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OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES.
"'The Principles of State Interference' is another of Messrs. Swan
Sonnenschein's Series of Handbooks on Scientific Social Subjects.
It would be fitting to close our remarks on this little work with a
word of commendation of the publishers of so many useful volumes by
eminent writers on questions of pressing interest to a large number
of the community. We have now received and read a good number of
the handbooks which Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein have published in
this series, and can speak in the highest terms of them. They are
written by men of considerable knowledge of the subjects they have
undertaken to discuss; they are concise; they give a fair estimate
of the progress which recent discussion has added towards the
solution of the pressing social questions of to-day, are well up to
date, and are published at a price within the resources of the
public to which they are likely to be of the most
use."--_Westminster Review_, July, 1891.
"The excellent 'Social Science Series,' which is published at as
low a price as to place it within everybody's reach."--_Review of
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"There is a certain impartiality about the attractive and
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noticed in this article belong. There is no editor and no common
design beyond a desire to redress those errors and irregularities
of society which all the writers, though they may agree in little
else, concur in acknowledging and deploring. The system adopted
appears to be to select men known to have a claim to speak with
more or less authority upon the shortcomings of civilisation, and
to allow each to propound the views which commend themselves most
strongly to his mind, without reference to the possible flat
contradiction which may be forthcoming at the hands of the next
contributor."--_Literary World._
"'The Social Science Series' aims at the illustration of all sides
of social and economic truth and error."--_Scotsman._
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LONDON.
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+17. Thoreau's Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers.+ Edited by H. S. SALT.
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+19. The New York State Reformatory at Elmira.+ ALEXANDER WINTER.
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+24. Luxury.+ Prof. EMILE DE LAVELEYE.
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+25. The Land and the Labourers.+ Rev. C. W. STUBBS, M.A.
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+26. The Evolution of Property.+ PAUL LAFARGUE.
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history."--_Scotsman._
+27. Crime and its Causes.+ W. DOUGLAS MORRISON.
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+28. Principles of State Interference.+ D. G. RITCHIE, M.A.
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+29. German Socialism and F. Lassalle.+ W. H. DAWSON.
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+30. The Purse and the Conscience+. H. M. THOMPSON, B.A. (Cantab.).
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+31. Origin of Property in Land.+ FUSTEL DE COULANGES. Edited, with an
Introductory Chapter on the English Manor, by Prof. W. J.
ASHLEY, M.A.
"His views are clearly stated, and are worth reading."--_Saturday
Review._
+32. The English Republic.+ W. J. LINTON. Edited by KINETON PARKES.
"Characterised by that vigorous intellectuality which has marked
his long life of literary and artistic activity."--_Glasgow
Herald._
+33. The Co-Operative Movement+. BEATRICE POTTER.
"Without doubt the ablest and most philosophical analysis of the
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+34. Neighbourhood Guilds.+ Dr. STANTON COIT.
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question."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+35. Modern Humanists.+ J. M. ROBERTSON.
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+36. Outlooks from the New Standpoint.+ E. BELFORT BAX.
"Mr. Bax is a very acute and accomplished student of history and
economics."--_Daily Chronicle._
+37. Distributing Co-Operative Societies+. Dr. LUIGI PIZZAMIGLIO.
Edited by F. J. SNELL.
"Dr. Pizzamiglio has gathered together and grouped a wide array of
facts and statistics, and they speak for themselves."--_Speaker._
+38. Collectivism and Socialism+. By A. NACQUET. Edited by W. HEAFORD.
"An admirable criticism by a well-known French politician of the
New Socialism of Marx and Lassalle."--_Daily Chronicle._
+39. The London Programme.+ SIDNEY WEBB, LL.B.
"Brimful of excellent ideas."--_Anti-Jacobin._
+40. The Modern State.+ PAUL LEROY BEAULIEU.
"A most interesting book; well worth a place in the library of
every social inquirer."--_N. B. Economist._
+41. The Condition of Labour.+ HENRY GEORGE.
"Written with striking ability, and sure to attract
attention."--_Newcastle Chronicle._
+42. The Revolutionary Spirit preceding the French Revolution.+
FELIX ROCQUAIN. With a Preface by Professor HUXLEY.
"The student of the French Revolution will find in it an excellent
introduction to the study of that catastrophe."--_Scotsman._
+43. The Student's Marx.+ EDWARD AVELING, D.Sc.
"One of the most practically useful of any in the
Series."--_Glasgow Herald._
+44. A Short History of Parliament.+ B. C. SKOTTOWE, M.A. (Oxon.).
"Deals very carefully and completely with this side of
constitutional history."--_Spectator._
+45. Poverty: Its Genesis and Exodus.+ J. G. GODARD.
"He states the problems with great force and
clearness."--_N. B. Economist._
+46. The Trade Policy of Imperial Federation.+ MAURICE H. HERVEY.
"An interesting contribution to the discussion."--_Publishers'
Circular._
+47. The Dawn of Radicalism.+ J. BOWLES DALY, LL.D.
"Forms an admirable picture of an epoch more pregnant, perhaps,
with political instruction than any other in the world's
history."--_Daily Telegraph._
+48. The Destitute Alien in Great Britain.+ ARNOLD WHITE; MONTAGUE
CRACKANTHORPE, Q.C.; W. A. M'ARTHUR, M.P.; W. H. WILKINS, &c.
"Much valuable information concerning a burning question of the
day."--_Times._
+49. Illegitimacy and the Influence of Seasons on Conduct.+
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+50. Commercial Crises of the Nineteenth Century.+ H. M. HYNDMAN.
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+51. The State and Pensions in Old Age.+ J. A. SPENDER and ARTHUR
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+52. The Fallacy of Saving.+ JOHN M. ROBERTSON.
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+53. The Irish Peasant.+ ANON.
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+54. The Effects of Machinery on Wages.+ Prof. J. S. NICHOLSON, D.Sc.
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+55. The Social Horizon.+ ANON.
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+56. Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.+ FREDERICK ENGELS.
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+57. Land Nationalisation.+ A. R. WALLACE.
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+58. The Ethic of Usury and Interest.+ Rev. W. BLISSARD.
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+59. The Emancipation of Women.+ ADELE CREPAZ.
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+60. The Eight Hours' Question.+ JOHN M. ROBERTSON.
DOUBLE VOLUMES, Each 3s. 6d.
+1. Life of Robert Owen.+ LLOYD JONES.
+2. The Impossibility of Social Democracy: a Second Part of "The
Quintessence of Socialism".+ Dr. A. SCHAeFFLE.
+3. The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.+ FREDERICK
ENGELS.
+4. The Principles of Social Economy.+ YVES GUYOT.
* * * * *
THE THEORY AND POLICY OF LABOUR PROTECTION.
BY DR. A. SCHAeFFLE
EDITED BY A. C. MORANT
_Translator of Schaeffle's_ IMPOSSIBILITY OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY,
_Leroy-Beaulieu's_ THE MODERN STATE, _Laveleye's_ LUXURY, _etc._
[Illustration]
London
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1893
BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON.
PREFACE.
In this book Dr. Schaeffle seeks to carry out still further the idea
which he developed in his last book (_The Impossibility of Social
Democracy_) of the essential difference between a socialistic policy and
what he calls a Positive Social Policy, proceeding constructively upon
the basis of the existing social order. He emphatically vindicates the
Emperor William's policy, as shown in the convening of the Berlin Labour
Conference, from the charge of being revolutionary, or of playing into
the hands of the Socialists.
The first part contains an attempt to settle and render more precise the
use of terms in labour-legislation, as well as to classify the different
aims and purposes with which it sets out, and then passes on to what
will probably be to English readers the most interesting part of the
book--a discussion of the Maximum Working Day in general, and the Eight
Hours Day in particular. Here the author commits himself in favour of a
legal ten or eleven hours day for industrial work, with special
provisions for specially dangerous or exhausting trades, and with
freedom of contract below that limit, and brings evidence to show that
such a step has already been justified by experience. But after a
careful discussion of what it involves, and after disentangling with
some care the difficulties with which it is surrounded, he pronounces
emphatically against the universal compulsory Eight Hours Day, which he
regards as not practicable for, at any rate, a very long time to come.
On the vexed question of the labour of married women, Dr. Schaeffle is
less explicit, and seems somewhat to halt between two opinions. He will
not commit himself to the desirability of an absolute prohibition of it,
but it seems clear that his sympathies lean that way.
The discussion of the Social Democratic proposals in the German
Reichstag, known as the Auer Motion, is very careful and appreciative,
but Dr. Schaeffle takes care to disentangle the really Socialistic
element in them, and will only support the introduction of Labour Boards
and Labour Chambers as consultative bodies, not as holding any power of
control over the Inspectorate. He is willing to allow to the working
classes full vent for their grievances, but dreads to see them entrusted
with the actual power of remedying them.
