Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1866-03-21
from the Cincinnati Commercially
Some Results of LeSsenIng Our
Labor.

There is n consideration connected
with the demand for a legal limitation OF
the hours of labor, which the champions
of the eight hour movement have ignored.
That is, that the same principle which
would justify government in prescribing
eight hours as the maximum of a days
work, will also justify fixing it at six or
four hours. Once admit the principle OF
the right of government to interfere with
the subject of wages and labor, and there
is no limit where that interference can be
held to stop. There is no difference, so
far as the principle of equity is concerned,
between the States prescribing that eight
hours shall constitute a full days work,
and prescribing that FIVE dollars, or two
dollars shall constitute a full days wages.
Suppose the Legislature votes that eight
hours shall be a full days work to-day
what security have we that it will not
vote for six hours tomorrow? and what
assurance is there that it will not next
undertake to prescribe, not only how
long, but for how much, the laborer shall
be entitled to work?
How would our mechanics like 1t, if the
Legislature of five years ago had passed a
law prescribing that one dollar and a half
should be held to be the legal wages for a
days labor? Yet that sum was the maxi
mum paid for ordinary laborers. Is there
any body foolish enough to believe that
the laborer of to-day would be satisfied
with that p~ittance, Just because the law
prescribed it? Or, to take the other side
of the case, supposed the Legislature should
now pass an act. fixing three dollars per
day as the legal rate for day labor; does
any one suppose that employers and mas
ter workmen would be satisfied to pay it,
after the market price of labor had fallen
to two dollars? Yet the State has Just as
much of reason and right on its side, in
legislating that every lsborer shall receive
three dollars or one dollar and a half per
day, and nc more, that it has in legisla-
ting that he shall work eight hours PEI
day, and nc more.
And this brings US to what is the unan-
sWerable argument against all this legisla-
tive tinkering with the labor questions,
VIZ: that its interference, being purely
arbitrary and unnatural, produces more
harm than good. 1t sets up q standard
as fixed, which can in no wise be main
tanned; and all attempts to maintain it
viii tend only to discord and discomfort.
Such has been the uniform result of all
attempts to regulate wages by law, in the
countries of Europe. The earliest efforts
at Interference in Great Britain were in
the interest of capital, and produced stat
utes of labor fixing the wages at which
laborers were bound to work, and which
it was made penal for them to exceed
In those times the object was to depress
wages below the market rate. Yet these
statutes did employers no good, while
producing widespread dissatisfaction on
the part of the employed. The SO called
"allotment-system" of England, by which
the laboring classes were to be so greatly
protected and benefited, has proved q
failure. So did the natural workshop"
system established in France, by the
Republican Government of 1S48, by
which it was recognized as q part of the
duty of the Government to provide re-
muneratiYe labor to every man who did
not otherwise find it. The 'diroit de travaiF
insisted on by LOUIS BLANC, and other
socialist members of the Provisional Gov
eminent, meant simply the right of all
workers to be provided with labor at prop
er wages by the State, and what should
be deemed the proper wages to be deter
mined by the Government. The result
might easily have been foreseen. The
whole industry of France was utterly dis
organized, production for a time came al
most to an end, employers were ruined,
and the employed, rudely wakened by
want from their dream of social equality,
found the Government workshops an
ignHs fatuus, which fed whenever followed,
and all their hopes of a bettered condi-
ton vanished like an exhalation of mist
before the morning sun.
Centuries of experience show that the
government which NEEDLES with the
wages or the hours of labor, or busies it.
self with futile endeavors to regulate
wages or profits, attempts an Office for
which 1t is unfit, Injuries itself, and in
hicts loss on the community. The prop
er functions of government consists in
giving protection and freedom to all, free
dom to industry, freedom to capital, and
in guaranteeing both in the enjoyment
of the gains which fair and unrestrained
mony Of political economists, from ADAM
SMITH to JOHN STUART MILL, is to this
effect. Says the later, writing of the true
sphere of the government:
The great majority of things are worse done by
the intervention Of government than the individu-
ais most Interested in the matter would do them. or
cause them to be done if left to themselves. The
grounds Of this truth are expressed with tolerabie
e~xactness IN the popular doctrine that people IN
derStsnd their own business and their own inter
~ DcllcTs hlu care JOY LuGm more, rQAQ the EON-I
eminent does. or can be expected TO do. There are
good rea sons for restric ting to the nsrroweSt COM
pass the intervention Of a public authority in the
business of a community. Letting atone. in short.
should be the general practice; every departure
from it, unless required by some great good. is a
certain evil"
We can assure our legislators of one re-
suit which would follow q reduction of the
legal hours oflabor toeight: alarge number
of employers would at oDce make their
J.. -.-f.- IL. z..A.I l..
States where no such letters upon indus
trial enterprise exists, or to be feared. !
If they think it would be wise for Ohio !
to enter upon q course of legislation, the
certain effects of which will be to dis
ital, they have the unquestioned power
of so doing But it is for the people to
revise their judgement, as they surely !
will in the light of q dearly bought ex-
perience, if the eight-hour bill now be- !
fore the Legislature becomes q law. The
manufacturer or master-workman who is
compelled to run on short time for full !
wages, or whose effective means of pro- i
duction are at once reduced twenty per
cent. by this law, will remove his work
shops to a region where freedom of trade
Just as surely SIS it is the interest
of all men to do as well as they can with
their means. When this exodus of cap !
ital from our borders takes place, what
will become of the laboreIs whose inter t
ests our legislative reformers profess to ;
have so much at heart? They must ell
ther follow their employers and continue I
to labor as at present, but with the disad- /
vantage of an expensive and unwelcome t
removal, or thet must submit to a heavy ,
reduction of wages, sure to follow by the j
withdrawal of a large proportion of the
demand forlabor. This isl mere theory /,
it is a fact as certain as the law of grav- {
~itation; you can not reduce the means of
production in any place twenty per cent.
without driving away capital from that 4,
place. And you can not drive away cap .
ital without lessering the demand for Ia 7
Dor. and diminishing its wages. =
Narar until oil the Laws of nnlitical Z