Will, however, the experiment be forced upon us? Who can deny this positively, in face of the irresistibly advancing democratic tendencies of constitutional right in all countries? If it be forced upon us, it may, and most probably will, end in a great disappointment of the hopes of the Labour world.
It is perfectly clear that the decision of the matter rests with England. If this country does not lead the way, if she hesitates to enforce it in the face of the competition of American, Asiatic, and soon, perhaps, of African labour, the experiment of a general eight hours day for the rest of Western Europe is not to be thought of. But in England it is precisely the aristocratic portion of the labouring classes—the “old trades’ unionists,” the skilled labour—that has not not yet been won over to the side of the legal eight hours day, and it is doubtful whether it will yield to the leaders of unskilled labour: Burns, Tillett, and the rest. At the September Congress at Liverpool, in 1890, the Trade Unionist party brought forward in opposition to the general legal eight hours day, the eight hours optional day fixed by contract, in the motion of Patterson, if I have rightly understood the proposal. The motion was defeated by a majority of only eight (181 to 173).[12] If the legal eight hours day is rejected, does that preclude for all time the possibility of shortening the time of labour to less than the 10 or 11 hours factory day at present in force? By no means.
The fundamental error in the general legal working-day as it now stands, lies not in the assumption that it will gradually lead to a further shortening of the working-day, but in the assumption that the legal maximum working-day will bring about suddenly, generally, and uniformly results which in the natural course of economic and social development only the maximum working-day of free contract is calculated to bring about, and this gradually, step by step, tentatively, and by irregular stages; that is to say, that so material a shortening of the maximum working-day cannot possibly be attained to generally by any other means than by the shortening by free contract, here a little and there a little, of the maximum working-day within each industry and each country, and this equally outside as well as within the limits of factory and quasi-factory business. We may at all events be assured that the substitution of the legal eight hours day for the factory working-day of 10 or 11 hours is not the next step to be taken, but rather the further development of the maximum working-day of free contract by means of the continuous wage struggle between the organised forces of Capital and Labour to suit the unequal and varying conditions of place, time, and employment, in the various classes of industry.
There is no objection to be offered to this manner of bringing about the shortening of the working-day. No one has any right or even any fair pretext for opposing it. No one need fear anything from the results of a general working-day introduced by this method, even if it should ultimately develop into the legalised maximum working-day of less than 10 hours.
There is the less reason for fear, as the working classes themselves have the greatest interest in avoiding any step forward which would afterwards have to be retraced; the majority will prefer, within the limits of overwork, additional and more laborious working time with more wages, to additional recreation time and less wages.
Least of all does Capital need to look forward with jealousy and suspicion to this visionary eight hours day which may lie in the lap of the future, but which will have come about, only gradually through a series of reductions by contract of the working-day, each successive rise of wage and each successive shortening of the working-day having been occasioned by a steady improvement in technique, and a healthy increase of population. The sooner some such movement as this of the eight hours day, fixed by contract, ultimately perhaps by legislation, takes a firm hold, the more striking will be the improvement of technique, the more normal will become the growth of population, and the more peaceful and law-abiding will be the social life of the immediate future. Hence, I think we may contemplate the eight hours movement without agitation, and discuss it impartially, provided of course that the Labour Democracy is not permitted to tear down all constitutional limitations upon its sole and undisputed sway.
The most important contribution that this chapter offers to the Theory and Policy of Labour Protection is then to show that the eight hours day of wage policy may be rejected, and may still be rejected, even if the 10 hours day, demanded on purely State protective grounds, is adopted. The foregoing discussion will show conclusively that there is no question of the State pledging itself to Socialism by the purely protective regulation of the working-day.
Even from the standpoint of Social Democracy, the eight hours day as now demanded is not properly speaking a Socialistic demand at all. It may be that some of the leaders of the movement may seek by its means to weaken and undermine the capitalist system of production, but the demand does not in principle deny the right of private property in the means of production. The general eight hours day is an effort to favourably affect wages on the basis of the existing capitalist order. Not only the 11 hours or 10 hours day, but even the eight hours day would be no index of the triumph of Socialism. It may rather be supposed that the leaders of the movement thrust forward the eight hours day in order to be able to conceal their hand a little longer in the promised fundamental alteration of the “system of production.” Therefore, we again repeat, even in face of the proclamation of a general eight hours day made at the “World’s Labour Holiday,” of May 1st, 1890, “There is no occasion to give the alarm!”
4. The maximum working-day and the “normal working-day.”
What we understand by the maximum working-day—limitation (whether on grounds of protective policy or of wage policy) of the maximum amount of labour allowed to be performed within the astronomical day, by confining it within a certain specified number of hours—might also be called, and indeed used more frequently to be called, the “normal working-day.” It is better, however, not to employ this alternative designation. When the word “normal working-day” is used in a special sense, it means something quite different from the maximum working-day; for it is a unit of social measurement by means of which it is supposed that we can estimate all labour performance however varying, both in personal differences and in differences of kind of work, so that we may arrive at a socially normal valuation of labour, and a socially normal scale of valuation of products. It is an artificial common denominator for the regulation of wages and prices which perhaps may be attained under the capitalist system, but which ultimately points to a socialistic commonwealth. The maximum working-day of protective right might exist side by side with the regulation of a “normal working-day,” but it has no essential connection with it.