Hours And Wages

SInce lifty years ago there has been ïiere, as well as in Englana, a great reduction in the hour3 of labor. But this was not aecoinplished for the pleasure of the wage earners; it was accompliahed because experience proved that aftor a certain state of fatigue had been reached, labor was unprofitable. The hours may be stil] further redueed. A targe volume of evidence has been collected in the last few years to show that production is even more económica! Witï an eight hour than with a nine hour or a ten hour day. Experiments in this direction are in progress. II wbat is clainied for the eight hour day be proved- and it has been partially proved- the eight hour day will come into general use. But otherwise, no amount of ethics or philanthropy 01 Christianity will bring it in. Men are aJways, everywhere, trying to get all tbey can. If they can get more by working ten hours, than by working eïght, ten hours will they work. Wages have been largely increased m the past fifty years, but this is due purely to economie causes. The "princ-ple of Christianity which attaches an absolute value, greater than that of all fearthly things, to a human being as siich," has not induced any employer to crease wages. It can be shown that tnis principie has led to the improved condition of the laboring classes, but it has done so in accordance with economie laws, and not by suspending tliem, or violating them, of substitutiug benevolent or selfish instincts. Inv.-ntion and the extensión of human control over the powers of nature have onormously increased the amount oí product, of wealth, that can be got by the labor of each individual. This lacrease has been distributed, and the labor has got part of it; it is not material to this discussion whether he has got his share, or less, or, as some persons believe, more. The material fact ia that he has been paid his increased wages out of an increased quantity oí production, and not out of an accumulsted fund of altruism. No amount ol elhics or philanthropy would have been a Me to pay him increased wages had not seme one's inventive skill enabled him to weave more yards of cloth and roll more pounds of iron in a week than hi? Si-andfather did.