The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-05-02

greater part Of his conscious life in the effort
to maintain existence is o thing SO monstrous
that only long habit blinds US to It's
folly and wrong The highest qualities OF nu
mainly can only develop when the material
wants are satisfied, the most precious flower OF
existence can only bloom in leisure and yet, to
the great majority OF men in our highest civil
ization, real leisure is thing unknown. For
the few hours of the working day which remain
to the man whose faculties have been on the
strain for ten or twelve hours, are not leisure;
nor yet is there leisure in the days, and weeks,
and months of involuntary idleness which the
vicissitudes of our industrial organizations
force upon hundreds of observation-disclosures
accompanied by wearing uncertainty and rack
ing anxiety more exhausting than toll Tor
true leisure the faculties must be fresh and
care must be absent
Accord ing to such authorities as Professor
Thomas Rogers, the working day in England six
centuries ago was only eight hours, yet even in
the absence of all the inventions and improve
ments that since that time have so enormously
increased the productive power OF labor. the
working class enjoyed rude comfort and an ex-
emption from the harassing dread of not being
able to make living which, despite the low level
of civilization. made their condition in all the
essentials of healthful and happy human life far
superior to that of millions of their descendants
in this wonderful nineteenth century.
What indeed. we may we'll ask, has the ma
terial progress of which are so boastful, real
~ done for the masses of men, if to get what is
after all only bare living they must work long
er than their fathers, six centuries ago. Sure
ly it is time that the great body OF people should,
in increased leisure and lessened care, begin to
reap some advantage of all that the generations
have done to render matter plastic and force
0bedient to human will.
Without this, our civilization is but delu-
sion our advance but a toll of Sysiphus. Aye,
it is worse. The tendency of the minute divis
ion of labor that is becoming more and more
characteristic of modern industrial methods is
to make the task of the individual workman more
monotonous and less to bring into play those
higher qualities of judgment and skill whose ex-
ercise is necessary to intellectual health and de-
velopment. The workman is becoming mere
tender of machinery, and his work the doing
over and over again of some single one of the
many processes required for the production OF
single article. This tendency which is of the
nature OF modern industrial improvements,
would not be. of itself, to be regretted, if the
gain in leisure to the workman was anything like
commensurate with the gain in productive pow
er. But If it involves no reduction of working
hours, its effect must be to degrade the worker,
and. in spite of public schools. TO lessen popular
intelligence Even if the reduction of the work
ing day involved temporary decrease IN the
production of wealth it would still be a meas
ure of wisdom and prudence But IT does moth
ing of the sort
When glut and stagnation are popularity at
tributed to ''overproduction." when hundreds of
thousands who would gladly be at work stand
idle, q reduction of honrs, even ii 1t proportion
ately lessened the efficiency of labor, would bring
no general loss But instead of lessening the
efficiency of labor, reduction of the working
day must increase it. The great agent in pro-
duction is not muscle, but mind. 1t is not by
virtue of those powers that he shares in with the
animal. but by virtue of those powers III which
he rises superior to the animal that man Is the
producer the bringer-forth. He may not by
taking thought add cubit to his stature, but he
may, by taking thought, avail himself of the
mighty strength of Natures forces and convert
her raw materials into the forms that minister
to her own desire. To human power in this
direction there seems, practically, no limit. In
the light of what has been already accomplished
by discovery and invention, who shall set bounds
to what discovery and invention may hereafter
do?
The proposition to reduce the working hours
is proposition to secure the masses more
leisure, and is thus proposition for the increase
of popular iptelligence-that faculty which Is
alone competent to remedy the garing inJustces
which now attend the distribution of wealth,
and from which increased power in the produc
ton Of wealth must proceed. It's effect will be
not only to equaize, in a better manner: work
and leisure, but to increase the efficiency OF work
and thus make more leisure possible.
The reduction of the working day to eight
hours involves reduction of wages Under
the conditions that exist, wherever land has been
made private property, and men who have moth
ing but the power to labor are consequently
found in cut-throat competition to sell their
labor power to some other human creature
who can give them leave to toll, +" the general
rate-wages must be governed by what the labor
ing masses must be content to live on. If the
working day were increased to sixteen hours.
wages would not rise. If it were reduced to six
hours. they would not fall. But the longer the
working day the less the ability of the workers
to discover and remedy the wrongs of which all
are conscious. The shorter the working day the
greater the power.
In the attempt to limit the working day to
eight hours, the labor associations are taking the
most hopeful step they have vet attempted. But
may it not well be asked, why the inauguration
of this benifcient reform should be left to the
efforts of voluntary associationsl If the State
may wisely prohibit labor for more than six days
in the week, why may it not prohibit labor of
the same kind for more than eight hours of the
daya There is nothing that can be urged against
a compulsory eeht-hour law, that could not as
well be urged against our compulsory Sunday
law" Yet no matter to what undue lengths
Sabbattarianism may have sometimes been car
ried, the ebay OF rest" has been the most pre-
cious of b0ons that Christianity has given to
Western civilization. But for this compulsory
law, promulgated centuries ago, i'll the Sinaitic
wilderness, working men would under the condi-
tions that now exist, be toiing seven days, in
stead of six. for no more pay than they get now,
and would find it even harder to reduce working
hours.
Moral, Economical and Mechanical Reasons.
BY John Swinton.
Out of the thousand arguments that buttress
the demand for a short work-day, here are three:
First it is moral elevator. When the hours
of labor in England were the longest the degra-
dation of the laborer was the lowest. Just as
the working day has been shortened, time and
again. so have the working masses risen out of
the slough. We all know their debased condi-
ton between 1920 and 1850, under fourteen
hour system; all know the change that is be-
ing wrought since one. third of the time has
been taken off. We are constantly being warned
that if the eight-hour day is adopted, the work
ing people will wallow in drunkenness and riot
Take the experience on that point When the
working hours in England we're fourteen, sot-
tishness wasthe bane of industry. and drunken