The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1890.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 279, 26 November 1890, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1890.

For the causa that laoiß assistance, lor the wrong that needs resistance, •••* 3for the future In the dietaaoe, <&ad the eoocl that ire can da.

A. cable message from London a few days ago inform:; us that the Parlia. mentary Committee of the Trades Con_ gress support an Eight Hours Bill for miners only, as they fear that a Bill providing for the general adoption of a working day of eight hours would destroy labour unions. Mr T. Burt, M. P., one of the Committee, goes a step further, and insists that the adoption of eight hours even for miner s would render half the mines in the i north idle. The introduction of a Bill into the Imperial Parliament to restrict labour m mines to eight hours per day, called forth an able paper by Mr C. BradJaugh, M.P., some months ago, in which the whole subject of "Regulation by Statute of the Hours of Adult Labour " was exhaustively treated. It is well known that Mr Bradlaugh has consistently opposed any interference with the limit of the working day by legislative enactment, except in any conceivable cases where the employment beyond a certain limit of time daily was dangerous to the life of the worker or—as in the case of railway signalmen, engine-drivers, or guards— where over-fatigue resulting from long hours might endanger the public safety. The advice of this great sofcial reformer has, however, not been accepted even by a good many of those who usually attach great weight to his utterances. Since the opening of the present year, the question has been debated in one Trades Union Congress after another. On the general question that "the maximum working day for all trades be eight hours," and that this be enforced by law, the earlier Congresses expressed themselves by decided negative; Underthe influence of pressure brought to bear by members of the new Unions, the recent Trades Congress held at Liverpool ignored the

policy of its predecessors, and carried a motion in support of eight hours legislation. This, however, was only achieved in the face of a strong opposition from delegates representing some of the most important industries of the kingdom.

The Congresses held at Dundee and Bradford, while agreed on the main question that it is undesirable to limit the hours of adult labour generally by statute, considered that the mining industry called for special legislative interference. The Dundee Congress, without a division, resolved by a large majority '*that the time was fully come when there should be an Eight Hours Bill for miners." The Bradford Congress seemed equally impressed with the idea that while other Trade Unions might defend their ov/n interests and limit the hours of work on the basis of a mutual arrangement between employers and employed, State protection was required by the Northern miners. If we may judge the action of the Parliamentary Committee from the cable we have referred to, similar counsels seem to prevail, although the experiment even on this limited scale is regarded by one member of the Committee at least with anxious forebodings. The difficulties in the way of limiting the hours of the working day by statute in Great Britain are undoubtedly very great, competition with the long hours and low wages prevailing on the Continent being among the chief obstacles. To make the measure general by legislative enactment suddenly sprung upon the nation would revolutionise many important industries and make it impossible for manufacturers under present conditions to compete with Continental rivals. There would, in many cases, have to be an adjustment of wages to suit the shortened working day. If wealthy manufacturers found they could only carry on business at a loss, they would look for other investments in which to embark their capital. If wages were lowered in proportion to the shortened hours of labour, would the great body of the workmen be satisfied ? These and many kindred ques- j tions have caused a salutary pause before attempting to force through Parliament a measure fraught with such tremendous interests to all classes. So far even as the mining iudustry is concerned,any Act specially fixing eight hours as a limit of the working day in all cases, is beset with difficulties. The truth is that the coal industry, like many others, is largely affected by circumstances of a local nature. Where seams of coal are easier to work than others, and more coal can be got in less time, the increased output enables the owners to pay a high rate of wages for a comparatively short working day. Thus the Fifeshire miners have for nearly twenty years had a working day limited to eight hours as the result of agreement with their employers. In Northumberland and Durham, where thirty-seven years ago the hewers worked from nine to twelve hours a day, the well-organised miners, without aoy help from Parliament, have reduced ; the hours of underground adult labour to less than the proposed eight hours limit, the average miner's day in those counties being limited to seven hours. These men naturally object to Parliamentary enactment. One of the chief difficulties of introducing a uniform sight hours day, so far as the mining industry is concerned, is the effect it would have on those mines where the men work by shifts, and where two or three shifts are worked per day. It is probably in view of the proposal that no works of any kind shall be carried on in mines for more than eight hours out of each twenty-four that Mr Burt insists that the adoption of the scheme will throw half the miners in the North out of employment. While we do not underrate the difficulties that stand in the way of securing an uniform working day of,eight hours for all classes in a country like England, where relations between employer and employed have hitherto been adjusted without any statutory limit of working hours, with the general principle involved in the contention of a fair day's work for a fair day's wages we have the fullest sympathy. There rhust always be some exceptions to its universal adoption, and we regard it rather as a standard than a rule. There are arguments in favour of eight hours as the working day standard apart from politics, commerce or economy, based on the study of man as a working unit. Dr. Richardson, whose name is.a household word among the temperance party, in a remarkable address recently delivered to working men at the Congress of the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain held at Brighton, argued strongly in favour of. the adoption of the eight-hour system wherever practicable, simply on # the ground of health. Using what he called "the physician's argument," he showed ttiat in a variety of occupations where labour is pursued for more than eight hours daily there is a corresponding increase of mortality. From carefully prepared tables of the value of life according to occupation, it appears that in no less than forty-two occupations out of a hundred is the mortality above the average, as the result of working long hours. Among the country blacksmiths, who work ten hours each day, there is an average of 19 deaths per r.,000 compared with 31 per 1,000 of the blacksmiths of Marylebone, London, who work twelve hours per day. In our own as well as in the neighbouring colonies, custom has set its seal upon the general adoption of eight; hours as the working day in the great majority of occupation?. We value the boon springing out of custom, backed by the strong force of public opinion. The physician's standpoint cannot be ignored. Health is the most valuable possession a man can have in this world; and social

reformers, as well as medical men, are beginning to realise that the best way of maintaining the national health is by husbanding the strength of the workers. Moralists and philosophers have descanted on the majesty of work, but they seldom defined its limits. The old motto of the monks, "Labour is worship," is only true within certain limits. This, at any rate, is dawning on the minds of thinkers, that a general shortening of the hours of labour in Europe as the result of a strong public opinion will do far more for general health than attempts to revive exhausted nature by drinking mineral waters or paying visits to German Spas.