THE EIGHT-HOUR SYSTEM.

Evening Star, Issue 5969, 29 April 1882, Page 4

THE EIGHT-HOUR SYSTEM.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The eight-hour movement is again making a stir in our midst, and it ia to be hoped that it will ultimately have a good effect. The case of the over-worked and long-worked tram-driver and conductor (and to them ought to have been linked shopmen, shopwomen, and many others) has been referred to, and, rightly I think, it has been asked: Should they be compelled to work these hours ? By.way of reply it is said that their work is not of the laborious nature requiring shorter hours. It is strange how those who are not of the class named know how they feel at the end of a day's labor, that they are able to pronounce bo very decisively against them as they do. A shopman, replying to one of these, said he '• would like to be able to make him walk home on his legs after he had been trotting up and down the shop all day." I think that, apart from a question of weariness of body, there is the far more vital one of weariness of mind.

It is often said to employe's when agitating for less hours: "Your labor is light," or " You are not hard at it all the time " ; but I am sure, as one who has worked in many factories, that ninety-nine out of every 100 would sooner work eight hours' real work and be done with it than drag out ten or twelve half employed, to suit, perhaps, the dilatoriness and talkativeness of the " boss," who will waste the day in talk, and would have his men working all hours of the night, to make up for it. And such, Mr Editor, I am sorry to say is but too often the case. It is quite the rule rather than the exception in some employers to rush men with orders sufficient for a day somewhere about 3 p.m. But to the case of the tram conductors and others. Would it not, Mr Editor, be better to see those men spend the extra four hours they now work inside the Athenaeum, public reading room (shame on Dunedin that it still wants one) lecture hall, or at their own homes ? Some may question whether they will do this, and assert that they will spend their time and money in baneful directions. . . But I maintain, Sir, that with this side of the question the employer has nothing to do. It is wrong for nim to help himself in that way, under the plea of helping his men. Bah ! and yet some will use such an argument for longer hours. No Sir; even if it is the case with some employes, right minded ones have no right to suffer. It is asserted that while we may legislate for women and children, there is no necessity for the law to come to come to the aid of mature manhood. It is admitted that the employer is the capitalist and therefore holds the key ot the locker ; and in so admitting it is plain to see that the helplessness of the employer is admitted, also, who asks that the law may step in to his assistance. But, says the employer, restrict me to eight hours per day, how is this and the other difficulty in regard to certain classes of work to be got over? Sir, in answer to this I would point to Bradßhaw's Act, and ask how the employers pot over the host of difficulties that they raised when this Act was first mooted, The neces-

sity for the Act was patent to all, and the law stepped in and helped the helpless regardless of the protests of the moneygrubbing, soul-grinding employers. And yet, Mr Editor, the world still moves round. People get up marriages, and they somehow get the dresses they require. They die, and the mourners are clad in due time; and better than all, at two o'clock p.m. the workroom is cleared till Monday morning. These apparently unsurmountable but imaginary difficulties the working man would, no doubt, be fully able to overcome. His present one is the legalising of a day's labor as eight hours. It is for such as you, Mr Editor, who admit the desirability of the matter, to help him. We are told that it will be time enough to agitate in this matter when the eight-hour day is less recognised than it is. I ask all working men not to be lulled by this idea. The time has now arrived when we should no longer work eight hours a day on suffrance, but as a right, recognised at last by law. The number of factories is increasing in our midst, and there is also an increase of masters who are desirous of lengthening the duration of a day's labor. It has become a rule, I believe, for fellmongers and others to commence work at 7 a.m., and in some instances to work on till 6 p.m. There are factories, again, working night and day, who are content to make two shifts serve them instead of three in the twenty-four hours. These are cases that want remedying, and point to the necessity of the present agitation. To a very great extent the workman is powerless. Perhaps the firm he works for is the only one of its kind in the place, and he either has to submit to the imposition of his employer or throw himself out of work. Regarding the faults of the working classes, there is no doubt but that they have many, but (with the exception of one glaring one) to bring up these is altogether beside the question. The one great fault I allude to has a bearing on this matter, and I think that in the matter of Saturday night shopping the working man shows a want of self-denial and a total disregard of a good old maxim, "Do unto others aa you would they should do unto you." I consider, then, that if we would have in this Colony an intellectual, inventive, energetic, robust nation, we must curtail the hours of labour where they exceed the ideal yet practical day of eight hours,and no let nor hindrance as far as want of leisure is concerned to the nation's intellectual progress may be said to exist. I think the case of Belgium and several European continental countries will serve to show how long hours affect the inventive faoulties of its workmen.—l am, etc., Vox Populi. Dunedin, April 29.