Even if the return could be secured of a majority to Parliament pledged to the proposal, would it be likely to be any more practicable to-day than it was in olden times? We are now an open market for the world. If hours were lessened and wages not reduced, imported articles from foreign countries would become much cheaper than our own goods, and would be bought to the detriment of English workers. Is it proposed by the promoters of a compulsory eight-hours working day that we should have Protection once more, and a prohibitory tariff placed upon all manufactured goods brought from abroad in order to keep up the price of English articles?
And, further, if it were practicable, would it be just? It would be unjust to the employers, who would have to pay present prices for lessened work; it would be unjust to the toilers, in that it would prevent them from making a higher income by working more; and it would be unjust to the consumers, in making them give a greater price for the commodities they required. Those who propose the compulsory eight hours would presumably wish wages to be maintained at the present standard; it would hardly be a popular cry if it would have the effect of bringing wages down.
If the Legislature is to interfere at all in this direction, the old proposal had better be put forward at once—
Eight hours’ work, eight hours’ play,
Eight hours’ sleep, and eight shillings a day.
This, at least, would have the merit of simplicity, and the more comprehensive proposal is as just and as practicable as the limited one now put forward. But even as to the limited one, it would be well to know how far and to what persons it would be applied. If the answer is “The working classes,” the further question is “How are these to be defined?” Sailors, for instance, are working men, but no one would seriously propose to apply the eight hours’ system to them. Granting they form an extreme exception, how are we to deal with shopkeepers and all whom they employ? The shopkeepers may be put aside as “capitalists” or “middle men,” and, therefore, undeserving of sympathy or consideration; but those behind their counters are distinctly workers. Are they all to be included in the eight hours’ proposal? If so, either one of two things: the shops will be shut sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, or their keepers will have to employ half as many hands again as they now do. “Good for the unemployed” may be replied, but who would have to pay for the additional labour? The consumers, of course, for no law is going to be passed keeping tea and sugar, hats and coats at their present price; and it would be those that live by weekly wages who would thereby suffer the most. And if, in order to obviate such consequences, all who work in shops were to be excluded from the benefits of an Eight Hours Act, it would be grossly unjust that tens of thousands of toilers, as much entitled to consideration as those employed in any factory or mill, should be kept at work in order to minister to the convenience of their fellows, set free from a portion of their labour by the action of Parliament.
And this leads to a consideration of the proposal that all shops, with certain limited exceptions, shall be closed at a given hour. For the general reasons applicable to other employments, any such proposition ought to be strongly opposed. It would be a grievous hardship to the smaller tradesmen, with many of whom the best chance of making a living is after the great establishments have closed, and an intolerable nuisance to the working classes who can only shop at what a legislator might consider a late hour. If attempted to be put in operation, it would necessitate the creation of an army of informers and inspectors to see that it was not evaded, and it would create an amount of annoyance to honest and hard-working traders for which no expected benefits from it could compensate. The small tradesman, threatened by the co-operative society on the one side and the “monster emporium” on the other, has enough to do to live, without being harassed by a law which he would be tempted constantly to evade, and which, if not evaded, might prove his ruin.
Much the same argument may be used concerning a point which, if the State interferes with the hours of labour, is certain to be raised, for it would have to be plainly stated whether all men would be forbidden under penalty to work overtime. If any such proposal is to be made, how is it to be carried out? Are we to have an additional body of inspectors, prying into every man’s house to see whether extra work was being done; or is the hateful system of “the common informer” to be revived for the special benefit of working men?
The argument is not weakened by the fact that, in various directions, not only has the Legislature passed enactments interfering with the amount and the price of labour, but that some of these continue in active operation. By means of the Factory Acts, for instance, it has directly intervened for the protection of women and children, and in so doing has been acting within that part of its duty which demands that it shall stand between the unprotected and overwhelming power. But there is no strict parallel between the case of the adult males of the working classes and that of those women and children who have to toil. The former have again and again shown their power of preserving their own interests by combination; and the evils of State interference where it can possibly be avoided appear sufficient to induce the belief that it is to combination that the working classes ought still to trust. If they cannot by this means put down overtime—and as yet they have not been able to do so—they cannot expect their countrymen to raise prices and run the risk of commercial ruin by doing for them what they ought to be able to do for themselves.