His plea for more international exchange of opinions and international
uniformity of practice is one which must be echoed by all who have the
cause of Labour at heart. To that larger sense of brotherhood which
extends beyond the bounds of country we must look for the accomplishment
of the Social Revolution which is surely on the way. On a task so large,
and involving such far-reaching issues to the progress of the world, the
nations must take hands and step together if the results are to be of
permanent value. The paralyzing dread of war, the competition of foreign
workmen, the familiar Capitalist weapon that "trade will leave the
country" if the workers' claims are conceded--all these dangers in the
way can only be met by the drawing closer of international bonds, by the
intercommunication of those in all countries who are fired by the new
ideals, and are making towards an ordered Social peace out of the chaos
of conflicting and competing energies and interests in which we live.
It cannot but be well to be reminded, as Dr. Schaeffle reminds us, of the
strong expression of opinion uttered by the Berlin International Labour
Conference as to the beneficial results which might be looked for from a
series of such gatherings, or to ask ourselves, why should not England
be the next to convene a Labour Conference to gather up the experiences
of the last few years, which have been so full of movement and agitation
in the Labour world, as well as to give to other nations the benefit of
the earnest and strenuous investigations, now nearly drawing to a close,
of our own Royal Commission on Labour?
At the request of Dr. Schaeffle, the von Berlepsch Bill, which has been
brought in by the German Government in order to carry out the
recommendations of the Berlin Conference, has been inserted as an
Appendix at the end of the English edition.
A. C. MORANT.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 1
CHAPTER
I. DEFINITION OF LABOUR PROTECTION 7
II. CLASSIFICATION OF INDUSTRIAL WAGE-LABOUR
FOR PURPOSES OF PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION.--DEFINITION
OF FACTORY LABOUR 23
III. SURVEY OF THE EXISTING CONDITIONS OF LABOUR PROTECTION 45
IV. MAXIMUM WORKING-DAY 53
BOOK II.
V. PROTECTION OF INTERVALS OF WORK.--DAILY
INTERVALS.--NIGHT REST AND HOLIDAYS 114
VI. ENACTMENTS PROHIBITING CERTAIN KINDS OF WORK 126
VII. EXCEPTIONS TO PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 140
VIII. PROTECTION IN OCCUPATION.--PROTECTION OF
TRUCK AND CONTRACT 146
IX. RELATION OF THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF LABOUR
PROTECTION TO EACH OTHER 161
X. TRANSACTIONS OF THE BERLIN LABOUR CONFERENCE,
DEALING WITH MATTERS BEYOND THE RANGE OF LABOUR
PROTECTION.--DALE'S DEPOSITIONS ON COURTS OF
ARBITRATION, AND THE SLIDING SCALE OF WAGES
IN MINING 164
XI. THE "LABOUR BOARDS" AND "LABOUR CHAMBERS"
OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 171
XII. FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF PROTECTIVE ORGANISATION 187
XIII. INTERNATIONAL LABOUR PROTECTION 196
XIV. THE AIM AND JUSTIFICATION OF LABOUR PROTECTION 205
APPENDIX--
I. INDUSTRIAL CODE AMENDMENT BILL (GERMANY) 211
THEORY AND POLICY OF LABOUR PROTECTION.
BOOK I.
INTRODUCTORY.
In past years German Social Policy was directed chiefly to _Labour
Insurance_, in which much entirely new work had to be done, and has
already been done on a large scale; but in the year 1890 it entered upon
the work of _Labour Protection_, which was begun long ago in the
Industrial Code, and this work must still be carried on further and more
generally on the same lines.
This result is due to the fact that the Emperor William II. has
inscribed upon his banner this hitherto neglected portion of social
legislation (which, however, has long been favoured by the Reichstag and
especially by the Centre), has placed it on the orders of the day among
national and international questions, and has launched it into the
stream of European progress with new force and a higher aim.
The subject is one of the greatest interest in more than one respect.
It was to all appearance the cause of the retirement of Prince Bismark
into private life. Some day, perhaps, the historian, in seeking an
explanation of this important event in the world's history, will inquire
of the political economist and social politician, whether Labour
Protection, as conceived by the Emperor--especially as compared to
Labour Insurance--were after all so bold a venture, so new a path, so
daring a leap in the dark as to necessitate the retirement of that great
statesman. I am inclined to answer in the negative, and to assume that
the conversion of Social Policy to Labour Protection was the outward
pretext rather than the real motive of the unexpected abdication of
Prince Bismark of his leading position in the State. The collective
result of my inquiry must speak for itself on this point.
The turn which Social Policy has thus taken in the direction of Labour
Protection, raises the question among scientific observers whether it is
true that the science of statecraft has thus launched forth upon a path
of dangerous adventure and rash experimentation, and grappled with a
problem, compared with which Prince Bismark's scheme of Labour Insurance
sinks into insignificance. Party-spirit, which loves to belittle real
excellence, at present lends itself to the view which would minimise the
significance of Labour Insurance as compared with Labour Protection. But
this is in my opinion a mistake. Though it is impossible to overestimate
the importance for Germany of this task of advancing over the ground
already occupied by other nations, and of working towards the
introduction of a general scheme of international Labour Protection
calculated to ensure international equilibrium of competition, yet in
this task Labour Protection is, in fact, only the necessary supplement
to Labour Insurance. Both are of the highest importance. But neither the
one nor the other gives any ground for the charge that we are playing
with the fires of social revolution. The end which the Emperor William
sought to attain at the Berlin Conference, in March, 1890, and by the
Industrial Code Amendment Bill of the Minister of Commerce, _von
Berlepsch_, is one that has already been separately attained more or
less completely in England, Austria and Switzerland. It is in the main
merely a question of extending the scope of results already attained in
such countries, while what there is of new in his scheme does not by any
means constitute the beginning of a social revolution from above. The
policy of the Imperial Decree of February 4th, 1890, and of the Bill of
_von Berlepsch_, in no wise pledges its authors to the Radicals. A calm
consideration of facts will prove incontestably the correctness of this
view.
However, it is not any politico-economic reasons there may have been for
the retirement of Prince Bismark, nor the very common habit of
depreciating the value of Labour Insurance, nor yet the popular theory,
false as I believe it to be, that the Emperor's policy of Labour
Protection is of a revolutionary character, which leads me to take up
once again this well-worn theme.
If the "Theory and Policy of Labour Protection" were by this time full
and complete, I would willingly lay it aside in order to take into
consideration the significance of Bismark's retirement from the point of
view of social science, or to attempt to reassure public opinion as to
the conservative character of the impending measures of Labour
Protection. But this is not the case.
It is true we have before us an almost overwhelming mass of material in
the way of protocols, reports of commissions, judicial decisions,
resolutions and counter-resolutions, proposals, petitions and motions,
speeches and writings, pamphlets and books. But we are still far from
having, as the result of a clear and comprehensive survey of the whole
of this material, a complete theory of Labour Protection; for the
political problems of Labour Protection, especially those touching the
so-called Maximum Working Day and the organisation of protection, are
more hotly disputed than ever. In spite of the valuable and careful
articles on Labour Protection, in the _Encyclopaedia_, of von Schoenberg
and of Conrad, with their wealth of literary illustration, in spite of
the latest writings of Hitze,[1] which, for moderation and clearness,
vigour of thought, and wealth of material, cannot be too highly
commended, there still remains much scientific work to be done. I myself
have actually undertaken a thorough examination of all this literary and
legislative material, in view of the national and international efforts
of to-day towards the progressive development of Labour Protection, with
the result that I am firmly convinced that both Theory and Policy of
Labour Protection are still deficient at several points, and in fact
that we are far from having placed on a scientific footing the dogmatic
basis of the whole matter.
We have not yet a sufficiently exact definition of the meaning of Labour
Protection, nor a clear distinction between Labour Protection and the
other forms of State-aids to Labour, as well as of other aids outside
the action of the State.
We have not a satisfactory classification of the different forms of
Labour Protection itself with reference to its aim and scope,
organisation and methods.
We still lack--and it was seriously lacking at the Labour Conference at
Berlin--a fundamental agreement as to the grounds on which Labour
Protection is justified, its relation to freedom of contract, and the
advisability of extending it to adults.
The discussion is far from being complete, not only with reference to
the real problems of Labour Protection, but also and especially with
reference to the organs, methods and course of its administration. Many
proposals lie before us, some of which are open to objection and some
even highly questionable.
But we find scarcely any who advocate the simplification and cheapening
of this organisation in connection with the systematised collective
organisation of all matters pertaining to labour, together with the
separation, as far as possible, of such organisation from the regular
administrative organs.
The proposals of Social Democracy with respect to "Labour-boards" and
"Labour-chambers," are hardly known in wider circles, and have nowhere
received the attention to which in my opinion they are entitled.
The proposed legislation for the protection of labour offers therefore a
wide field for careful and scientific investigation. I have prepared the
following pages as a contribution to this task.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] _Protection for the Labourer!_ Cologne, 1890.
CHAPTER I.
DEFINITION OF LABOUR PROTECTION.
The meaning of the term Labour Protection admits of an extension far
beyond the narrow and precise limits which prevailing usage has assigned
to it, and beyond the sphere of analogous questions actually dealt with
by protective legislation.
