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The Walter Scott Publishing Company, Limited, london anp felling-on tyne, THE Eight Hours Day. By SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B., Lecturer on Economics at the City of London College and Working Men's College; AND HAROLD COX, B.A., Late Scholar of Jesus College, Cambridge. LONDON: WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW. A. Kz: ']5^\(d PREFACE. The following work is an attempt to put together in accessible form as much information as possible concerning the Eight Hours Movement The authors recognise that a complete history is beyond their powers, but they venture to think that, at the present time, a convenient account of that movement, in its historical, economic, and social aspects, will be of service to politicians and the public. The bibliography at the end of the volume may facilitate the research of other students of what bids fair to be the most important industrial movement of the close of the century. Additions to, or corrections of, that bibliography will be thankfully received. A small portion of the work appeared in two articles in the Nineteenth Century and the Contemporary Review respec- tively, and is reproduced by permission of the proprietors of those magazines. 4 Park Village East, London N.W., ^h April 1891. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE INTRODUCTION ....... I CHAPTER II. THE GROWTH OF THE EIGHT HOURS MOVEMENT — (a) THE GENERAL SCOPE OF THE MOVEMENT 12 (6) THE MOVEMENT IN GREAT BRITAIN . -13 () BY MEANS OF TRADE UNION COERCION . . 167 (c) BY LEGISLATION . . . . .177 CHAPTER VIII. ENGLISH PRECEDENTS FOR LEGISLATIVE ACTION . . I9I CHAPTER IX. PRACTICAL PROPOSALS ..... 212 I. PARTIAL PROPOSALS . . . . .214 II. GENERAL PROPOSALS . . . .229 CHAPTER X. CONCLUSION . . . . . . .238 APPENDIX. L HOURS OF LABOUR IN DIFFERENT TRADES . 244 II. LETTERS, ETC., RECEIVED FROM FIRMS WHICH HAVE ALREADY ADOPTED AN EIGHT HOURS DAY . . 254 viii CONTENTS. XWE^Til^— continued. PAGE III. REPORT ON THE SWISS LEGISLATION REGULATING THE HOURS OF ADULT LABOUR . . . 265 IV. PUBLICATIONS RELATING TO THE EXISTING FACTORY LEGISLATION AND THE EIGHT HOURS BILL . 268 INDEX 273 THE EIGHT HOURS DAY. CHAPTER I.— INTRODUCTION, THE EIGHT HOURS DAY. " Whereas it is desirable for the general welfare of the community that the hours of Daily Labour should be such that workmen may have a reasonable time at their own disposal for recreation, mental culture, and the performance of social and civil duties : And whereas it would be conducive to this end to declare by law the proper duration of a Day's Labour." The above is the preamble of a bill introduced into the parlia- ment of Queensland on June 26th, 1890, by Sir S. W. Grififith, Q.C., the Colonial Premier. It expresses concisely the motives which inspire the advocates of an Eight Hours Bill. The demand for shorter hours of labour has arisen among the working classes, not so much from the conviction that their present hours are injurious to health — though that in many cases is the fact, — not so much from the theory that shorter hours mean higher wages — though that theory is in the main sound, — but from the strongly-felt desire for additional opportunities for recieation and the enjoyment of life. Just as it was the growing wealth and intelligence of the middle classes which forced on the Ref&rm Bill of 1832, so now it is the wider education, the increased prosperity, of the operatives and artisans of England which make them demand some relief from the irksomeness of their daily labour. Incidentally such a measure may lead to higher wages ; incidentally it may benefit the work- 3 THE EIGHT HOURS DA Y. man's health ; and both these considerations probably present themselves to each man's mind when he begins to think out the question. But the real force which gives vitality to the Eight Hours Movement is the spontaneous longing for a brighter, fuller life. Men and women who toil for wages are everywhere growing tired of being only working animals. They wish to enjoy, as well as to labour ; to pluck the fruits, as well as dig the soil ; to wear as well as to weave. They are eager for opportunity to see more of the great world in which they live — a world of which many of them now for the first time hear from books. They want to see their friends who live at a distance ; to go to the plays about which the papers talk ; to have holidays and visit pleasant places. Nor is it only these comparatively facile forms of amusement that now attract the multitude. Peripatetic lecturers are daily scouring the country inspiring young men and women of every class with a new-born taste for the facts of science, or with a new-born appreciation of the beauties of literature. On all sides there is an expansion of life. New possibilities of enjoyment, physical, emotional, intellectual, are daily opening for the masses. New aspirations are daily surging up. We need not wonder then that this generation is no longer content to live as its fathers and mothers lived. They were content to work and to eat and to sleep, and when worked out to lay themselves down and die. What else could they find in life ? To them reading and writing were cabalistic arts, and a journey of twenty miles suggested reckless- ness tainted with impiety. To such men as these — and the race is not yet extinct — a holiday is not a boon but a bore, and Sunday is the day most hated in the week,* But the last representatives of this race are now to be found only in remote villages. The younger generation of villagers, and every generation of townsfolk, are eager to enjoy the world around them. They realise that life is large and many-sided, and they pant to taste of its sweets. Hence in all classes the demand for leisure grows keener and keener. Both men and women are growing daily more conscious of the cruelty of a system which * One of the writers of this book has often heard a labourer of his acquaintance, a man still in the prime of life, remark, " I yate Sunday more 'n any day in the week," INTRODUCTION. 