Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-01-31 00:00:00

THE HOURS OF. LABOUR

Tlizsagitation that is on foot for the reduction.
of the-daily period of labour in certain occupations
to nine hours a day, is not one, we humbly think,
that is calculated to► benefit the working elapses.
At present the clamour appears to proceed mainly
from some of those: engaged in the several building
trades. They had another noisy meeting in
London a_ few days since, and its. proceedings
were certainly not altogether of a character to
afford any hope• either of the object being a good
one, or of those- who are urging it on being the
kind of persons likely to prove the working man's
real friends and benefactors. This fact, in such a
case, is a very important one.. We know nothing
of the parties beyond what they show us of them-
selves. But this were quite enough to create dis-
trust. They are clamourers agitators. We
should very much suspect that they were men
wha are fonder of that pursuit than of their
regular business callings. And it is as the sincere
well-wishers of the working classes ourselves,
that we cannot refrain from cautioning them
against the machinations of those who neglect or
forsake their legitimate avocations, and take up
the profession of traders in grievances. They are
too often the patrons, nay, the promoters of
tumults. " Strikes" very generally owe their
origin, and their continuance, to such characters.
They will not regard the salutary precept,—
" That ye study to be quiet, and to do your own
business, and to work with your own hands. "
Their whole course runs counter to it. They
study to be noisy and turbulent—they are forward
and meddlesome in other men's affairs—and they
seek to live, not on the work of .their own hands,
but on those whose exaggerated, and often pre-
tended wrongs, they abandon their lawful calling
to traffic upon.

• We do not dispute the right of every working
man, be his trade what it may, to make the best
arrangements he can with his employer, whether
as to time or wages. But then neither must we
question the right of the employer to do the same.
Their relation to each other rests upon a contract,

or mutual promise. They enter into a mutual
engagement. Each knows, or ought to know, his
own interest, and he seeks to secure it, in the
agreement, as much as it is practicable to do.
Whatever is expected on one side, and known to
be so expected by the other, is to be deemed a part
of the contract. Such engagements are altogether
voluntary, on either side. The employer's autho-
rity over his workman extends no further than the
terms or equitable construction of the contract will
justify. If his terms are, say ten working hours
a day, the workman enters into his contract with
him for such daily amount of his time, at wages
proportionate thereto, according to the present
current rate of payment for such labour or
skill as he has for so many hours to bestow.
The employer of labour is bound, certainly
on moral and religious grounds, to have
a becoming care and concern for those he
employs. If masters expect good will from their
workpeople, or their servants in any capacity, they
must "do the same thing unto them." The pro-
ducers of what they turn to more profitable account
than generally accrues to the labour and toil of it,
are on every principle of justice, and equity, and
benevolence, entitled not only to their due reward,
but to proper respect and consideration.. "The
labourer is worthy of his hire,"—worthy of it in
itself, and of all that it involves. There are: fear-
ful judgments denounced against such employers
as " oppress the hireling in his wages." So. far
from oppressing him, indeed, he ought to encou-
rage and sustain him, remembering that it is his
industryewhich is the basis of his own prosperity.
It is that which provides him with all the means-
at his disposal.. A man may be a great land-
owner; but it is. not his merely being such that
makes him rich, to any practical i purpose ; for it is
not the land, but the labour employed upon it,
that gives him his rents, without which he would
probably be poorer than the labourer himself. Surely,
then, the one is entitled to consideration from the
other. Dr, PALEY has put the case- of. employers
and the employed thus pleasantly-, yet forcibly,
inshis " Political Philosophy": --
A party of friends Setting out together upenua journey,
soon found it to be the best for all sides that, • while they
are upon the road, one. of their company should wait
upon.the rest ; another ride forward to seek out lodgings
and. entertainment ; a third carry the portmanteau ; a
fourth take charge of the horses; a fifth bear the purse,
conduct and direct the route;_ not forgetting; however,
that,- as they were equal and independent when, they set
oat, so-they are all to return to a level again,at their
journey's end. The same-regard and respect;: the same
forbearance, lenity, and reserve in using their service ;
the same mildness in delivering commands; the same
study= to make their journey comfortable andpleasant,
which he whose lot it was to direct the rest would, in
common decency, think himself bound to observe towards
them,. ought we to show towards those who,. in the
casting of the parts of human society, happen, to be
placed, within our power, or-to depend upon us.
Of course it is the journey. of life, which we have
all to, travel, that.is here supposed, and ins which
every one is to do his- duty, according- to the
station therein.to which it has pleased Providence
to call

But there- is nothing in all this to make it
becoming in workmen either to dictate the - hours
of labour which their employers are to adopt, or
to seek to compel their fellow-workm,en .to,' insist
upon such hours. The employer has a right to
determine that point for himself—so long as he does
so reasonably and fairly—wherever he employs
labour forstated periods, .and pays for it accordingly,
—and even where he contracts for piece-work, if
irregularity or dilatoriness in what was to .be done
might be inconvenient or injurious. Of course the
engagement is altogether a voluntary one, on both
sides,—there is to be no compulsion. The agita-
tors for- the " nine hours' movement;"- as it is
called—that is, for• having nine hours the daily
period of their labour—pretend that the- present
period; of ten hours: is. oppressive and: injurious,
and they have passed. a resolution, that " the
present number of hours devoted to.labour are far
too many, both for the mental and physical
powers of the working classes, and that unless a
re-adjustment be levised, the health• and intelli-

gence of the, artisans must become seriously im-
paired, muchl to , the disadvantage of the general
welfare of• society." But we. do. not think
they will obtain any very general concur-
rence in such an. idea as this.. The reasonable-
ness of ten. hours, out of the twenty-four;
devoted. to labour, has been. tested success-
fully through,too many ages. of the world to be
resisted, or questioned, with any propriety at this
time of day.. But, at any rate, they who mis-
takely think otherwise, and seek, however
impracticably, to have their own industry limited
in that way, have no; right to intimidate_ those
who are not so unreasonable or so fanciful as
themselves, and are content with the hollers which
tl7 and their fOrefathers before them have.
always devoted to their daily toil., If the

less industrious portion are secured in earning the
same wages for nine hours as they now get for ten
hours a day, all well and good. But it is a
bargain to which the employer of labour must be
a party, as well as the labourer himself. And if
the other; either from finding he cannot afford it,
or that his business would be deranged or injured
by it, is averse to such a limitation, with its
unavoidable concomitants,—or if other workpeople
are unwilling to concur in the proposal,--they
have no right to have recourse to an agitation
which must involve disunion and dissent in their
trade, if not intimidation and violence, to endea,

your to effect their purpose.• In our humble
opinion they are wrong in the object they seek ;
but that they are wrong in the course of turbulent
agitation they are pursuing, with the view of
forcing their object, there can be no question
whatever,—and they are therefore the true
friends of the working classes who discourage
such a proceeding.