In its most general meaning the term comprises all conceivable
protection of every kind of labour: protection of all labour--even for
the self-supporting, independent worker; protection in
service-relations, and beyond this, protection against all dangers and
disadvantages arising from the economic weakness of the position of the
wage-labourer; protection of all, not merely of industrial
wage-labourers; protection not by the State alone, but also by
non-political organs; the ancient common protection exercised through
the ordinary course of justice and towards all citizens, and thus
towards labourers among the rest. All this so far as the actual word is
concerned may be included in the term Labour Protection.
But to use it in this sense would be to incur the risk of falling into a
hopeless confusion as to the questions which lie within the scope of
actual Labour Protection, and of running an endless tilt against
fanciful exaggerations of Labour Protection.
The term Labour Protection, according to prevailing usage and according
to the aim of the practical efforts now being made to realise it, has a
much narrower meaning, and this it is which we must strictly define and
adhere to if we wish to avoid error and misconception. Our first task
shall be to determine this stricter definition; and here we find
ourselves confronted by a series of limitations.
(1) Labour Protection signifies only protection against the special
dangers arising out of service-relations, out of the personal and
economic dependence of the wage-labourer on the employer.
Labour Protection does not apply therefore to independent workers: to
farmers or masters of handicrafts, to independent workers in the fine
arts and liberal professions. Labour Protection applies merely to
wage-labourers.
For this reason Labour Protection has no connection with any aids to
labour, beyond the limits of protection against the employer in
service-relations; it has nothing to do with any attempts to ward off
and remedy distress of all kinds, and otherwise to provide for the
general welfare of the working classes; its scope does not extend to
provisions for meeting distress caused by incapacity for work, or want
of work, _i.e._ Labour Insurance, nor to the prevention and settlement
of strikes, nor to improved methods of labour-intelligence, nor to
precautions against disturbances of production or protection against the
consequences of poverty by various methods of public and private
charity, savings-banks, public health-regulations, inspection of food,
and suppression of usury by common law. Although these are mainly or
principally concerned with labourers, and are attempts to protect them
from want, yet they are not to be included in Labour Protection in its
strict sense. For this, as we have seen, includes only those measures
and regulations designed to protect the wage-labourer in his special
relations of dependence on his employer.
And indeed we must draw the limit still closer, and apply the word only
to the relations between certain defined wage-earners and certain
defined employers. Measures which are designed to protect the entire
labouring class or the whole of industry, do not, strictly speaking,
belong to the category of Labour Protection. Neither can we apply the
term to that protection which workmen and employers alike should find
against the recent abnormal development of prison competition, although
by recommending this measure in their latest Industrial Rescript (the
Auer Motion[2]) the Social Democrats by a skilful move have won the
applause of small employers especially. For the same reason we do not
include protection by criminal law against the coercion of non-strikers
by strikers, exercised through personal violence, intimidation or abuse;
these are measures to preserve freedom of contract, but they have no
connection with the relations of certain defined wage-earners to certain
defined employers. Furthermore, Labour Protection does not include
preservation of the rights of unions, and of freedom to combine for the
purpose of raising wages, except or only in so far as particular
employers, singly or in concert, by means of moral pressure or
otherwise, seek to endanger the rights of particular wage-earners in
this respect. It is almost unnecessary to add that Labour Protection
does not include the "protection of national labour" against foreign
labourers and employers, by means of protective duties, for this is
obviously not protection against dangers arising from the service
relations between certain defined wage-earners and employers.
But although none of these measures of security that we have enumerated
are to be included in Labour Protection, we must on the other hand guard
against mistaken limitations of the term. It would be a mistaken
limitation to include only security against material economic dangers in
and arising from the relations of dependence, and to exclude moral and
personal safeguards in these relations--protection of learning and
instruction, of education, morality and religion, in a word the complete
protection of family life.
Labour Protection does not indeed include the whole moral and personal
security of the wage-earner, but it does include it, and includes it
fully and entirely, in so far as the dangers which threaten this
security arise out of the _condition of dependence of the worker_ either
within or beyond the limits of his business. The whole scope of Labour
Protection embraces all claims for security against inhumane treatment
in service-relations, treatment of the labourer "as a common tool," in
the words of Pope Leo XIII.
(2) Labour Protection does not include the free self-help of the worker,
nor free mutual help, but only a part (cf. 3) of the protection afforded
to wage-earners by the State, if necessary in co-operation with
voluntary effort.
Labour Protection in its modern form is only the outcome of a very old
and on the whole far more important kind of Labour Protection, in the
widest sense of the term, which far from abolishing the old forms of
self-help and mutual help, actually presupposes them, strengthens,
ensures and supplements them wherever the more recent developments of
national industry render this necessary. Labour Protection, properly so
called, only steps in when self-help and mutual help, supplemented by
ordinary State protection, fail to meet the exigencies of the situation,
whether momentarily and on account of special circumstances, or by the
necessities of the case.
This second far-reaching limitation of the meaning needs a little
further explanation.
Labour Protection in its more extended sense always meant and must still
mean, first and foremost, self-help of the workers themselves; in part,
individual self-help to guard against the dangers of service, in part,
united self-help by means of the class organisation of trades-unions.
Side by side with this self-help there has long existed a comprehensive
system of free mutual help.
This assumes the form of family protection exercised by relations and
guardians against harsh employers, and by the father, brother, etc., in
their relation of employers in family industries; also the somewhat
similar form of patriarchal protection extended by the employer to his
workpeople.
Furthermore it includes that protection afforded by the pressure of
religion, the common conscience or public opinion upon the consciences
of employers, acting partly through the organs of the press, clubs, and
other vehicles of expression, as well as through non-political public
institutions, and corporate bodies of various kinds, especially and more
directly through the Church, and also indirectly through the schools.
Without family and patriarchal protection, without the protection
afforded by civil morality and religious sentiment, Labour Protection,
in its strict sense, working through the State alone, would be able to
effect little.
Family and patriarchal protection outweigh therefore in importance all
more modern forms of Labour Protection, and will always continue to be
the most efficacious. The protection of the Church has always been
powerful from the earliest times.
Self-help and mutual help, moral and religious, effect much that
State-protection could not in general effect, and therefore it is not to
be supposed that they could be dispensed with. But they must not be
included in Labour Protection, strictly so called, for this only
includes protection of labour by the State, and indeed only a part even
of this (cf. 3).
(3) For instance, Labour Protection does not include all judicial and
administrative protection extended by the State to the wage-labourer,
but only such special or extraordinary protection as is directed against
the dangers arising from service relations, and is administered through
special, extraordinary organs, judicial, legislative and representative.
This special protection has become necessary through the development of
the factory system with its merciless exploitation of wage-labour, and
through the weakening of the patriarchal relations in workshops and in
handicrafts. In this respect Labour Protection is the special modern
development of the protection of labour by the State.
Labourers and employers alike are guaranteed an extensive protection of
life, health, morality, freedom, education, culture, and so on, by the
ordinary protective agencies of justice and of police, exercised
impartially towards all citizens, and claimed by all as their right.
Long before there was any talk of Labour Protection, in the modern sense
of the term, this kind of protection existed for wage-labour as against
employers. But in the strict sense of the term Labour Protection
includes only the special protection which extends beyond this ordinary
sphere, the special exercise of State activity on behalf of labourers.
Even where this extraordinary or special Labour Protection is exercised
by the regular administrative and judicial authorities, it still takes
the form of special regulations of private law, punitive and
administrative, directed exclusively or mainly to the protection of
labourers in their service-relations. To this extent, at any rate, it
has a special and extraordinary character. Very frequently, as for
instance in the German Industrial Code, such protection is placed in the
hands of the ordinary administrative and judicial authorities, and a
portion of it will continue to be so placed for some time to come.
But the administration of Labour Protection, properly so called, is
tending steadily to shift its centre of gravity more and more towards
special extraordinary organs. These organs are partly executive
(hitherto State-regulated factory inspection and industrial courts of
arbitration), but they are also partly representative; the latter may be
appointed exclusively for this purpose, or they may also be utilized for
other branches of work in the interests of the labourer and for the
encouragement of national industry, and they bear in their organisation,
or at least to some extent in their action, the character of public
institutions.
(4) Labour Protection is essentially protection of industrial
wage-labour, and excludes on the one hand the protection of agricultural
workers and those engaged in forestry, as well as of domestic servants,
and on the other hand, the protection of State officials and public
servants.
It may no doubt be that special protection is also needed for
non-industrial wage-labour and for domestic servants, but the material
legal basis, the organisation and methods of procedure, of these further
branches of Labour Protection, will demand a special constitution of
their own. The regulations of domestic service and the Acts relating to
State-service in Germany constitute indeed a kind of Labour Protection,
certainly very incomplete, and quite distinct from the rest of Labour
Protection, properly so-called. Even if the progress of the Social
Democratic movement in this country were to bring on to the platform of
practical politics the measure already demanded by the Social Democrats
for the protection of agricultural industry[3] on a large scale, even
then protection of those engaged in agriculture and forestry would need
to receive a special constitution, as regards the courts through which
it would be administered, the dangers against which it would be
directed, and its methods and course of administration. Whilst therefore
we readily recognise that both protection of domestic servants and a
far-reaching measure of agricultural Labour Protection, in the strict
sense of the term, may eventually supervene, we yet maintain that this
must be sharply distinguished for purposes of scientific, legislative,
and administrative treatment from what we at present understand by
Labour Protection.