3 condemns them to a barely broken round of monotonous toil. Everywhere they begin fiercely to rebel against this system, and nerve themselves to prepare for its overthrow. "Work we will," they say in effect, if not in words, "for we know that work is the condition of life. But we demand in return the wage for our work. Not mere money wage— for that by itself is useless — but the power and opportunity to enjoy the advantages which the labour of all of us has created." This vague demand has found formal expression in the agitation for an Eight Hours Day. Not that there is anything sacred in the figure eight. Any other unit would do as well for the rough purposes of political agitation. But "eight" has forced itself to the front, as will be explained later on, largely from historical and sentimental considerations. And so we, the writers of this book, take up that figure as symbolising the popular demand for a shorter working day. That demand we propose, in the pages that follow, to examine in all its bearings. Without attempting to write a history, we shall show how the contemporary Eight Hours Movement has grown out of ihe struggle for the Ten Hours Law and the Nine Hours Day. We shall show how the workmen's organisations have, at each recur- ring opportunity, successfully struggled to reduce their hours of labour, by law, by strikes, by the sanction of public opinion, or by any other means that came to hand. We shall give particulars of the parallel movement which has gone on in the other countries of the industrial world. These particulars, whether in the case of the United Kingdom or in those of other nations, will be far from forming a complete record even of this one phase of the history of the working classes, Our aim has been merely to collect, in conveniently accessible form, such facts as we have been able to discover without pretence of research. We have further endeavoured to show by facts the almost total absorption by work of the present life of the masses. Many of these facts are already commonly known. Every one knows, or ought to know, that omnibus drivers and conductors work fourteen to sixteen hours a day, that the drivers and guards on many of our railways are often on duty for fifteen or eighteen hours at a stretch, and that the sweated tailors at the East End of London, who make the clothes that the West End 4 THE EIGHT HOURS DA Y. wears, are sometimes kept bent over their work in a poisonous atmosphere for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. But these cases, to which public attention has been attracted, are not really exceptional. There are thousands of men and women engaged in almost every variety of manual occupation who when they get up in the morning know that they must go through ten to twelve hours of heavy labour before they can rest again. Some women, it is true, are protected from their own weakness, or from the tyranny of employers, by the Factory Acts. But these Acts only apply to certain specified occupations. Barmaids, shop- girls, waitresses in eating-houses and bread shops, hospital nurses, laundresses, and charwomen are all outside the scope of the factory law. It will be found that in most of these occupations the working day is twelve or thirteen hours. In the preparation of this book we have taken pains to collect positive information as to the hours of labour in various occupations. Unfortunately, there are many gaps in the statement we are able to present. But the particulars collected are sufficient to prove that the demand for a shorter working day is not based on a fictitious grievance. After the facts, the economics ! The hours of labour may be shamefully long, but what would be the economic result of any reduction of them.? That question we have set ourselves to answer in considerable detail. It will be shown that the almost universal experience of the past indicates that a shortening of the hours of labour is compatible with a maintenance of the present aggregate product of labour. The workman, in many cases, but not in all, produces as much in ten hours as in twelve, in eight hours as in ten. Whether through greater energy, greater steadiness, or greater speed of work; whether through improved machinery or better methods of pro- duction ; whether by diminished friction, fewer losses, or a rise in quality, experience shows that, in the arithmetic of labour as in that of the Customs, two from ten is likely to produce, not ei^ht but even eleven. " ' In some cases, however, the worker's product will be less in eieht hours than in ten or twelve. Especially is this the case in the services rendered by the workers on our means of communication the staff of our railways, tramways, omnibuses, etc. We shall' INTkODXJCTION. 5 however, show that this result is likely to be economically advan- tageous, not disastrous, to the community. Although millions of men and women are being daily overworked, to the detriment of their own health and the enfeeblement of the next generation, the productive power of the nation is not exercised to the full. For side by side with those who are overworked are others doing no work at all. Many of these are only too anxious to take their share of the work of the community ; but they are not allowed to do so. Our industrial system can find no place for them ; or rather, the place which they should take is occupied by the extra hours of those already in employ. And hence results the commercial deadlock which in a more or less aggravated form is always present. On the one hand are manufacturers complaining that they cannot sell their goods. On the other, are hungry men walking the streets asking only for the means to buy these goods. The means to buy is rightly refused ex- cept in return for work done. The opportunity to work is wrongly refused because others are overworked. By reducing the hours of labour room will, in some industries, be made for more workers. A shortening of the hours of the myriad of manual labourers in public employment, and of the whole staff of the railways and tramways — to say nothing of other occupations — would undoubtedly have the result of transferring from irregular to full employment many thousands of those who can find no work to do. And hence, although the output of each individual may in some cases be diminished, the output of the nation may even be increased. The result of the shortening of hours upon the rate of wages will be shown to be almost universally beneficial to the wage earner, and not always injurious to the capitalist. But some loss of profit there may easily be — a price for the benefit of the great mass of the community which we trust that shareholders will be not unwilling to pay. In the various chapters of the book the bogie of foreign com- petition will be found fully dealt with, and the danger, real or imaginary, to each trade assessed at its proper value. And here parenthetically we may point out that from the first Factory Act in 1802 down to the present day, every single proposal for an im- provement in the condition of factory operatives has been met with the cry that it will ruin our trade. The folly of this cry has 6 THE EIGHT HOURS bA V. been proved by facts over and over again. Each upward step taken by the working classes of this country has been followe(i by an improvement in our foreign trade. This is, indeed, exactly what a wider view of the worldngs of commerce would lead us to expect. An improvement in our workers is at least as important to our national wealth as an improvement in our machines ; and every increase in our national wealth means an increase in our foreign trade. The workers, moreover, are not only sellers of labour, but buyers of commodities. Much of what they buy comes from abroad, and consequently an increase in their spending power means an increase in the national imports. This increase can, in the long run, only be paid for by increased exports. We show, therefore, that a reduction in the hours of labour is not only economically possible, but also economically desirable ; that it may give us, as a nation, a larger gross income, and that a larger percentage of this income would go to pay workers, and less to the maintenance of an idle