Art. VII.-EIGHT HOURS' DAY IN COAL MINES.

1. First Report of the Departmental Committee appointed to enquire into the Probable Economic Effect of a Limit of Eight Hours to the working day of Coal Miners. [Cd. 3427 and 3428 of 1907.]

2. Final Report of the Same. [Cd. 3505 of 1907.]

3. Reports of the Royal Commission on Coal Supplies. [Cd. 1725 of 1903, 1991 of 1904, 2361 of 1905, 2362 of 1905.]

4. The Conflicts of Capital and Labour. By George Howell, M.P. Second and revised edition. London : Macmillan, 1890.

5. A Shorter Working Day. By R. A. Hadfield and H. de B. Gibbins. London: Methuen, 1892.

6. Hours and Wages in Relation to Production. By Lujo Brentano. Translated by Mrs William Arnold. London: Sonnenschein, 1894.

7. The Eight Hours' Question. By John M. Robertson. London: Sonnenschein, 1893.

8. Coal Mines (Eight Hours) Bill. House of Commons, Bill 295 of 1907.

And other publications.

No commodity is of more direct and serious importance to the whole community than coal. It is the foundation alike of our industrial wealth and of our domestic comfort. Hence, dear coal is a matter which appeals to the business and bosom of every British householder, and dear coal has been one of the afflictions of the present winter. On the present occasion the dearness of coal is attributed to an abnormal export demand; but even while this is the case the country is confronted with a project of legislation the effect of which must be to place an additional burden on the cost of production, which is to say, on the future selling price. This project of legislation is the Coal Mines (Eight Hours) Bill, which, introduced too late for progress before the close of last session, is to be pressed through Parliament in the earliest possible days of the new session. A Miners' Eight Hours Bill is, of course, no novelty in Parliament, but the peculiarity of this Bill is that it is a Government measure. It was introduced by the Home Secretary, Mr Herbert Gladstone, and the Government

are pledged to carry it through. The question has thus assumed a more serious aspect than ever it had before; and we have now to consider, not merely the ethical and economic features of legislative interference with the hours of adult labour, but the inevitable economic effect of the legal limitation of work in coal mines upon the industries and commerce of the country.

Of recent years there has been a growing tendency in all trades and industries to insist upon a reduction of the hours of labour. This was commented upon so long ago as 1877 by Mr George Howell, M.P., who then, and also in later editions of his book on 'The Conflicts of Capital and Labour,' commended the principle of the early-closing movement. The curious feature to him was the constant yearning amongst working men for an eight-hour day. At all their festivals and carnival gatherings there was a standing toast that was ever enthusiastically received: 'the Four Eights-eight hours' work, eight hours' play, eight hours' sleep, and eight shillings a day.' This was a variant from King Alfred's programme of eight hours for work, eight for sleep, and eight for recreation and improvement. But while Mr Howell accepted the general principle of the eight-hour day, he, as a leading trade unionist, roundly declared that British workmen as a rule were opposed to legislative enactment for regulating the hours of labour and conditions of work.* The demand for legislative enactment is of recent date, and it originated, according to Mr Howell, mainly with men inexperienced in labour movements and almost wholly unacquainted with the history of labour struggles.

'The miners' representatives are careful to explain that they limit their demand to an eight-hour day for miners as being an exceptional occupation. Not so the "Socialists." They declare for a universal eight-hour day, first of all for employés in Government establishments and those employed by municipal and local authorities, then for miners, and for such other industries as may be selected in detail as the most promising for attack. If an eight-hour day is to be enacted at all, their position is the most illogical. To legislate for classes or for sections of the community has been over and over again condemned by working men as a vicious policy.'

* Cf. passim 'The Conflicts of Capital and Labour,' by George Howell, M.P., chap. ii, vi, pp. 40, etc. (Macmillan),

Perhaps so; but since Mr Howell wrote these words working men, or political labourists, have been contending over and over again for special legislation for themselves-e.g. the Trades Disputes Act, the Workmen's Compensation Act, etc. Mr Howell, however, recognised (in the edition of his book published in 1890) that the movement in favour of the legislative enactment of an eight hours' day was growing and might so spread among the trade unionists as to become an element of danger politically, socially, and industrially.' Mr Howell, it must be observed, did not object to the shortening of the hours of labour by any or every 'wise effort,' short of legislation. No sufficient reason, he maintained, had been given for inaugurating special class legislation for the mining population with regard to the hours of labour. They had shown themselves of all workers the best able to take care of themselves. In Durham and Northumberland they had secured less than an eight hours' day, and what had been done by miners in these districts could be done by miners in other districts. And on the eighthour question generally Mr Howell remarked:

The special point too often lost sight of is that the more leisure a man has the more money he requires to be able to use that leisure advantageously to himself and to others. Any reduction in wages, therefore, approximating to the value of the reduced working hours, would be disastrous; consequently it is usually stipulated or contended that the wages shall remain the same, notwithstanding any decrease in the hours of labour. Speaking generally, wages cannot be reduced without injuriously affecting trade, for the working classes constitute the mass of the consumers in all countries. Increased leisure to be of any benefit to the workers and to the community must be accompanied by a higher standard of living; and this is only possible with higher wages and more regular employment. The latter, it is urged, will result from an eight-hour day. Doubtless to some extent it will. But the amount of wages is the determining factor in all conditions of industrial life. Wherever the men can by combination effect a reduction in working hours there the circumstances will be suited to the change.'

In emphasising his special point' Mr Howell struck deeper than he knew. In the case of the miners there is no proposition or disposition to reduce the day-wage

with the reduction of working hours in the day. But in mining the rate of wages is graded by the price of coal, not by the demand for labour. More miners may be drawn into employment by the reduction of the day's work of each, but that will, in the first place, add to the prime ton-cost of production, and the extra cost must be added to the sale price. This we shall presently show ; but though we are dealing with the purely economic aspects of the question it is well to point out that the average miner has already practically as much leisure as he can use advantageously to himself and others.

When the Ten Hours Bill was before the House of Commons, that great tribune of the people, John Bright, almost passionately declared that,

'believing as he did in his heart that the proposition was most injurious and destructive of the best interests of the country; believing that it was contrary to all principles of sound legislation, that it was a delusion practised upon the working classes, that it was advocated by those who had no knowledge of the economy of manufactures; believing that it was one of the worst measures ever passed in the shape of an Act of the Legislature, and that if it were now made law the necessities of trade and the demands alike of the workmen and of the masters would compel them to retrace the steps they had taken; believing this, he felt compelled to give the motion for the second reading of this Bill his most strenuous opposition.'*

This was an expression of laissez-faire economics; but at the same time it is well to recall that the industrial belief of the period was that the profit of manufacture was made in the last hour, and that the shortening of the working day was equivalent to stopping the factory.

'How is it (asks Mr Brentano) that it is not the countries which have the most perfect factory legislation, the shortest working day, and the highest wages that raise the cry that their competing power is threatened, but those in which the hours are longest and the wages lowest ?'

Well, one's answer to that is that it isn't. The loudest cries against foreign competition emanate from this country; and now the Government propose to give still

*Hansard, third series, vol. 89, col. 1148.

further assistance to foreign competition. The same writer says that

'if one reads the discussions before the conclusion of a treaty of commerce in which the reduction of a customs duty is in question, one is regularly met in Germany by the argument that the lower wages and longer hours of Germany make it possible for her to compete with the more advanced England.' But a little further on he adds: As a matter of fact high wages and short hours are a cause of England's advance, while it is the contrary that causes our [German] backwardness, and the same holds good of our relations to America and to Australia.'*

If high wages and short hours are the cause, or even a cause, of our industrial advance there need be no practical limit to our progress, and probably Germany would not weep if we made the attempt.

Prof. J. E. C. Munro, writing a few years ago on The Probable Effects of an Eight Hours' Day on the Production of Coal and the Wages of Miners' in 'The Economic Journal' (i, 248), said:

"The reduction in the hours of miners during the last fifty years has been very great, and though it has occurred during a period in which many legislative restrictions have been placed on mines, yet the production of coal has steadily increased. In 1854 the output was 64 million tons; in 1889 it was 176 million tons. It is quite evident from these figures that any tendency towards a decrease of the output arising from the action of the Legislature or the reduction of hours has been altogether counterbalanced by other forces tending to increase the output. There is no reason to suppose that the operation of these forces has come to an end.'

But with all respect to Prof. Munro this is stating a non sequitur. There is no reason to suppose that the forces which operated in the past have not come to an end. If the output is by some unknown influence to increase as the hours of working decrease, why not come down to six or three hours or even one hour a day? There are, however, stern limits between productive industry and unproductive industry, which is idleness.

*Hours and Wages in Relation to Production,' by Lujo Brentano. Translated by Mrs William Arnold. London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1894.