Moreover, even now agricultural labour is not entirely lacking in
special protection. The regulations for domestic service contain
fragments of protection of contract and truck protection. Russia has
passed a law for the protection of agricultural labour (June 12, 1886)
in Finland and the so-called western provinces, which regulates the
peculiar system of individual and plural[4] agreements between small
holders and their dependents, and is also designed to afford protection
of contract to the employer.
(5) The industrial wage-labour dealt with by the Industrial Code, and
the industrial wage-labour dealt with by State Protection, are not
entirely identical, though nearly so.
For on the one hand there are wage-labourers employed in occupations not
included in industrial labour in the sense of the Code, who yet stand in
need of special protection from the State; while on the other hand there
are bodies of industrial labourers dealt with in the Code, who do not
need or who practically cannot have this extraordinary protective
intervention of the State, being already supplied with the various
agencies of free self-help, family insurance, and mutual aid.
When we are concerned with Labour Protection therefore, both in theory
and practice, it is evident that we have to deal with industrial
wage-labour in a limited sense, not in the general sense in which the
term occurs in the Industrial Code, while at the same time we must not
fail to recognise that even the older Industrial Acts, in so far as they
referred to wage-labour, were already Labour-protective Acts of a kind.
The limits of wage-labour as affected by the Industrial Code, and of
wage-labour as affected by State protection, have this in common, that
both extend far beyond wage-service in manufacturing business
(industry, in its strict sense). For this reason we must examine into
this point a little more closely in order to determine the exact scope
of Labour Protection.
In our present Industrial Code the terms "industrial labour" and
"industrial establishments" are almost uniformly used in the sense given
to them by the German Industrial Code of 1869. Industrial labour is
wage-labour in all those occupations within the jurisdiction of the
Code.
But the Code gives no positive legal definition of the word "industry."
Both in administrative and judicial reference the word is used loosely
as in common parlance, and the Code only particularises certain
industries out of those with which it deals as requiring special
regulations and special organs for the administration of these special
regulations.
According to administrative and judicial usage in Germany, corresponding
to customary usage, the word "industry" is now applied to all such
branches of legitimate private activity as are directed regularly and
continuously towards the acquirement of gain, with the following
exceptions: agriculture and forestry (market-gardening excepted),
cattle-breeding, vine-growing, and the manufacturing of home-raised
products of the soil (except in cases where the manufacturing is the
main point and the production of the material only a means towards
manufacturing, as in the case of sugar refineries and brandy
distilleries).
In spite of this last limitation the meaning of the term "industrial
labour," as used in the Code, extends far beyond the limits of
wage-labour in the manufacturing of materials. For the provisions of
the Imperial Industrial Code for the protection of labour expressly
include, either wholly or partially, mining industries, commerce,
distribution, and all carrying industries other than by rail and sea.
But the need of Labour Protection is also felt in certain occupations
which are indeed counted as industries in common parlance, but which are
expressly excluded from the jurisdiction of the Industrial Code; amongst
these are the fisheries, pharmacy, the professions of surgery and
medicine, paid teaching in the education of children, the bar and the
whole legal profession, agents and conductors of emigration, insurance
offices, railroad traffic and traffic by sea, _i.e._ as affecting the
seamen.
Clearly no exception ought to be taken to the extension of Labour
Protection to any single one of these branches of industry, in so far as
they are carried on by wage-labourers in need of protection. This ought
especially to apply to private commercial industries with reference to
Sunday rest, and to public means of traffic, in the widest sense of the
term, and to navigation. A fairly comprehensive measure of protection
for this last branch of work has already been provided in Germany by the
Regulations for Seamen of December 27, 1872.
Furthermore, the need of protection also exists in callings which do not
fall under the head of industries even in the customary use of the term.
Taking our definition of industry as an exercise of private activity for
purposes of gain, we clearly cannot include in it the employments
carried on under the various communal, provincial and imperial
corporate bodies, at least such of them as are not of a purely fiscal
nature, but are directed towards the fulfilment of public or communal
services, not even such as are worked at a profit. There is clearly,
however, a necessity for protection in government work, and this has
already been recognised (cf. the _von Berlepsch_ Bill, art. 6, Sec. 155, 2,
Appendix).
The legislative machinery of Labour Protection is not confined to the
Industrial Code. There are two ways of enacting such protection: extra
protection going beyond the ordinary Industrial Regulations may be
enacted by way of amendments or codicils to their ordinary protective
clauses, or on the other hand it may be lodged in special laws and
enactments, to be worked by specially constituted organs. The latter
method has to be followed in the case of municipal or State-controlled
means of traffic. In Germany, Labour Protection in mining industries is
supplied by the Industrial Code, with special additions however in the
form of Mining Acts to designate the scope of the protection and the
means through which it works. There are, moreover, also special Acts,
such as those which apply to the manufacture of matches.
All wage-earners, not only those protected by the Industrial Code, but
also those protected by special acts and special organs, are included in
that industrial wage-labour which comes within the scope of protective
legislation. By industrial wage-earners we mean therefore all such
wage-earners as need protection in the dependent relations of service,
whether such be enumerated in the Industrial Code or by definition
expressly excluded from it.
This is the conclusion at which the Berlin Conference also finally
arrived. The report of the third commission (pp. 77 and seq.) states:
"Before concluding its task, the third commission has deemed it
advisable to define the strict meaning of certain terms used in the
Resolutions adopted, especially the phrase 'industrial establishments'"
(_etablissements industriels_). Several definitions were proposed. First
the delegate from the Netherlands proposed the following definition: "An
industrial establishment is every space, enclosed or otherwise, in which
by means of a machine or at least ten workmen, an industry is carried
on, having for its object the manufacture, manipulation, decoration,
sale or any kind of use or distribution of goods, with the exception of
food and drink consumed on the premises."
The proposal of the Italian delegates ran as follows: "Any place shall
be called an industrial establishment in which manual work is carried on
with the help of one or more machines, whatever be the number of workmen
employed. Where no engine of any kind is used, an industrial
establishment shall be taken to mean any place where at least ten
workmen work permanently together."
A French delegate, M. Delahaye, read out the following suggestion, which
he proposed in his own name: "An industrial establishment denotes any
house, cellar, open, closed, covered or uncovered place in which
materials for production are manufactured into articles of merchandise.
Moreover, a certain number (to be agreed on) of workmen must be engaged
there, who shall work for a certain number (to be agreed on) of days in
the year, or a machine must be used."
The Spanish delegate stated that he would refrain from voting on the
question, because he was of opinion that instead of using the term
"industrial establishment," it would be better to say "the work of any
industries and handicrafts which demand the application of a strength
greater than is compatible with the age and physical development of
children and young workers." According to his opinion no weight ought to
be attached to the consideration whether the work is carried on within
or outside of an establishment. After a discussion between the delegates
from France, Belgium and Holland, and after receiving from the
Luxembourg delegate a short analysis of foreign enactments on this
point, the Committee unanimously adopted a proposal made by the
delegates from Great Britain, and supported by Belgium, Germany,
Hungary, Luxembourg, and Italy. The proposal was as follows: "By
'industrial establishments' shall be understood those which the Law
regulating work in the various countries shall designate as such whether
by means of definition or enumeration."
A consideration of the discussions raised in paragraphs 1 to 5 results
in the following definition of Labour Protection: _the extraordinary
protection extended to those branches of industrial wage-labour which
claim, and are recognized as requiring, protection against the dangers
arising out of service relations with certain employers, such
protection being exercised by special applications of common law,
punitive and administrative, either through the regular channels or by
specially appointed administrative, judicial, and representative
organs._
The Resolutions of the Berlin Conference, and the protective measures
submitted to the German Reichstag early in the year 1890, have, as we
shall find, strictly confined themselves to this essentially limited
definition of Labour Protection.
It appears as though hitherto no clear theoretical definition of the
idea of Labour Protection has been forthcoming. But the necessity for
drawing a sharp distinction at least between Labour Protection and all
other kinds of care for labour is often felt. Von Bojanowski speaks very
strongly against vague extensions of the meaning: "The matter would
become endlessly involved," he says, "if, as has already happened in
some cases, we were to extend the idea of protective legislation to
include all such enactments (arising out of other possibilities based
upon other considerations) as grant aid to workers in any kind of work
or in certain branches of work, or such as are based on the rights of
labour as such, and are therefore general in their application, or such
as seek to further all those united efforts which are being made in
response to the aspirations of the working population or from
humanitarian considerations. This would result either in confounding it
with an idea which we ought always carefully to distinguish from it, an
idea unknown in England, that of the so-called 'committee of public
safety,' or it would lead to more or less arbitrary experiments."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] A motion brought forward in the German Reichstag in July, 1885, and
again in 1890 in the form of an amendment to the Industrial Code, by all
the Social Democratic members sitting there; called after Auer, whose
name stands alphabetically first on the list of backers.--ED.