class at either end of the social scale. But though we have devoted a relatively large space to the economic results of an Eight Hours Day, we do not hold that these advantages are so important as the improvement of social and individual health that would follow a reasonable reduction in the hours of labour. We contend that acommunity in which some members are overworked while others can get no work at all is ipso facto unhealthy. Such a contrast entails a feverish unrest on all the individuals affected by it. They can never know what the enjoyment of life means. Those who are in work have not the leisure for healthy recreation ; those who are out of work have not the spirit. The former are working anxiously, almost phrenziedly, lest they should be thrown out into the bottomless gulf of No- Work ; the latter with equal anxiety wearily beat the streets in search of work. Equally serious, as we shall have to point out, is the effect of long hours of labour on the physical health of the individual. The human body needs frequent change of surroundings, change of exercise, to keep it in perfect condition. A man, and still more a woman, will suffer from protracted occupation at one particular task, even if that task in itself is healthy enough. And of all the manual work done in an advanced industrial community to-day, ' iNTRobtrcTid'N. i^ how much is healthy in its nature or done under healthy conditions ? We may however safely assume that the majority of our readers will be ready to admit beforehand that the long hours so generally worked in many trades inflict serious evil both on the social health of the community, and on the physical health of the individual. But what, we shall be asked, is your remedy foi: this concomitant of civilisation ? How do you propose to obtain an Eight Hours Day? We answer at once — By Act of Parliament ; and we devote a large part of the present volume to justifying this answer. That the individual workman cannot by himself secure an Eight Hours Day for himself is a proposition which should need no proof, but of which the full significance is not often realised by the average journalist or doctor, member of Parliament or lawyer, over whose industry the Juggernaut of the Industrial Revolution has not passed. In any highly evolved industry the individual workman has necessarily lost his power of arranging his own daily life, and has become a unit in a vast industrial army, over the hours of labour of which he has no more control than over the tides. It is to obtain some protection for his individual life that the workman, incredible as this may seem to the apostles of "free labour," joins with his fellows in a Trade Union. Can he eflfectively secure an Eight Hours Day by this additional weapon ? We show both from the history of past struggles, and from the facts of to-day, that this method of industrial democracy is equivalent to private war— a mere relic of barbarism, costly and even dangerous to the nation in its operation. The instance of the Scotch Railway Strike shows how little it is to be relied upon to do what is required. In this case a powerful union of railway workers, backed up by large funds, ordered a simultaneous strike on three railways. The moment chosen was so timed as to cause the maximum of inconvenience to the companies. The men's ground of complaint was one which specially appealed to public sympathy. They complained that they were kept at work for usually 14 hours a day, and sometimes ig or 20 hours. They asked not for an Eight Hours Day, but for ten hours. The strike lasted for five weeks. It was supported by large subscriptions 8 THE EIGHT HOURS DA Y. from trade societies not directly involved in the quarrel, and from many private persons. At the end of the five weeks the men made complete submission. After this there will probably be, in the United Kingdom, less talk than there was before of the power of combinations of workmen. We have, however, in a subsequent chapter fully examined the suggestion that the men should trust to their trade unions to win them the Eight Hours Day. We have shown that only a small proportion of the working classes belong to any trade society at all. That even where the societies are strong they have been unable to put down the admitted evil of overtime work. And finally, that a majority of the" trade unionists in the kingdom have formally declared that they prefer an Act of Parliament to the so-called free action of their own societies. Moreover, we contend that the non-combatant public has a right to be consulted in this matter. If an Eight Hours Day is to be won by trade unionists, it can only be won after a series of strikes, each involving enormous discomfort and loss to the whole community. On these grounds, among others, we contend that even were it possible to obtain an Eight Hours Day by trade union action, an Act of Parliament would still be preferable. To those who urge that this proposal involves a new departure in English policy, we reply by enumerating some of the striking precedents of such legislation. It is commonly asserted that Parliament has never yet regulated the hours of labour of adult males. We show that, as a matter of fact, the hours of labour of adults have been subject to rigid regulation for the last forty years. And we prove by quotations which admit of no criticism, that Parliament knew beforehand that these regulations would apply to men as well as to women, and that it has repeatedly renewed and confirmed them with that knowledge. Further, we produce an immense mass of precedents from foreign countries and our own colonies. We demonstrate the falsity of the common assertion that the Eight Hours Day in Australia is independent of legal sanction. Not one only, but several Acts exist in the Colony of Victoria for the limitation of the hours of labour of adults male and female. And these Acts are not declarations of the normal day such as have been placed upon the Statute Book in several American States; they are effective laws carrying penalties for their breach. INTRODUCTION^. 9 Neither considerations of practical expediency, nor precedents ancient or modern, convince the man who starts with the dogma that the regulation of the hours of labour is outside the proper functions of the State. For his benefit we have endeavoured to show that the legal prohibition of overwork is on the same juristic level as the legal prohibition of fraud or assault ; and that it does not at any rate differ in essence from other legislation carrying out the express desires of a majority of the nation. Such legisla- tion, moreover, by its restrictions upon the tyranny set by economic conditions in a society still largely individualistic in its basis, is calculated positively to increase the liberty of the great majority of the nation. It may, however, be admitted that the demand, which has marked the present century, for a more general regulation of the hours and conditions of labour, does represent a marked advance upon previous conceptions of the sphere of legislation. Such an extension of collective activity is, it may safely be asserted, an in- evitable