SHORT HOURS

Evening Star, Issue 17086, 3 July 1919, Page 4

SHORT HOURS

A DISSERTATION ON &LOT3EL The movement for shorter hours on iha part of workers everywhere is supported by students of efficiency and the effects of fatigue, and it is seldom now that an opposing voice is heard expressing arguments in favor of long houtte of work. In the course of a diocesan lot-tor recently issued, however, the Bishop of Exeter refers to sloth as one of the seven deadly sins—a sin which was not -confined to any one class. A man well endowed by God with intellect and vigor, the letter days, would spend all his life in eo-called amusements. He would value those t.musements more than the serious business of life, and if his sori excelled at some game, and was perfectly useless ai ssricms work, he Would be proud of him. Wo had an example of the strength of ■this vice in the great movement for short hours. <Ono sympathises much with the man who wanted to better his position, and longed to help in every elfort to make the conditions of life (ploasantor. "But I confess," continues the letter, " that the movement for shorter hours seems only a plan- to make people (miserable-. I have known many people an,many classes of life, and unhesitatingly declare that the man who.se life is very busy is happiest. I do not deny that he must have reasonable periods for recreation. The comnriandinent bid's us rest in tho seventh and work on the other six days of fjbe week. The pernods of reconstruction we are in is a period calling for effort. Other nations are doing their best to recover ground lost ip. the war, and if one nation hangs back its place will soon ba taken by more active competitors." Having ireferred to the different atmosphere in America, and the possibility of Germany by sheer industry recovering her position, 'the Bishop says: '' In England there is a growing feeling that work is rather a wretched and miserable thing, to bo hated and avoided by &'U who can escape from its iborden. This atmosphere of slackness and idleness will bring us into poverty which may rob us of all powers of defence."