[3] For regulating the use of machinery in agriculture. (See the Auer
Motion.)
[4] The _artell_ system, under which groups of labourers with a chosen
leader contract themselves to the various employers in turn, for the
performance of special agricultural and other operations.
CHAPTER II.
CLASSIFICATION OF INDUSTRIAL WAGE-LABOUR FOR PURPOSES OF PROTECTIVE
LEGISLATION.--DEFINITION OF FACTORY-LABOUR.
Those forms of industrial wage-labour which are dealt with by protective
legislation do not all receive the same measure of protection, nor are
they all dealt with according to the same method. This is only to be
expected from the constitution of Labour Protection, which is an
extraordinary exercise of State interference in cases where it is
specially necessary.
All over the world we find that industrial wage-labour requires
protection of various kinds, differing, that is, not only in its nature
but in the course and method of its application. On account of these
very differences, before we can go a step further in the elucidation of
the Theory and Policy of Labour Protection, we must divide industrial
wage-labour into classes, according to the kind of protection which is
needed, and the manner in which such protection is applied by protective
legislation. It will now be our task, therefore, to classify them, and
to be sure that we arrive at a clear idea of the various classes into
which they fall for the purposes of protective legislation, some of
which may not perhaps be readily apparent at first sight.
The varieties of protection needed by industrial wage-labour arise,
partly out of dangers peculiar to the particular occupation in which the
wage-labourer is employed, and partly out of the personal
characteristics and position of the labourer to be protected; _i.e._
they are partly exterior and partly personal.
When the protection is against exterior dangers we have to consider
sometimes the great diversity of conditions in the different occupations
and industries, and sometimes the special manner in which workmen may be
affected within the limits of a single occupation peculiar to some
special branch of industry. When the protection is of the kind which I
have called personal, the need for it arises partly out of the special
dangers to which the protected individual is liable _outside_ the actual
limits of his business, partly out of the special dangers attached to
his position _in_ that business.
Hence results the following classification of industrial wage-labour,
according to the kind of protection required:--
I. Labourers requiring protection against _exterior_ dangers:
_a._ According to the kinds of occupation:
1. Having reference to the different branches of industry:
Wage-labour in mining, manufacture, trade, traffic and transport,
and in service of all kinds.
2. Having reference to the special dangers of employment within any
particular branch of industry: dangerous--non-dangerous work.
_b._ According to type of business:
1. Having reference to the position or personality of the employer:
Wage-labour under private employers--wage-labour under government.
2. Having reference to the choice of the labourers by the employer,
and the nature of their mutual relations.
Factory-labour,
Quasi-factory labour (especially labour in workshops of a similar
nature to factories), other kinds of workshop labour,
Household industries (home-labour),
Family labour.
II. Labourers requiring protection against _personal_ dangers:
_a._ Having reference to the common need of protection as men and
citizens.
1. Adult--juvenile workers;
2. Male--female workers;
3. Married--unmarried female workers;
4. Apprentices--qualified wage-workers;
5. Wage-workers subject to school duties--exempt from school
duties,
_b._ Having reference to the need of protection arising out of
differences in the position occupied by the wage workers in the
business:
Skilled labourers (such as professional wage-workers, business
managers, overseers and foremen; or technical wage-workers,
mechanics, chemists, draughtsmen, modellers); unskilled labourers.
I. PROTECTION AGAINST EXTERIOR DANGERS.
A glance at existing legislation on Labour Protection, or even only at
the various paragraphs of the _von Berlepsch_ Industrial Code Amendment
Bill, clearly shows the definite significance of all these foregoing
classes in the codification of protective right. Each one of these
classes is treated both generally and specifically in the Labour Acts.
Mining industries, industrial (manufacturing) work, and wage service in
trade, traffic, and transport, do not all receive an equal measure of
Labour Protection.
Differences in the danger of the occupation play a great part in the
labour-protective legislation of every country.
Labour Protection has therefore hitherto been, and will probably for
some time continue to be in effect, protection of factory and
quasi-factory labour (I.B. 2, _supra_), but in all probability it will
gradually include protection of household industry also. Even the
English Factory and Workshop Acts do not, however, extend protection to
wage-labour in family industry.
Business managers have hitherto received no protection, or a much
smaller measure than that extended to common wage-labourers.
Furthermore, Labour Protection has hitherto been administered through
different channels, according as it is applied to professions of a
public nature, in which discipline is necessary, especially the
military profession, or to professions of a non-public nature.
Lastly, with regard to individual differences of need for labour
protection, adult labour has hitherto received only a restricted measure
of protection, whereas the labour of women and children has long been
fairly adequately dealt with; the prohibition of employment of married
women in factory-labour still remains an unsolved problem in the domain
of Labour Protection question, but it is a measure that has already
received powerful support.
It must of course be understood that Labour Protection is still in
process of development. But according to all present appearances, there
is no prospect, at any rate for some time to come, of its general
extension to all classes of industrial wage-labour, for instance that
the prohibition of night work will be extended to all adult male
labourers, or that Sunday work will be absolutely prohibited in carrying
industries and in public houses. We must even do justice to the Auer
Motion in the Reichstag, by acknowledging that it does not go the length
of demanding the universal application of such protection.
In the existing positive laws, and in the further demands for protection
put forward at the present day, mining industries hold the first place,
then all kinds of work dangerous to life and health, household industry,
the labour of women and young persons, and the labour of married women.
The reader will easily understand the reasons for this; he only requires
to establish clearly in his own mind, for each of these classes of
industrial wage-labour, the grounds on which the claim to such
objective and subjective protection is based, and wherein they differ
from the cases where free self-help and mutual help suffice, or even the
ordinary protection afforded by the State. However, this special inquiry
is not necessary here; the explanation desired will be found in the
study of the several applications and modes of operation of Labour
Protection dealt with in the following pages.
But on the other hand it is important that we should now endeavour to
form a clear idea of those larger divisions of industrial wage-labour
with which a protective code has to deal, in order that we may be sure
of our ground in proceeding with our investigations.
_Factory-Labour._
No small difficulty arises from the question: "What is factory-labour?"
And yet it is precisely this kind of wage-labour which has received the
most comprehensive measure of protection, and become the standard by
which protection is meted out to all similar kinds of employment.
The labour-protective laws of various governments have met the
difficulty in various ways; but nowhere is a positive legal definition
given of the Factory.
In the case of Germany, especially, it is not easy to form a clear idea
of the meaning attached to factory labour by the hitherto existing
protective laws, and by the _von Berlepsch_ Industrial Bill.
We may arrive at a clearer conception of what a factory really is in
the protective sense of the word, by examining first the essential
characteristics of such kinds of employment as are placed by the
protective laws on the _same_ (or nearly the same) footing as factory
labour, and then observing the peculiarities of such kinds of
employments as are legally _excluded_ from factory-labour protection.
The same characteristics in all those points in which it is affected by
protection, will be found in the Factory, but the peculiarities of the
other contrasted class will be absent from the Factory.
In the Imperial Industrial Code, especially in the _von Berlepsch_ Bill,
the following four categories of employment are placed on the same
footing as the Factory; in the case of the first three the inclusion is
obligatory, in the case of the last it is optional and depends on the
pleasure of the Bundesrath (local authority):
1. Mines, salt-pits (salines), preparatory work above ground, and
underground work, in mines and quarries (other than those referred
to in the Factory Regulations).
2. Smelting-houses, carpenter's yards, and other building-yards,
wharves, and such brick-kilns, mines, and quarries as are worked
above ground and are not merely temporary and on a small scale.
3. Those work-shops in which power machinery is employed (straw,
wind, water, gas, electricity, etc.) not merely temporarily.
4. "Other" workshops to which factory protection (except as
regards working rules) can be extended under the Imperial decree,
at the discretion of the Bundesrath.[5]
A common designation is needed which will include all these four
categories.
We might use the word "workshops" were it not that the employments
enumerated in classes 1 and 2 cannot precisely be included in
"workshops," and were it not that class 4 as it appears in protective
legislation denotes "another kind" of workshop distinct from that of
class 3.
In default of a more accurate expression we will use therefore the term
"quasi-factory business" as a general designation for those classes of
business which are placed by the protective laws on the same, or
approximately the same, footing as the Factory.
Factory protection is not extended to those "workshops in which the
workers belong exclusively to the family of the employer," therefore not
to family-industry in workshops, and still less to family-industry not
carried on in workshops, nor to work in the dwelling-houses of the
employer, or (as is usually the case in household industry) of the
worker (orders of all kinds executed at home, household industry). At
least the new Sec. 154 of the Bill does not bring such work into any closer
relationship than before with the Factory.
By contrast and comparison the following characteristics (_a_ to _i_)
will help us towards a fuller conception of the sense of the Factory
from the point of view of protective legislation, as understood by the
latest German enactments:
_a._ The Factory employs exclusively or mainly those who do not
belong to the family of the employer, and in any case _not merely
those who do_.