result of political Democracy. When the Commons of England had been granted the right to vote supplies, it must have seemed an unwarrantable extension that they should claim also to redress grievances. When they passed from legislation to the exercise of control over the Executive, the constitutional jurists were aghast at their presumption. The attempt of Parliament to seize the command of the military forces led to a civil war. Its authority over foreign policy is scarcely two hundred years old. Every one of these developments of the collective authority of the nation over the conditions of its own life was denounced by great authorities as an illegitimate usurpation. Every one of them is still being resisted in countries less advanced in political development In Russia, it is the right to vote supplies that is denied ; in Mecklenburg, it is the right freely to legislate ; in Denmark, it is the control over the Executive ; in Germany, it is the command of the army ; in Austria, it is the foreign policy of that composite Empire. In the United Kingdom and the United States, where all these rights are admitted, the constitutional purists object to the moral competence of the people to regulate, through their representatives in Parlia- ment, the conditions under which they work and live. Although the tyranny which keeps the tram-car conductor away from his home for 17 hours a day is not the tyranny of king, or priest, or i6 THE EIGHT HOURS DA'V. noble, he feels that it is tyranny all the same, and seeks to curb it as he best can. The step which these Anglo-Saxon communities are taking unavowedly, and often unconsciously, a smaller Republic expressly enshrines in its Constitution. The Swiss Federal Constitution, which we quote in a following chapter, explicitly declares the competence of the legislature to enact statutes "relating to the duration of the work which may be imposed upon adults." But assuming that it is granted that Parliament may legitimately regulate the hours of labour, how practically do you propose to proceed ? This very pertinent question we have answered in a subsequent chapter. We seek no legislative symmetry. We are anxious only that that should be first done which most needs doing and is most practicable. The hours of labour in some occupations constitute a scandal which ought not to go a day unremoved. If the conditions are such that an immediate Eight Hours Day is inapplicable, let us begin with nine hours or ten hours. In other occupations the hours of labour are already relatively short. The cotton operatives, for example, have by law a week of 56j^ hours. No one contends that this is oppressive. Undoubtedly a shorter week would be better for the operatives, and, as we show, the profits of the trade could probably bear the reduction. But till the operatives themselves make an effective demand for a 48 hours week, there is no reason for Parliament to trouble to help them to it. In other cases, although a shortening of the hours of labour is urgently needed, legislative action does not appear to be at present practicable. For the workers in these unfortunate trades we can suggest only organisation among themselves, and the pressure of public opinion. Much, too, might be done for them by the efificient carrying out of improved factory legislation, and a more sustained sympathy from the rest of the working population ; and, after a short time, experience in other cases may show how the strong arm of the law could be successfully brought to bear upon the hours in these unfortunate industries. In the meantime there are whole groups of industries to which an Eight Hours Day might at once be granted by law, with the enthusiastic support of the great majority of those concerned. The hours of all public employes might be shortened by way of example ^Jvtkoi) tiCTidlsr. 1 1 to other employers. The working day of the miner, the railway or tramway worker, and the shop assistant, might be reduced without fear. We seek, however, to go further. We think that it might be left to the workers in each industry, bearing in mind the risk to their own wages involved, to decide whether the normal working day in that industry should be reduced. This principle of "Trade Option," introduced as a novelty into the draft Eight Hours Bill of the Fabian Society in i88g, but since discovered, in principle, in the Victorian Factory Act of 1885, appears to afford the best practicable means of combining a recognition of the desirability of an Eight Hours Day with that of the right of the workers to settle for themselves the conditions under which they will work. It may not be improper to explain, in conclusion, that we claim for the Eight Hours Bill no virtue as a panacea. It will not make the three-hooped pots to have ten hoops, nor endow us with a new heaven and a new earth. It will do little to remedy the evils caused by the great disparity of incomes, or by the individual ownership of the means by which the worker lives. It will not restore to social health a "submerged tenth" wasted by the demoralisation of extreme poverty, or the results of drink and disease. But if it secures for millions of tired workers an hour or two of leisure which would otherwise have been spent in toil ; if it enables many who would otherwise have plodded the daily round of monotonous labour to obtain access to some share in that larger life from which they are now relentlessly excluded ; if it protects the future genera- tions of the race from physical degeneration or mental decay ; if it makes brighter the lives of those who have toiled that a small class among us might have education, and holidays, and culture ; if it accomplishes only partially some of these great ends, an Eight Hours Bill will be no mean achievement even of the greatest statesman, and no unfitting close to the century of the Factory Acts, CHAPTER II THE GROWTH OF THE EIGHT HOURS MOVEMENT. [a.) The General Scope of the Movement. What is commonly known as " The Eight Hours Movement," now agitating alike England, the Western part of the Continent of Europe, and the United States, represents, in the main, nothing more precise than a desire for a shorter working day. As was said above, there is no magic in the number eight, which marks it out as the proper number of hours of daily labour ; nor is there any reason for assuming that this or any other number of hours should be universally adopted in all occupations and in all countries. The history of the Eight Hours Movement is therefore a record of the modern striving for shorter hours of labour, and we shall see that much of the most effective work to bring about an actual Eight Hours Day has been done under the guise of other demands. Further, in following the history of the Eight Hours Movement, we shall find it impossible to draw any distinction between the agitation for an Eight Hours Day and that for an Eight Hours Bill. This distinction is too subtle for the average artisan. As long as he gets a shorter day he is generally indifferent how he gets it. To the average English, American or Continental artisan, it has always seemed perfectly natural to utilise the