The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-26
wages and Hours of Labor.
FROM he N. Z Tribune.

from ute W. Z, 1ftOU16.
Congress is righteously bent on retrenching
the national expenditures, and everybody says
thati is just what ought to be. But when we
come to details, all who have established rela-
tions OF suction with the Federal Treasury
naturally cry out--"Not here not here
flourish your broom somewhere else" The
Department clerks want their "twentS per
cent. extra" for another year, though many
elements of living are far lower than they
have been; new railroads press for grants and
guarantees; Secretary Welles wants forty
seven millions wherewith to run the navy in a
time Of profound peace, when the whole Gov
ernment used to be run for a fourth Of that
sum, within the recollection of most of US. OF
course he won't get it. But we are startled
when we read that Congress, after resolving
to retrench earnestly in this quarter, has re-
coied, and concluded to let the workmen in
the Navy Yard be kept on two months longer,
because work is scarce, and times hard out
side. In other words, the Government is to
pay money it has not, for work that it don't
want, in order to keep certain persons en-
ployed in the Navy Yards who apprehend that
they could find no work-or none to their
lik ng-elsewhere.
Against this and all kindred schemes for
pauperizing labor, we firmly protest. No true
man will wish to be kept at work under such
circumstances. If he is to be a pauper let
him be pauper outright-not a pauper in dis
guise. And keeping a man at work, not be-
cause you need his work, but because he needs
the pay for it, is pauperizing him-making
him dependant, parasite, hanger-on,
instead of an independent, self-subsisting
freeman.
1t seems to us that the time has fairly come
for giving the eight-hour system fair trial
by common consent. That is to say:-There
being too little work in the cities and most of
the manufacturing districts to employ all who
are willing to work ten hours per day, let the
days work be reduced to eight hours with cor
responding pay. If this were done, tens of
thousands of families would be saved from
destitution otherwise inevitable.
We never believed nor taught that ten
hours pay could be given or exacted for eight
hours work. We have never been confident
that the time had yet arrived when eight
hours work per day from those who work at
all would suffice. Yet, since the progress of
invention, of machinery, of economizing forces,
is so rapid and constant, the time must surely
come wherein eight hours work per day will
produce more than twelve hours work per
day once did, or than ten hours work per day
| now do. May we not now begin to consider
! when this result is to be attained
Human wants multiply and expand with
the means of gratifying them. The mechanic
of 1867 wears clothes that king would have
esteemed too fine, too costly, a few centuries
ago. If he spends nothing for alcoholic drinks
and other baneful indulgenoies, he may soon
surround himself with furniture, books prints,
etc. ETC., that a nobleman would once have
envied. But may he not wisely prefer to live
more frugally, less lavishly, than he does,
and enjoy more leisure When labor shall
produce twice its present average product, may
not the laboring classes wisely prefer to fare
less sumptuously and tax their powers less
severely, and enjoy more of the society of
their families and friends-more leisure for
moral and intellectual improvement
1t does seem to US that it would be wise and
proper, by way Of experiment, to retrench the
hours of labor for the next two or three
months, and thus afford chance of employ
ment to thousands who must otherwise stand
idle and go hungry. When spring opens,
bringing a large increase of employment on
every side, it will be time to consider whether
to persist in working short-time for correspond
ing wages, or 60 back to ten hours and the old
wages, if these can be had. But the prospect
now is that labor in cities must be cheaper
henceforth, or there must be a vast migration
| from the cities and manufacturing communi-
ties to the interior and the West-a great diver
| sion of human effort from the workshops and
the factories to the improvement and cultiva-
tion of the soil.