_b._ The work of a Factory is entirely carried on outside the
dwelling of the employer and of the wage-worker.
_c._ The work of a Factory is the preparation and manufacture of
commodities (industrial work, including all kinds of printing), not
production or first handling of raw material, as in mining
industries.
_d._ The work of a Factory is work in which the wage-workers are
constantly shut up together in buildings or in enclosures, and is
not work in open spaces, or which moves from place to place, as in
the case of work on wharves, in building yards, etc.
_e._ The work of a Factory is carried on by power machinery, hence
(if this inference _a contrario_ be admissible) not only
hand-manufacture, and thus it appears to include what I have called
quasi-factory business and have mentioned in class 3 (_supra_).
_f._ The work of a Factory is continuous, and
_g._ Is carried on on a large scale, and with a large number of
workpeople, hence (_f_ and _g_) it may be compared to the
quasi-factory business of class 2 (_supra_) for the purposes of a
protective Code.
_h._ The work of a Factory is carried on in workplaces provided by
the employer, not in the rooms of the workers or of a middleman.
_i._ The work of a Factory results in the immediate sale of the
commodities produced, and does not consign them to the wholesale
dealer to be prepared and dressed, or distributed by wholesale or
retail, _i.e._ the Factory has absolute control of the sale of the
commodities produced, in contradistinction to household industry.
Thus the Factory as understood by the German labour-protective laws is
commercially independent (characteristic _i_), industrial (_c_), carried
on on a large scale (_g_), and continuously (_f_), in enclosed (_d_),
specially appointed (_b_) work-rooms provided by the employer (_h_),
with the help of power machinery (_e_), and by wage-workers not
belonging to the family of the employer (_a_).
Purely hand-manufacturing wholesale business should also be counted as
factory-labour; for the fact that workshop business carried on with the
help of power machinery is declared to be on the same footing as
factory-labour means only this: that it presupposes the same need of
protection felt in factories where the business is carried on with the
help of power machinery, as is the case in most factories; it does not
mean that certain kinds of manufacturing wholesale business carried on
without power machinery (of which there are very few) should not be
counted as factories. We are therefore justified in dropping
characteristic _e_ of the theoretical conception of the Factory, as
understood in Germany.
Let us now look at the Swiss Factory Regulations. The Confederate
Factory Act of March 23, 1877, has given no legal definition of the word
"Factory," but only of "protected labour." It extends protection to "any
industrial institution in which a number of workmen are employed
simultaneously and regularly in enclosed rooms outside their own
dwellings." According to the interpretation of the Bundesrath (Federal
Council) "workers outside their dwellings" are those "whose work is
carried on in special workrooms, and not in the dwelling rooms of the
family itself, nor exclusively by members of one family." Furthermore,
all parts of the Factory in which preparatory work is carried on are
subject to the Factory Act, as well as all kinds of printing
establishments in which more than five workmen are employed. The Swiss
Factory Act requires that a Factory shall possess all those
characteristics assigned to it by German protective law, with the
exception, however, of power machinery, and hence it doubtless covers
all manufacturing business in which a number of workmen are employed.
According to Buetcher,[6] in the practical application of
factory-protection in the Confederate States, any industrial
establishment is treated as a factory which employs more than
twenty-five workers or more than five power-engines, in which poisonous
ingredients or dangerous tools are used, in which women and young
persons (under eighteen years) are employed (with the exception of mills
employing more than two workers not belonging to the family), and sewing
business carried on with the help of three or four machines not
exclusively worked by members of the family.
In Great Britain the Factory and Workshop Acts of March 27, 1878, cover
all factory labour, and the bulk of workshop business, _i.e._ all
workshops which employ such persons as are protected by the
Act--children, young persons, and women.
This English Act again furnishes no legal definition of the term.
"According to the meaning of the term, implied in this Act," says von
Bojanowski, "we must understand by a factory any place in which steam,
water, or other mechanical power is used to effect an industrial
process, or as an aid thereto; by 'workshop,' on the other hand, we must
understand any place in which a like purpose is effected without the
help of such power; in neither group is any distinction to be drawn
between work in open and in enclosed places."
Under this Act _factories_ are divided into textile and non-textile
factories. "_Workshops_ are divided into workshops generally, _i.e._
those in which protected persons of all kinds are employed (children,
young persons, and women), with the further subdivisions of specified
and non-specified establishments; into workshops in which only women,
but no children or young persons are employed; and lastly, domestic
workrooms in which a dwelling-room serves as the place of work, in which
no motive power is required, and in which members of the family
exclusively are employed."
Domestic work-rooms in which only women are employed do not come under
the Act, nor yet factories, such as those for the breaking of flax,
which employ only female labour. Bakeries are included among regulated
workshops, _i.e._ workshops inspected under the Factory Acts, even when
no women or young persons are employed. The Factory, as understood by
the English law, is distinguished by most of the characteristics of the
German acceptation of the term, without however admitting of the
distinction of class _d_ (business carried on in an enclosed space),
whereby protection is also afforded to what we have termed quasi-factory
labour (see p. 36); but on the other hand a special point is made of the
distinction of class _e_, viz. use of power machinery. Thus the English
idea in defining the factory is to insist, not upon the number of
persons employed, but upon the proviso that they are persons within the
scope of the protective laws.
_Workshop Labour._
In the _von Berlepsch_ Bill this is dealt with side by side with factory
labour. It is sometimes placed on the same footing under the various
categories of quasi-factory labour (classes 3 and 4), sometimes it lies
outside the limits of factory protection, in cases where the Bundesrath
does not exercise his privilege of granting extension of protection, and
in cases where the workshop in question is worked entirely by members of
one family.
It would be tautology to include in the definition of the workshop all
the characteristics of the factory named in classes _a_ to _i_. There
may be cases in which the workshop practically includes most of the
characteristics of the factory, but it is only necessary that it should
include the following: business carried on outside the dwelling-rooms
(_b_); preparation and manufacture of commodities (_c_); carried on in
enclosed places (_d_). With the other classes it is not concerned.
According to the English Factory Acts protected workshop labour is not
necessarily carried on in enclosed places.
In treating of German workshop labour for the purposes of the _von
Berlepsch_ Bill, and for future legislation of the same kind, we have to
classify it as follows:
Workshop labour carried on with the help of power-machinery, but
not otherwise answering to the conditions of the factory.
Workshop labour carried on without power-machinery, by hand or by
hand-worked machines.
Labour in workshops where all three kinds are required, _i.e._
power-machinery, hand-work, and hand-worked machines (_e.g._ modern
costume-making in which power sewing-machines are employed.)
The old handicraft labour carried on in special workrooms, either
within or outside the dwelling of the worker.
The characteristic peculiar to the three first divisions of workshops,
and that which distinguishes them from the factory, although they in
some respects resemble it, is that they give employment to but a very
small number of workmen outside the limits of the family which maintains
them.
The British Factory Acts include under the head of workshops those
businesses in which no motive power is used, but in which protected
persons (women, children, and young persons) are employed. Workshops of
this kind are treated with varying degrees of stringency, according to
whether they employ protected persons of all kinds, or only women (no
children or young persons), and according to whether they are carried on
in domestic workshops (dwelling-rooms) or otherwise.
_Household (home) Industry and Family Industry._
Household industry, called also "home industry" in the Auer Motion is
the industrial preparation and manufacture of commodities, not the
production of material, nor trading, carrying, or service industry. It
has therefore characteristic _c_ (viz. that it excludes the production
of raw material and the initial processes in connection therewith) in
common with the factory and all workshops, as well as with that part of
family industry which is not included in household industry properly so
called; the very term Household _Industry_, in fact, indicates this.
The peculiarity of household industry (in the technical sense of the
term) is that it is carried out merely at the orders and not under the
supervision of the contractor. The Imperial Industrial Code, more
especially the _von Berlepsch_ Bill, in extending truck protection to
household industry, understands this term to include all industrial
workers engaged in the preparation of commodities under the direction of
some firm or employer, but not working on the premises of their
employers; and these workers may or may not be required to furnish the
raw materials and accessories for their work. The home-workers carrying
on this kind of preparation of commodities do so as a rule not in
special work-rooms, but in their own dwelling-rooms or houses, or in
little courtyards, sometimes in sheds and outhouses, sometimes even in
the open air. For the rest, they may be either a few workers out of a
family working on their own account, or a whole family working under the
superintendence of one of its members. The most important characteristic
of household industry is that it is work undertaken at the orders of a
third party, therefore that it has no commercial independence, and takes
no part in the sale of its products (characteristic _i_ of factory
labour); and therefore obviously we have no occasion to consider the
other characteristics _d_, _e_, _f_, _g_, _h_, in defining household
industry.
A distinction must be drawn between household industry carried on with
or without the intervention of middlemen; for it takes a very different
form, according to whether the arrangements between the industrial
home-worker on the one side, and the giver of orders and provider of
materials on the other, are made with or without the intervention of
special agencies for ordering, supervising, collecting, and paying
(commission agents, contractors, sweaters). The possible removal--or at
least control and regulation--of the middleman forms one fundamental
problem--hitherto unsolved--of labour protection in the sphere of
household industry, and the protection of industrial home-workers
against their parents and against each other forms another.