power of the law, whenever he can, to secure that which he regards as essential to the well-being of his class. It is true that some of the older English Trade Unionists now share with the Continental Anarchists a rooted objection to State action in the matter of the hours of adult male labour. But this objection was not always apparent Many of th ese men, or their fathers, fought side by side with Lord Shaftesbury GRO WTH OF THE MOVE ME I\ T. 13 to secure the passing of the Factory Acts. The zeal which they threw into the struggle was largely inspired by the confessed hope that laws intended primarily for women and children would curtail the hours of labour of men also. There is, it need hardly be said, nothing new in a general demand for a reduction in the length of the working day. Ever since the wage-earning class has been able to make its voice heard in society at all, it has protested against the length of its daily toil. The proposition that the hours of labour might be and ought to be reduced has been periodically discussed for more than three- quarters of a century. In Great Britain the Eight Hours Movement is the legitimate descendant of the agitation which resulted in the Ten Hours Bill of 1847, and of the succeeding Nine Hours Movement in various skilled handicrafts. In the United States an "Eight Hours Day" appears to have formed the chief aspiration of the workers' organisations ever since the great start made in manufacturing industries at the end of the war. On the Continent of Europe, although an Eight Hours Law was one of the most cherished aspirations of 1848, the present movement dates chiefly from the formation of the "International" in 1864, and derives its inspira- tion primarily from the writings of Karl Marx. The particular form which the movement takes, and the manner in which its demands are formulated, necessarily vary according to the political and industrial conditions of each country, and of each trade. And although the older " International" mooted the question, the Eight Hours Movement did not become consciously international in character until the International Trade Union Congress at Paris in 1883. For a systematic history of the movement adequate materials hardly yet exist, and in the present chapter we make no pretence to do more than record, in convenient form, some of the chief incidents in its course. {b.) The Movement in Great Britain. We have been unable to trace the origin of the feeling that Eight Hours constitutes, in some mysterious way, the " natural " or fitting length of the working day. It is well known that the •' three eights " have been one of the leading aspirations of the 14 THE EIGHT HOURS DAY. English artisan for, at any rate, fifty years.* The common tradi- tion, which assigns the origin of the idea to Alfred's division of his time into eight hours work, eight hours sleep, and eight hours recreation and study, is somewhat fanciful. Much more probable is the theory that the equal threefold division of the 24 hours has, of itself, commended the idea of the eight hours work as specially reasonable. The following common rhyme, in which the idea is embodied — " Eight hours to work, eight hours to play, Eight hours to sleep, eight 'bob' a day," is perhaps of Australian origin, as it does not seem that an aspiration for wages of eight shillings a day has yet so much as entered the heads of any considerable section of English workmen. Mr. George Howell suggests that this fourth eight may have been added merely to complete the rhyme. A more suggestive origin for the ideal of an Eight Hours Day is fouijd in the practice of the fifteenth century. The late Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers states emphatically of that golden age that " it is plain that the day was one of eight hours."t But it appears that overtime was worked. At p. 175 of his useful little volume, we find the following : — " I stated in a previous chapter that the day was one of eight hours' work, and grounded my opinion on the fact that winter wages were reckoned to be payable only in the months of December and January, and from the fact that extra hours, some- times as many as forty-eight in the week, are frequently paid for by the King's agents when hurried work was needed. . , . The artisan who is demanding at this time an eight hours day in the building trades, is simply striving to recover what his ancestor worked by four or five centuries ago." Those who have any experience of the length of time that traditions linger among an illiterate class will not think it altogether fanciful to suppose that the modern ideal of an Eight Hours Day is the half-forgotten survival from a long-cherished memory of a former shorter day. * The Conflicts of Labour and Capital, by George Howell, M. P. , ch. vi. sec. 30 (p. 302 of 1878 edition). t J. E. Thorold Bogers, WMt. and, Wages (abridged edition, p. 28). GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT. 15 The golden age did not, however, endure for long after the close of the fifteenth century. By the close of the reign of Elizabeth, the artisan and labourer seem to have sunk into a condition of industrial subjection far worse than anything recorded in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. By the end of the seventeenth the working week consisted of at least 72 hours.* But whatever be the ultimate origin of the Eight Hours dream, it has certainly been in the minds of Trade Unionists in England ever since the repeal of the Combination Laws in 1824, and has recurred at every season of reviving industrial prosperity since that time. And even before this date a serious proposal to reduce the hours of factory labour to eight hours was apparently made by Robert Owen in i8i7.t At that date, when even children were kept at work in the textile mills for fifteen or sixteen hours a day, the proposal of an Eight Hours Day must have seemed simply absurd. Robert Owen instituted a regular working day in his mills at New Lanark, of ten and a half hours nett, and he lived to see an even shorter day made universal in the textile industry. At the beginning of the present century the ordinary working day of the English artisan appears to have varied from 11 to 14 hours. In the new industries, such as the textile manufactories, the employers, being free from traditions, often exacted a still longer day. The London bookbinders were working 12^ hours a day (14 less meal-times) in 1780, when a Trade Union was formed to obtain a reduction of an hour a day.t This movement became successful in 1786. King George the Third was the first employer to accord the boon, which he did to the " finisher " in the Royal Library. The " second hour" was » "On April 9th, 1684, the magistrates of Warwick met at the county town, and assessed the wages for the year under the Act of Elizaheth. . . . The hours of labour are defined between March and September to be from five in the morning untU between seven and eight at night — i.e., \i\ hours, from which 24 hours are to be allowed for meals. . . . From the middle of Septem- ber till the middle of March he is to work from daylight till night." t In 1834 Eobert Owen asserted in The Crisis, iiL 188, that in August 1817 he advertised eight hours as adjust day's labour. (Quoted in Sargent's Rohert Owen and his Philosophy.) In 1818 Owen presented a petition to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, for international factory legislation. X Social Science Assoc. Report on Trade Societies, 1860, p. 93. 