.] If hon. Gentlemen above the gangway thought they were going to divide the Government and the Labour Party on this question they were mistaken. They were as short-sighted on this matter as the Government were in the division on Friday. If the Government would hold to their promise the Labour Party would assist them in passing that measure into law during the present session. He appealed to his hon. friend to be content with the discussion which had taken place and withdraw his Resolution.

MR. CLYNES

said he had no desire to shirk a division, but in view of the very definite declaration with respect to a Mines (Eight Hours) Bill, and the many expressions of sympathy in regard to the application of the same principle to other trades and industries he asked leave to withdraw his Resolution.

SIB P. BANBURY

objected to the Motion being withdrawn. It was an extremely important Motion, and the House of Commons should have the courage to show whether they were in favour or against it. He had listened carefully to the speech made by the Under-Secretary, and he could hardly make head or tail of it. The hon. Member said that he (the speaker) was the only Member of the House who held the views he did, and that now even the Member for Preston had deserted him, and he gave as his authority the fact that the Member for Preston had written a book dealing with Socialism. The hon. Member for Preston said he had now changed all the views he then held, because experience had taught him he was wrong. He had come to the conclusion that the book he wrote eighteen years ago did not represent his opinions now, and his hon. friend and himself were still united upon every subject with the exception of free trade, but even on that he still held out hopes that he would be able to convert him.

*MR. LUPTON () Lincolnshire, Sleaford

said he would like to give the House the benefit of some calculations he had made as to the proportion of the hours in his life a man would be allowed to work if this Resolution were made law. A man's expectation of life was about forty-six years. Of these twelve were in childhood, and four illness and old age, leaving thirty years of work. Allowing for Saturday afternoons there were only forty-six hours in a week, and allowing for holidays and stoppages there remained only forty-two hours, and these spread over the forty six years averaged only about twenty-eight hours per week. There were 168 hours in a week——

EARL WINTERTON

rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question. Debate resumed—

*MR. LUPTON

continuing his speech said that calculating 168 hours in a week, that allowed one hour out of every six in a man's life for work, and if the man was married and his wife did not earn any money the proportion would be one hour out of every twelve hours during life of the couple. [Cries of "Divide, divide."] He could not be a party to a measure which would make it a penal offence for a man and his wife to do more than one hour's work for wages in every twelve hours.

And, it being Eleven of the Clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Monday next.