_Family Industry._
Family industry to a great extent practically coincides with household
industry, but not necessarily or entirely so; for family
industry--meaning of course the work of preparing and manufacturing
commodities--may be the preparation of goods for independent sale, not
for sale by a third party in a shop or warehouse, and as a matter of
fact this is very largely the case. Family industry sometimes even falls
under the head of workshop labour (cf. Sec. 154 of the _von Berlepsch_
Bill). Its distinguishing characteristic is that it employs only workers
belonging to the same family, hence the exact reverse of the Factory
(see characteristic _a_). It includes all those industrial pursuits "in
which the employer is served only by members of his own family" (Bill, Sec.
154, par. 3).
II.--PERSONAL PROTECTION.
We come now to consider the meaning of the various headings under which
_personal_ protection falls.
_Juvenile Workers._ Juvenile workers of both sexes have long been
subject to protection, and this kind of protection is gradually
spreading all over Europe, and in more and more extended proportions. We
must first ascertain what is the exact meaning of the term juvenile
workers as used in the labour-protective laws.
In contrast to juvenile labour stands adult labour, or more accurately
adult male labour, since adult women--not of course as adults but as
women--are placed more or less on the same footing as juvenile workers
in the matter of protective legislation.
The distinction between adult wage-labour and juvenile wage-labour, and
the subdivision of the latter into infant-labour, child-labour, and the
labour of "young persons," is not of importance in all departments of
labour protection, but it is of the utmost importance in _protection of
employment_, especially in prohibition of employment on the one hand,
and restriction of employment on the other. This prohibition and
restriction of juvenile employment does not apply to all industries, but
only to certain branches of industry and kinds of work, and to specially
dangerous occupations.
In order to determine exactly what is meant by infant-labour,
child-labour, and the labour of "young persons," we must consider the
inferior limit of age below which there is a partial prohibition of
employment, and the superior limit of age beyond which labour is treated
as adult labour as regards protection, receiving none, or only a very
limited measure of it. The inferior limit does not as yet coincide with
the beginning of school duties, nor does the superior limit coincide
with the attainment of majority as recognised by common law.
"Juvenile labour"--permitted but restricted--stands midway between
infant-labour, altogether prohibited in some branches of industry, and
adult labour, permitted and unrestricted, or only slightly restricted;
and within the inferior and superior limits of age it is divided into
child-labour and labour of "young persons."
The industrial laws of northern and southern countries differ in the
inferior limit of age which they assign to prohibited infant-labour, as
distinguished from child-labour permitted but restricted. In Italy this
limit has hitherto been fixed at the completion of the ninth year; in
England and France (in textile, paper, and glass industries), in
Denmark, Spain, Russia, and in most of the industrial States of the
North American Union, at the completion of the tenth year; in Germany
hitherto, and in France (in general factory-labour, in workshops,
smelting-houses, and building-yards), in Austria, Sweden, Holland and
Belgium (Act of 1889), at the completion of the twelfth year; in Germany
it is fixed for the future at the completion of the thirteenth year, as
it soon will be in France also, in all probability--and in Switzerland
at the completion of the fourteenth year.
The proposal of Switzerland at the Berlin Conference to fix the general
inferior limit of age at 14 years was not carried. It has hitherto been
prevented in Germany by the fact that in Saxony and elsewhere school
duties are not exacted to the full extent as late as the age of 14.
The Berlin Conference voted for fixing the limit at the completion of
the twelfth year, while agreeing that the limit of 10 years might be
fixed in southern countries in view of the early attainment of maturity
in hot climates. The limit is fixed higher with regard to protection in
certain specified dangerous or injurious occupations: for boys engaged
in coal mines the limit of 14 years was laid down by the resolutions of
the Berlin Conference.[7]
The superior limit of age of juvenile labour in factories is fixed at 14
years in southern countries (in those represented at the Berlin
Conference); at 16 years in Germany, Austria, and France (in connection
with the fixing of the maximum duration of labour); and at 18 in Great
Britain, Switzerland, and Denmark, and probably soon in France. With
respect to night work and dangerous work, the superior limit (especially
for women) is placed still higher (21 years), wherever such work is not
entirely prohibited.
All wage-workers between the inferior and superior limits of age at
which employment is permitted, are called, as already stated, "juvenile
workers." In many countries a further division of juvenile labour is
made, into children and "young persons." In Germany, Austria, Sweden,
and Denmark--and in future probably in all those countries represented
at the Berlin Conference--this division falls at the age of 14, and in
southern countries at the age of 12 years. "Children," in the meaning
attached to the word by labour-protective legislation, are children of
12 to 14 years (in Germany in future 13 to 14, in Great Britain hitherto
10 to 14); "young persons" are juvenile workers from 14 to 16 years, in
England of 14 to 18 years. In Switzerland juvenile workers are "young
persons" of 14 to 18 years, as none under the age of 14 are employed at
all.
_Male labour and female labour._ Women for the purposes of Labour
Protection include all female workers enjoying special or extended
protection, not only on account of youth, but also from considerations
arising out of their sex and family duties. It is important that we
should be clear on this point, in view of the demand now made for
careful restriction of the employment of married women in
factories,--either for the entire duration of married life or until the
youngest child has reached the age of 14,--for the entire prohibition of
night labour for women, and of the employment of women in certain trades
during the periods of lying-in and of pregnancy.
Just as female labour for our purpose does not mean the labour of all
female persons, so male labour does not include all labour of male
persons, but only of such male persons as have protection on grounds
other than that of youth. Hitherto, male labour has only had practically
a negative meaning in protective law, it has been used in the sense of
the unprotected labour of adult men. The demand for a maximum working
day for all male labourers--at least in factories--and the concession of
this demand have given a positive signification to the term male labour,
as affected by protective legislation.
In considering the careful determination of the meaning of factory
labour, workshop labour, household industry and family labour on the one
hand, and child labour and female labour on the other hand, we cannot be
too careful in guarding against undue limitations of the idea of Labour
Protection. There are many who still take it to mean merely
factory-protection, and indeed only factory-protection of "young
persons."
Labour Protection means something more than protection of industrial
labour, in that it also deals with labour in mining and trading
industry, and it must be extended still further to meet existing needs
for protection.
Neither is industrial Labour Protection factory protection alone, nor
even factory and quasi-factory protection alone, but beyond that it is
also workshop protection, and, especially in its latest developments,
protection of household industry, and perhaps even more or less of
family industry; industrial home-work especially, from the Erz-Gebirge
in Saxony, to the London sweating dens, admits of and actually suffers,
from an amount of oppression which calls for special Labour Protection.
We call attention to these facts in order to clear away certain still
widespread misconceptions before we enter upon the classification of
labour with respect to protective legislation. Particulars will be given
in Chapters IV. to VIII.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] Bill, Art. 6 (new Sec. 154).
[6] Cf. Conrad's _Encyclopaedia_, vol. i. p. 154.
[7] _I_, _Ia_ and 6, Resolutions of the Berlin Conference: "It is
desirable that the inferior limit of age, at which children may be
admitted to work underground in mines, be gradually raised to 14 years,
as experience may prove the possibility of such a course; that for
southern countries the limit may be 12 years, and that the employment
underground of persons of the female sex be forbidden."
CHAPTER III.
SURVEY OF THE EXISTING CONDITIONS OF LABOUR PROTECTION.
In the first chapter we learnt to recognise the special character of
Labour Protection in the strict sense of the term. We must further learn
what is its actual aim and scope.
Labour Protection strictly so called, represents presumably the sum
total of all those special measures of protection, which exist side by
side with free self-help and mutual help, and with the ordinary state
protection extended to all citizens, and to labourers among the rest.
And such it really proves to be on examination of the present conditions
and already observable tendencies of Labour Protection.
We shall only arrive at a clear and exhaustive theory and policy of
Labour Protection both as a whole and in detail by examining separately
and collectively all the phenomena of Labour Protection.
This will necessitate in the first place a comprehensive survey of the
existing conditions of Labour Protection, and to this end a regular
arrangement of the different forms which it takes.
In sketching such a survey we have to make a threefold division of the
subject; first, the _scope_ of Labour Protection, in the strict sense
of the term; secondly, the various _legislative methods_ of Labour
Protection; and thirdly, the _organisation_ of Labour Protection (as
regards courts of administration, and their methods and course of
procedure). In considering the scope of Labour Protection we have to
examine the special measures adopted to meet the several dangers to
which industrial wage-labour is exposed.
The following survey shows the actual field of labour protective
legislation, as well as the wider extension which it is sought to give
thereto.
I. SCOPE OF LABOUR PROTECTION.
_A._ Protection against material dangers.
1. Protection of employment; and this of two kinds, viz.:--
(i.) Restriction of employment;
(ii.) Prohibition of employment.
_a._ Protection of working-time with regard to the maximum duration
of labour:
General maximum working-day.