1 6 THE EIGHT HOURS DA Y. gained in 1794, and another half-hour about 18 10, after an unsuccessful strike in 1806. Eighty years ago, therefore, the London bookbinders had won for themselves the Ten Hours Day. Other workers, especially in the new industries, were by no means so fortunate. The stocking-makers of Leicester, who did not combine until 1817, were still working 14 to 15 hours a day in 1819.* The London coopers were working 13 hours a day in i82S,t and the master silk-weavers of Macclesfield at the same period attempted to increase the hours from 11 to 12 a day. This attempt was, however, successfully resisted by the men on the ground of the probable injury to their children who worked with them.t The history of the Factory Acts is briefly given elsewhere. These affected at first only the textile districts, but the increased power obtained by Trade Unions after the repeal of the Com- bination Laws led to the growth of a Ten Hours Movement in London and elsewhere, which more than kept pace with the agitation for the Ten Hours Bill in Lancashire and Yorkshire. In 1837, the Glasgow cotton-spinners had a strike which caused a Parliamentary inquiry. Adults were then still working 69 hours a week, and the object of every Union was said to 156 " to procure the passing of a Ten Hours Bill." § By this time the Dublin carpenters had already brought their hours down to 63 per week, and the printers and painters in that city absolutely refused to work more than 6o.|| The Ten Hours Day seems to have become general in the London handicrafts some time before this period. The practice of lengthening the day by means of overtime was, however, very general. It was to enforce a genuine Ten Hours Day, by the abolition of systematic overtime, that the " Amalgamated Society of Engineers " was formed. To this society was due the great strike and lock-out of 1851-2. Here the men had ultimately to surrender at discretion, but the strike did much to call the attention of working men all over the kingdom to the question of reduction of hours. * Parliamentary Keport on Combinations, 1824, summarised in Soo. Sci Assoc. Report, 1860, p. 362. + Ibid., p. 372. § Ilid., pp. 391, 393, 400. I lUd., p. 360. II lUd., pp. 405, 422, 427. (^ROWTil OF THE MOVEMENT. i) In the textile trades the Ten Hours Law had recently been made effective. The reduction of hours was usually from 69 to 60, and this reduction had been followed by a positive increase of wages.* Other trades began to move in the same direction. The Glasgow cloth-lappers struck in 1851 for a reduction of hours from 64 to 58 a week; they compromised on 62. In 1858 they returned to the charge, and gained two more hours, in both cases without reduction of wage.t A much more important event was the opening of the Nine Hours Movement, in 1853, by the London building trades, who had long enjoyed a Ten Hours Day. The actual conflict did not begin until 1858. By this time the Australian Trade Unions had won their Eight Hours Day. And it was, as far as we can trace, on this occasion that the Eight Hours Day was first spoken of as the real goal of an English strike. The immediate demand was, however, only for a Nine Hours Day, plus a Saturday half-holiday. After six months' struggle the men surrendered. Other trades had, in the meantime, been more successful. The West Yorkshire coal-hewers seem to have reduced their hours from 10 in 1844, and 9 in 1853, to 8 per day in 1858,! but the other workers in the mines, including boys of ten years old, still worked a Ten Hours Day. A similar system prevailed also in the South Yorkshire mines.§ The Glasgow masons struck in 1853 for a reduction of hours from 60 to 57 a week. They were successful, and gained at the same time a rise of wages amounting to over 8 per cent. Next year the Glasgow shipwrights successfully made the same demand.ll At the time of the inquiry into Trade Societies by the Committee of the Social Science Association in i860, the majority of artisans were still working 60 hours a week. IT Some, however, such as the London and Liverpool tailors, and the London bakers, had still nominally a Twelve Hours Day, which was often exceeded.** A few trades were more fortunate. * Statements of Preston Master Weavers and Weavers' Strike Committee, 1853, pp. 223, 225 of Soc. Sci. Assoc. Report, 1860. t -Soc. Soi. Assoc. Repmt, p. 276. f lUd., p. 32. § md., pp. 45, 268, 269. II Ibid., p. 285. IT E.g., joiners {Report, p. 297), painters (p. 298), ship joiners (p. 298), potters (p. 282), compositors, sometimes 59 lioura only (pp. 84, 125). ** Soc. Sci. Assoc. Report, pp. 138, 295, 300. 1 8 THE EIGHT HOURS DA Y. The Glasgow painters were on strike for 57 hours * and the rail- way spring-makers at Sheffield, a specially laborious trade, worked only nine hours a day.t The prosperous state of trade and these successive reductions led, about i860, to a revival of the "Nine Hours Movement." At the back of this was undoubtedly the Eight Hours aspiration, for at the masons' strike at Huddersfield in i860 a reduction of hours from nyi to 51^^ was claimed.! No great progress was however made at that date, although the formation of the " Inter- national" in 1862, and its growing influences over English Trade Union leaders until 1871, kept the subject constantly before the minds of labour leaders. During the depression of trade which followed the disastrous commercial crisis of 1866, the movement for a shorter day was not pressed. It was, however, never forgotten, and many men in the shipbuilding yards on the Tyne struck in 1866 for a Nine Hours Day. With returning prosperity, the old ideal of the Eight Hours Day seems once more to have entered vividly into the minds of working men. At the Trade Union Congress held at Birmingham in 1869 (Wednesday, August 25th), Mr. Swain, of Manchester, read a paper in favour of a further reduction of the hours of labour, urging the claims of health, mental cultivation, and physical recreation, and showing that production had increased at an accelerated rate after the previous reductions. He said : " The question would of course naturally arise, Would the same rate of wages be retained after the decrease of the hours of labour? The reply was that the price of labour, like other commodities, would be regulated by supply and demand, and as shorter time would employ more hands, there was no reason to suppose that the price of labour would be lowered." Mr. Kane (Darlington) moved the following resolution : — " That it is the firm conviction as well as the duty of the trade representatives at this Congress to aid every fair and honourable movement which has for its object the shorten- ing of the hours of labour, believing that it will aid in promoting morality and the physical and intellectual power of workmen, and assist in finding employment for the unemployed." This was seconded by Mr. Bailey (Preston), and carried unanimously, as * Soo. Sci. Assoc. Report, p. 291. + Und., p. 575. t Ibid., p. 335^ GROWTH OF TH£ MOVEMENT. tg was also an addendum to the effect that eight hours should be the standard day's labour for the working classes throughout the United Kingdom. Two years later, at the Congress held in London in 1 871, Mr. Bailey (Preston) read a paper on the same subject, urging the same claims, and showing that since the passing of the Ten Hours Law, factory work had so increased in intensity that the hours of labour had again become excessive, and dangerous to life and health. The following resolution was unanimously carried: — " That the productive powers and the skill of the operatives of this country have arrived at a state of perfection which guarantees that eight hours labour a day will answer all the commercial, national, and domestic requirements of the population ; and that, moreover, such a reduction is necessary on sanitary and moral grounds."