As to the second argument, it is probable enough that the legal eight hours day would accelerate the industrial evolution, which is enabling the large well-equipped factory to crush out the smaller factory.  As we have seen that the worst evils of “sweating” are associated with a lower order of industrial organization, any cause which assisted to destroy the small workshop and the out-work system, would be a benefit.  But as the economic motive of such improved organization with increased use of machinery, would be to save human labour, it is doubtful whether a quickening of this process would not act as a continual feeder to the band of unemployed, by enabling employers to dispense with the services of even this or that body of workers whose work is taken over by brute machinery.

The net value of these two eight hours arguments is doubtful.  The real weight of the discussion seems to rest on the third.

If the movement for improving the industrial condition of the working classes does proceed as rapidly in other industrial countries as in our own, we shall have nothing to fear from foreign competition, since expenses of production and prices will be rising equally among our own.  If there is no such equal progress in other nations, then the industrial gain sought for the working classes of this country by a shorter day cannot be obtained, though any special class or classes of workers may be relieved of excessive toil at the expense of the community as a whole.  Government employes, and that large number of workers who cannot be brought into direct competition with foreign labour, can receive the same wages for shorter hours, provided the public is willing to pay a higher price for their protected labour.

In conclusion, it may be well to add that the economic difficulties which beset this question cannot be lightly set aside by an assertion that the same difficulties were raised by economists against earlier factory legislation, and that experience has shown that they may be safely disregarded.  It is impossible to say how far the introduction of humane restrictions upon the exploitation of cheap human labour has affected the aggregate production of wealth in England.  It has not prevented the growth of our trade, but very possibly it has checked the rate of growth.  If the mere accumulation of material wealth, regardless alike of the mode of production or of the distribution, be regarded as the industrial goal, it is quite conceivable that a policy of utter laissez faire might be the best means of securing that end.  Although healthy and happy workers are more efficient than the half-starved and wholly degraded beings who slaved in the uninspected factories and mines during the earlier period of the factory system, and still slave in the sweater’s den, it may still be to the interest of employers to pay starvation wages for relatively inefficient work, rather than pay high wages for a shorter day’s work to more efficient workers.  It is to the capitalist a mere sum in arithmetic; and we cannot predict that the result will always turn in favour of humanity and justice.