Lastly, the question arises whether the maximum working-day under consideration can, or shall, be extended beyond factory and quasi-factory labour. Such extension has not as yet taken place.
Should such extension ensue, the limits of duration could hardly be fixed so low for intermittent work, and for less laborious work (both are found in trading industry and in traffic and transport business), as for factory labour and the business of workshops where power machinery is used. England, which is apparently the only country which regulates the hours of young persons even in trade, has adopted for them a 12 hours working-day.
Further examination plainly shows that a simple uniform regulation would be impossible in view of the extraordinary variety of non-continuous and non-industrial occupations and handicrafts.
But in general it cannot be disputed that the need for regulation may also exist in trading and in handicrafts, e.g. in bakeries (not machine-worked) no less than in household industry. Here we often find that the working hours are of longer duration than in factories and workshops. In Berlin, figures have been obtained showing the percentage of firms in which the working-day is more than 11 hours; and the percentage of female and of male workers employed for more than 11 hours.
| Number of Firms. | Of Male Workers. | Of Female Workers. | |
| In wholesale business | 4.31 | 3.51 | 4.46 |
| In handicraft | 18.85 | 15.52 | 6.09 |
| In trade | 64.77 | 54.94 | — |
The necessity for extending protection beyond the factories cannot be lightly set aside; in trade, excessive hours of labour are exacted from workers not belonging to the family, and in continuous and intermittent employments, and in household industry they are probably exacted from the relatives. The same thing occurs in handicrafts. It is not impossible for the matter to be taken in hand; but at present it meets with many difficulties and much opposition. Only the factory and quasi-factory maximum working-day for adults belong to the immediate present.
3. The maximum working-day of protective policy and of wage policy; general maximum working-day; eight hours movement.
The general maximum working-day of 8 hours, as demanded since May 1st, 1890, rests admittedly on grounds, not merely of protective policy, but also of wage-policy.
In so far as it is demanded on grounds of protective policy, it would call for little remark. The only question would be, whether on grounds of protective policy the maximum working-day is an equal necessity for all industrial work, and whether this necessity must really be met by fixing 8 hours, and not 11 or 10 hours, as the limits of daily work, a question which, in my opinion, can only be answered in the negative.
The new and special feature which comes to the fore in the demand for the general eight hours day, is the impress which (its advocates claim) will be made by it on the wages question, and this in the interests of the wage-labourer. The universality and the shortness of the maximum working-day would lead, they say, to an artificial diminution of the product of labour.