* It is interesting to notice that in all these instances the movement for an Eight Hours Day came from representatives of the Northern Trade Unions, and that special reference was made to the textile trades, in which a shorter day is now represented to be impracticable. The result of this revival of feeling was a great outburst of strikes towards the end of 1869. Mr. G. Phillips Bevan gives the following statistics of the number of strikes occurring in the United Kingdom for the next ten years : — t Number of Strikes. Time spent on Strike. 30 . 98 . 343 • 365 . 286 . 245 • 229 . 180 . 268 . 1870 1871 1872 1873 . 1874 ■ i87S • 1876 1877 1878 1879 (to 1st Dec. only) 308 2352 9027 = 54, 1 63 working days. • Quoted In the pamphlet by Jolrn Burns, L.C.C., The Liverpool Trade Union Congress (1890). + "The Strikes of the Past Ten Years," by G. PhUUps Bevan (read 20th January 1880). See Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, March 1880. 68 days 279 n 988 ji 1093 »» 812 jj 684 )> 952 M 759 » 1621 » 1774 )) 20 THE EIGHT HOURS DA Y. Most of the strikes in 187 1 and 1872 were caused by the demand for a Nine Hours Day and a Saturday Half-holiday. The great strilie of the building trades in London in the latter year was specially remarkable for the vigour with which the movement for shorter hours of labour was carried on. By the end of 1872 these demands had been granted to most of the skilled artisans. This 54 hour week (11 hours, less i^ hours for meals, for 5 days, with 7 hours, less half-an-hour for a meal, on Saturday) resulted, indirectly, in a new Factory Act. The textile trades had for over twenty years enjoyed their Ten Hours Day under legal protection, but the reduction of hours in other industries caused the proposal of a Nine Hours Bill in the Trade Union Congress of 1872, brought forward by the representa- tives of the textile unions, the majority being adult male operatives. This bill remained a subject of agitation in Lancashiire and York- shire until the reduction of hours to 56^ per week by the Act of 1874. It is worth notice that this movement for a legal reduction of the hours of work in textile mills was mainly carried on by the male operatives, to whom the Factory Acts profess not to apply. But the men's Trade Unions were keenly aware how successfully their own hours had been reduced by the Ten Hours Bill, and they felt that the best, and indeed the only practicable, way of attaining a further reduction was by another law. But'the state of feeling in the House of Commons at that time, with the economics of the " Manchester School " still dominant among the Liberal Party, made it utterly hopeless to attempt to limit by law the hours of men. Mr. Thomas Ashton, J. P., then and now one of the leaders of the. spinners, has since often explained how the men accordingly " skulked behind the women's petticoats," and vigorously promoted the Nine Hours Bill for women and children, being well aware that its operation must virtually secure the same hours for the male operatives. By these skilful tactics, the economic conscience of the House of Commons was appeased, although neither the manu- facturers, nor the economists, nor indeed even the legislators themselves, could ignore that the result was, in effect, the same as if the bill had applied in express terms adult male labour. The Eight Hours Day did not cease to be one of the leading ideals of English working men, but no definite steps were taken GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT. ai to promote its attainment during the depression of i877-8a Philanthropists continued spasmodically to ask for a shorter day for particular workers. Mr. Reaney and other devoted enthusiasts vainly endeavoured to soften the hearts of tramway directors, that they might let their men go after less than sixteen hours' labour. The Duke of St Albans, in 1877, introduced a bill to restrict the excessive hours of railway servants. This found, however, no support, and was abandoned. The Trade Unions had, indeed, enough to do to nv^intain, even nominally, the Nine Hours Day which they had won.\ In 1878 and 1879 a general eflfort was made by the employers in) many trades to restore the Ten Hours Day, causing a great number of strikes, and much bitterness of feeling. The question of a further reduction was next raised by the Socialists. This party became formally organised in England in iSBiy^fier practically over twenty years of quiescence. The advo- cacy of an Eight Hours Law by Karl Marx in Das Capital, first published in 1867, had not attracted any attention in England; nor had the French edition of 1875 much greater success. It was the formation of the Democratic Federation in 1881 (afterwards called the "Social Democratic Federation") which brought the ideas of Marx to the front in England. Mr. Hyndman put forward " a curtailment of the hours of labour, eight hours being the working day," as a part of an immediately practicable Demo- cratic programme.* Jevons, in his State in Relation to Labour, published in 1882, refers to the widespread feeling in favour of an Act limiting the working day in all industries whatsoever. An Eight Hours Bill did not, however, at first form any part of the explicit programme of the Social Democratic Federation. By 1884, however, they were advocating a restriction of the hours of all public servants to eight per day. By 1886 the idea of a general Eight Hours Bill had so far progressed as to warrant its express inclusion in the general programme. In the meantime the apathy of the officials of the older Trade Unions had caused the formation of other Labour Associations in imitation of the American organisations. The Knights of Labour gradually spread in the Black Country, and one of their proposals was an Eight Hours Day. The " National Labour Federation " was formed on Tyneside in 1886 for the special purpose of securing • England for All (London: E. W. Allen, 1881), pp. 84, 110. 