Hours of labour.
Complaints have been urged as to the effects of shortening the hours of labour; and it is certain that if a comparison be made between the amount raised and the total number of individuals employed, a less quantity is raised than in former years. It must not, however, be forgotten that high wages have attracted many untrained hands to the coal pits. It would be presumptuous in me to express an opinion as to the precise number of hours, which would constitute a fair working day in a coal pit. Mr. Macdonald, who has had actual experience as a working miner, declares that the present earnings could not be obtained with less than eight hours of work a day, and that no man, who laboured assiduously for that number of hours could work continuously six days a week at coal mining. It will be the duty of those, to whom the miners are in the habit of looking for guidance, to watch with care the course of trade. They know that the iron manufactures of this country can only prosper, so long as we are able to sell our iron abroad at cheaper rates than those demanded by foreign producers.
There are some who think that a limitation of the hours of labour is in itself an evil. I cannot share in this view. Because some may make an unwise use of their newly acquired advantages, that is no reason for returning to a former state of things; when, in the general depression of trade, an undue pressure was brought to bear upon the working man. ‘No doubt,’ says Sir Arthur Helps, ‘hard work is a great police agent. If everybody were worked from morning till night, and then carefully locked up, the register of crime might be greatly diminished. But what would become of human nature? Where would be the room for growth in such a system of things?’
The use of leisure requires education, and that education had not been freely given to the mechanics, miners, and puddlers, of former generations.