The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1912. A SIX-HOUR DAY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 13675, 8 May 1912, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1912. A SIX-HOUR DAY.

The Australian worker still keeps steadily in view the goal of a six-hour day, which question for some years past has occupied a prominent place in the platform of tin Labour Party both in the Commonwealth and in this Dominion. The ] riuciple has been affirmed at various Trad s and Labour Conlerences in Australia and New Zen-

land, and at an Fight Honrs dinner at Brisbane last week the speakers declared that the time had arrived to actively prosecute the six-hour day movement. It has been argued that an hour's work a day should keep a man fed and clothed, two hours’ work should give him meat to eat, as well as potatoes, three hours’ work should give him boots, a hat, and a hut, four hoars’ work should allow him te marry, and six hours’ work should keep man and wife in luxury. Why, then, it is asked, should a man be compelled to work longer than six hours a day? It is all, no doubt, a question of working for use or for profit, and it should be possible, though it would be difficult, to fix precisely the daily period during which each man ought to work in order to earn sufficient for his present wants and a little over, t-o fur as industries are concerned, a good deal of very delicate economic investigation would have to be undertaken before it would be possible to adjust the proportion of the earnings of a particular industry due to labour and the proportion due to capital. What is needed in all reform movements is the practical example, and if some of the workers could co-operate in an enterprise and make it succeed on a six-hour day, the reformers would be supplied with unanswerable arguments. Some years ago, when the miner,wont out on strike in Austria to secure an eight hours’ day, the Minister of Agriculture issued by Imperial authority a quantity of statistics, showing the genera character of the empdoymeut of labour in mines and its effect upon the industries iu question. A census of about 140,00 C coalminers was taken on a given date, and the figures showed that of these men about two-thirds worked up to nine hours, and about one-third for more-than nine hours a day. But the most important [joint to observe is that, in spile of the legal shortening of hours, the average output was in many cases greater than before. The comparison made showed that iu BIT mines in which the hours of work had been lessened, or 45} per cent, of the total examined, the average s output per mine was greater, though in' 49 mines, oi IRJ per cent, of the total, the or.tpuit was smaller. This experience, which has been repeated in many trades and callings in various countries where the excessive hours of labour were previously in vogue, is naturally accepted by the advocates of the eix-hbur day as strong evidence in their favour. ' Every shortening ,of tin working hours,” as an English Laboui advocate puts it, “enables the workman to concentrate his activity in the working time left him, and put forth his powers over a smaller duration of time, but with the same total effect. To this should lx added the moral element of a greater delight in labour as well as the possibility of seeking intellectual and technical instruction in the leisure thus obtained. A system of shortened labour produces a race of workmen with better qualifications, and capable, therefore, of a greater output." The question is. how far is it possible to lessen the time occupied in toil without curtailing to a dangerous extent the i reduction of national wealth. Fix hours of labour may or may not be unreasonable, but some kind of allowance must be made in tiic case of special occupations. One of the main reasons advanced at the various Labour Congresses for curtailing the hours of labour is .that the constant improvement of ir jchincry is lessening the demand for hand labour, and all cannot be employed at full time. As there is less work to go round, it is argued that each individual should be put on a reduced' allowance. Machinery, it is contended, has not bettered the position of the working man, who is still struggling for existence the world over, and reduced hours of labour will enable the unemployed to get work. Eminent economists calculate that the production of the world would be sufficient if a four hours' day w’as worked. Of course this argument Joes not tally with the contention that more and better work would be done by the fresh and vigorous worker in the shorter space of time if hours of labour were still further reduced to enable him to take more rest and recuperation. An important aspect of the question is the advantage or disadvantage of I lie workers’ idle time. A six-hour day would afford immense opportunities for study and self-culture, for recreation and enjoyment of fresh air and sunshine, a..d for the development of home life. But (ho question is whether these opportunities would be taken advantage of by the great bulk of the people. It has been well said that the idlest countries in the, world are notoriously the least prosperous and the most restless, and it is only in the strenuous and toil-sinewed lands that progress comes to her own. The gain of an eight-hour day is a great triumph, and no one will blame the worker for trying to get still further concessions, but i.i advocating a six-hour day he will have to calculate carefully w'hether either he or the nation would uo better if he worked six hours and devoted eighteen to sleep and pleasure.