Sec. 10.  The “Eight Hours Day” Argument.—­The last proposal which deserves attention, is that which seeks to shorten the average working-day.  The attempt to secure by legislation or by combination an eight hours day, or its equivalent, might seem to affect the “sweating system” most directly, as a restriction on excessive hours of labour.  But so far as it claims to strike a blow at the industrial oppression of low-skilled labour, its importance will depend upon its effect on the demand and supply of that low-skilled labour.  The result which the advocates of an eight hours day claim for their measure, may be stated as follows—­

Assuming that low-skilled workers now work on an average twelve hours a day, a compulsory reduction to eight hours would mean that one-third more men were required to perform the same amount of work, leaving out for convenience the question whether an eight hours day would be more productive than the first eight hours of a twelve hours day.  Since the same quantity of low-skilled work would require to be done, employment would now be provided for a large number of those who would otherwise have been unemployed.  In fact, if the shorter day is accompanied by an absolute prohibition of over-time, it seems possible that work would thus be found for the whole army of “unemployed.”  Nor is this all.  The existence of a constant standing “pool” of unemployed was, as we saw, responsible for keeping the wages of low-skilled labour down to a bare subsistence wage.  Let this “pool” be once drained off, wages will rapidly rise, since the combined action of workers will no longer be able to be defeated by the eagerness of “outsiders” to take their work and wages.  Thus an eight hours day would at once solve the problem of the “work-less,” and raise the wages of low-skilled labour.  The effect would be precisely the same as if the number of competitors for work were suddenly reduced.  For the price of labour, as of all else, depends on the relation between the demand for it and the supply, and the price will rise if the demand is increased while the supply remains the same, or if the supply is decreased while the demand remains the same.  A compulsory eight hours day would practically mean a shrinkage in the supply of labour offered in the market, and the first effect would indisputably be a rise in the price of labour.  To reduce by one-third at a single blow the amount of labour put forth in a day by any class of workers, is precisely equivalent to a sudden removal of one-third of these workers from the field of labour.  We know from history that the result of a disastrous epidemic, like the Black Plague, has been to raise the wages and improve the general condition of the labourer even in the teeth of legal attempts to keep down wages.  The advocates of an Eight Hours Act assert that the same effect would follow from that measure.

Setting aside as foreign to our discussion all consideration of the difficulties in passing and enforcing an Eight Hours Act, or in applying it to certain industries, the following economic objection is raised by opponents to the eight hours movement—­