33 THE EIGHT HOURS DA Y. this boon, but opinion was found to be not yet ripe for a strike, and the Federation devoted itself to other objects. Public opinion among the working class began now, however, rapidly to turn in favour of a general Eight Hours Movement. This result was due largely to the energetic labours of Mr. Tom Mann, now President of the Dockers' Union, whose pamphlet in 1886 was one of the earliest separate publications on the subject. In 1887 a Conference of London Trade Unionists was called, under Socialist auspices, to discuss the question. As a result of this conference the question was made the subject of debate at the Trade Union Congress at Swansea in September of the same year. Mr. Swift, of Manchester, the delegate of the Steam Engine-makers' Society, proposed a resolution in favour of a further reduction of the working hours, to be brought about, " as far as adult males are concerned, by increased combination, assisted by the Government, reducing the hours of labour in all Government works to eight hours per day." To the resolution Mr. William Parnell, of London, the delegate of a Cabinetmakers' Society, moved the following amendment : — " This Congress is of opinion that the best way of providing permanent work for the vast number at present out of employment is by a general reduction of the hours of labour, and believes that the only effectual means of obtaining the same is by national and international political action, and therefore instructs the Parliamentary Committee to further the passing of an Eight Hours Labour Bill by all legitimate means in its power." The debate extended over two days, at the end of which the amendment was rejected by 76 votes to 29. A second amendment was then moved by Mr. Charles Drummond, secretary and delegate of the London Compositors' Society, "instructing the Parliamentary Committee to obtain a plebiscite of the members of the varioiis Trade Unions of the country upon the question." This amendment, almost without discussion, was carried with two dissentients. The original resolution (Mr. Swift's) was then voted upon and rejected by 84 votes to 11. Finally, Mr. Drummond's amendment was put as a substantive motion and unanimously adopted.* During the same year the question was raised in the House of Commons in the discussion upon the Government bill to amend * Bfii^ort of Trade Union Congress, Swa/naea, 1987. GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT. 23 the Coal Mines Regulation Act. Although the coal-hewers of South and West Yorkshire had enjoyed a nominal Eight Hours Day as early as 1858, the vast majority of workers in coal-mines (including youths) were underground for 9, 10, and even 11 hours a day. The feeling among them in favour of a legal limitation of hours was growing very fast. A motion was made in Committee by Mr. S. Williamson, Liberal member for Kilmarnock, and seconded by Mr. J. H. C. Hozier, Conservative member for South Lanarkshire, to add a clause forbidding the employment of miners underground for more than eight hours a day. The matter failed to excite the interest of the House; the "labour members" declined to vote on the plea that they had received no " mandate" | from their constituents; and the motion was rejected by 159 to 1 104.* The " mandate " was soon to come. At this time the agitation for an Eight Hours Bill formed the main topic of The Labour Elector, a weekly journal edited by Mr. H. H. Champion, which attained a considerable circulation among the members of the younger labour organisations. Mr. Cunning- hame Graham, M.P., who had been elected for Lanark in 1886, lent his aid to the movement, which now began to attract the attention of political workers. An Eight Hours Bill for Miners was introduced into the House of Commons by Mr. Graham in 1888, 1889, and 1890, but failed each session to secure a favourable place at the ballot for oppor- tunities. In March 1888 the Huddersfield Town Council, which is the only public authority directly administering its own tramways, reduced the hours of work of its tramway servants to eight per day on the ground of convenience. The Parliamentary Committee of the Trade Union Congress had, in the meantime, issued a circular of inquiry, as directed by the Swansea Congress, but they took upon themselves to accom- pany it with arguments and warnings against any Eight Hours Bill. The result was that a comparatively small proportion of Trade Unionists answered the inquiry. The textile trades, in particular, stood aloof through the enmity of their leaders to the question. The Returns, as they appeared in the Parliamentary Committee's *Banswrd!s ParUammta/ry Debates, vol. 319, pp. 899-912. 24 THE EIGHT HOURS DA Y. Report laid before the Congress at Bradford in September 1888, were as follows : — Name of Society. Areyouin favour of an eight hours limit of the day's work— total 48 hours per week? Are yon in fa- vour of Parlia. ment enforcing an eight hours day by law? London Amalgamated Society of Upholsterers . Amalgamated Society of Lithographic Printers . National Union of Boot and Shoe Makers United Tinplate Workers and Gas Meter Makers' Protection and Friendly Society of Edinburgh and Leith ...... United Operative Masons' Association, Scotland Associated Blacksmiths, Scotland . Associated Iron Moulders, Scotland Scottish National Operative Tailors' Trade Pro- tection and Benevolent Society London Society of Compositors Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Scotland ...... French Polishers' Society, Edinburgh London Saddle and Harness Makers' Friendly and Protection Society .... Leicester Amalgamated Hosiery Union . Associated Carpenters and Joiners, Scottish Amalgamated Society of House Decorators and Painters ...... Operative Stonemasons' Friendly Society . Women's Protective and Provident League Ironfounders' Association, England Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners Stirlingshire Miners ..... Bookbinders' and Machine Eulers' Consolidated Union— Edinburgh Branch Yes. 17 197 1,039 39 350 263 358 242 1,125 776 127 68 588 663 101 472 42 11,966 4,300 No. 15 337 177 928 79 2,098 146 81 5 168 14 49 Yes. 6 133 278 290 199 241 560 260 119 37 688 660 67 899 23 9,209 4,300 6 No. 28 376 238 106 2,566 "8 97 7 186 165 43 22,720 4,097 17,267 3,819 The Parliamentary Committee somewhat disingenuously summed up the situation in the following terms : — "In summarising the whole of the Returns, it is almost impos- sible to give a definite opinion as to which way the balance lies, as the number of votes returned is so small ; and it is, consequently, open for any one to put the opinion of those members who have not voted on which side they choose. A perusal of the Returns will, however, we think, be sufficient to satisfy any unprejudiced person that the time is not yet ripe for commencing (!) an agitation for an Eight Hours Day.» The Congress did not, however, accept this view of the case, nor were its members satisfied with the way in which the proceed- ings had been managed by the Parliamentary Committee. They GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT. 25 therefore passed a resolution instructing the committee to take a fresh plebiscite, leaving out all the irrelevant and side questions, and asking simply—