Factory maximum working-day (unrestricted in the case of
adults--restricted in the case of "juvenile workers" and women).
_b._ Protection of intervals of rest:
Protection of daily intervals--of night-work--of holidays--Sundays
and festivals.
2. Protection during work:
Against dangers to life, health, and morals, and against neglect of
teaching and instruction, incurred in course of work.
3. Protection in personal intercourse:--
In the personal and industrial relations existing between the
dependent worker and the employer and his people
(truck-protection).
_B._ Protection of the status of the workman (protection in the
making and fulfilment of agreements) which may also be called:
Protection of agreement, or contract-protection.
1. Protection on entering into agreements of service, and
throughout the duration of the contract:
Protection in terms of agreement and dismissal,
Protection against loss of character.
2. Regulation of admissible conditions of contract, and of legal
extensions of contract.
3. Protection in the fulfilment of conditions after the completion
of service agreements.
II. VARIOUS LEGISLATIVE METHODS OF LABOUR PROTECTION.
Compulsory legal protection--protection by the optional adoption of
regulations.
Regulation under the code--regulation by special enactment.
III. ORGANISATION OF LABOUR PROTECTION.
1. Courts by which it is administered:
_A._ Protection by the ordinary administrative bodies--
Police,
Magistrates,
Church and School authorities,
Military and Naval authorities.
_B._ Protection by specially constituted bodies,
1. Governmental:
_a._ Administrative:
Industrial Inspectorates (including mining experts),
"Labour-Boards,"
Special organs: local, district, provincial, and imperial;
_b._ Judicial:
Judicial Courts,
Courts of Arbitration.
2. Representative: (trade-organisations):
"Labour-Chambers,"
"Labour Councillors,"
Councils composed of the oldest representatives of the trade,
Labour-councils: local, district, provincial, and imperial.
II. METHODS OF ADMINISTRATION AND ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS.
_a._ Methods:
Hearing of Special Appeals,
Granting periods of exemption,
Fixing of times,
Regulating of fines,
Application of money collected in fines, etc.
_b._ Records:
Factory-regulations,
Certificates of health,
Factory-list of children employed,
Official overtime list,
Labour log-book,
Inspector's report (with compulsory-publication and
international exchange),
International collection of statistics and information
relating to protective legislation and industrial regulations.
The foregoing survey may be held to contain all that is included under
Labour Protection, actual or proposed. But of the measures included
within these limits not all are as yet in operation; and the actual
conditions are different in the various countries.
With regard to the scope of protection, those measures affecting married
women, home-industrial work, work in trade and carrying industries, are
still specially incomplete.
With regard to the organs of administration of Labour Protection, one
kind, viz. the representative, has at present no existence except in the
many proposals and suggestions made as to them; this however does not
preclude the possibility that in the course of a generation or so a rich
crop of such organs may spring up. It is not improbable that special
representative bodies ("labour-councils")--after the pattern of chambers
of commerce and railway-boards, etc.--and "labour-boards" may develop
and form a complete network over the country. Perhaps the separate
representative and executive organs may be able to amalgamate the
various branches of aids to labour, forming separate sections for
Labour Protection, Labour Insurance, industrial hygiene and statistics,
with equal representation of the administrative, judicial, technical and
statistical elements; and thus the ordinary administration service may
be freed from the burden of the special services which a constructive
social policy demands.
Again, the organisation of protection is not by any means the same
everywhere.
According to the foregoing classification (III. 1), the duties of
carrying out Labour Protection are divided between the ordinary and
extraordinary judicial and administrative authorities. The arrangements,
however, are very different in different countries. Such countries as
have not a complete system of authorised administrative boards and petty
courts of justice, will avail themselves more freely of the special
organs, particularly of the industrial inspectors, than will those
countries with administrative systems like those of Germany and Austria;
in comparing the spheres of operation of inspectors in various
countries, one must not overlook the differences in the action of the
ordinary administrative organs. Moreover, all civilized countries
already possess special organs of protection, and it follows in the
natural course of development of all administrative organisation, that
the special administrative and judicial legislation which is springing
up and increasing should possess special judicial and administrative
courts, so soon as need for such may arise from the necessity for a
wider application of special law in the life of the citizen.
Finally, we must guard against a further misconception. Neither
labour-boards nor labour-chambers must be confounded with those
voluntary representative class organisations, and joint committees in
which both classes meet together for Labour Protection, and for objects
quite outside the sphere of Labour Protection. The labour-boards
indicated would be special organs of a public nature, regulated by the
State; labour-chambers would also be organs recognised and regulated by
the State, working in consultation with the labour-boards, and
exercising control over the labour-boards. The voluntary organs of
association, on the other hand, with their secretaries and joint
committees, are free representative, executive, and arbitrative organs
of both classes. A distinction must be drawn between the public and
voluntary organs. It is of course not impossible in all cases that the
free "labour-chambers," in their ordinary and special meetings might
exercise extraordinary powers, besides acting as regular and general
organs of conciliation and arbitration. The Unions and other trade
organisations of to-day can in their present form hardly be regarded as
the last word in the history of labour organisation.
In the second chapter we had to guard against the error of looking on
Labour Protection merely as factory protection, and protection of women
and juvenile workers; we must with equal insistence draw attention to
the fact that Labour Protection is not confined in its scope to
protection of employment, or in its organisation to the machinery of
industrial inspection. This will be shown in Chapters IV. to VIII.
The foregoing survey of the existing conditions and tendencies of
Labour Protection makes it clear that Labour Protection in scope,
legislative methods, and organisation, is only a means of supplementing
and supporting in a special manner the already long established forms of
State protection of labour (in the widest sense), and the still older
forms of non-governmental Labour Protection (in its widest sense) the
necessity for which arises from the special modern developments of
industry.
Labour Protection equally with compulsory insurance, from which it is
however quite distinct, does not preclude the voluntary efforts which
are made in addition to legal measures, nor the help rendered by
savings-banks, by private liberality and benevolence, by family help,
and by various municipal and state charitable institutions; and it does
not render unnecessary the exercise of the ordinary administration, and
the co-operation of the latter in the work of establishing security of
labour. The general impression derived from a study of this survey will
be confirmed if we further examine into the scope, legislative methods,
and organisation of the separate measures of Labour Protection, in
addition to the classification of industrial wage-labour, as dealt with
by protective legislation, which I attempted in Chapter II., and if we
bear in mind the great differences in the degree of protection extended
to the separate classes of protected workers.
CHAPTER IV.
MAXIMUM WORKING-DAY.
In considering the question of protection of employment, we must first
touch upon the restrictions of employment. These restrictions are
directed to granting short periods of intermission of work, _i.e._ to
the regulation of hours of rest, of holidays, night-rest and meal-times;
also to the regulation of the maximum duration of the daily
working-time, inclusive of intervals of rest, _i.e._ to protection of
hours of labour.
Protection of times of rest, and protection of working-time, are both
based on the same grounds. It is to the interest of the employer to make
uninterrupted use of his business establishment and capital, and
therefore to force the wage-worker to work for as long a time and with
as little intermission as possible. The excessive hours of labour first
became an industrial evil through the increasing use of fixed capital,
especially with the immense growth of machinery; partly this took the
form of all-day and all-night labour, even in cases where this was not
technically necessary, and partly of shortening the holiday rest and
limiting the daily intervals of rest; but more than all it came through
the undue extension of the day's work by the curtailment of leisure
hours. Moral influence and custom no longer sufficed to check the
treatment of the labourer as a mere part of the machinery, or to prevent
the destruction of his family life. A special measure of State
protection for the regulation of hours of labour was therefore
indispensable.
Protection of the hours of labour is enforced indirectly by regulating
the periods of intermission of labour: meal-times, night work, and
holidays. But it may be also completed and enforced directly by fixing
the limits of the maximum legal duration of working-hours within the
astronomical day. This is what we mean by the maximum working-day.
The maximum working-day is computed sometimes directly, sometimes
indirectly. Directly, when the same maximum total number of hours is
fixed for each day (with the exception it may be of Saturday);
indirectly, when the maximum total of working-hours is determined,
_i.e._ when a weekly average working-day is appointed.
The latter regulation is in force in England, where 561/2 hours are fixed
for textile factories (less half an hour for cleaning purposes), and
sixty hours (or in some cases fifty-nine hours) for other factories. In
Germany and elsewhere the direct appointment of the maximum working-day
is more usual: except in the _von Berlepsch_ Bill (Sec. 139_a_, 3) where
provision is made for the indirect regulation of the maximum
working-day, by the following clause: "exceptions to the maximum
working-day for children and young persons may be permitted in spinning
houses and factories in which fires must be kept up without
intermission, or in which for other reasons connected with the nature of
the business day and night work is necessary, and in those factories and
workshops the business of which does not admit of the regular division
of labour into stated periods, or in which, from the nature of the
employment, business is confined to a certain season of the year; but in
such cases the work-time shall not exceed 36 hours in the week for
children, and 60 hours for young persons (in spinning houses 64, in
brick-kilns 69 hours)."
1. _Meaning of maximum working-day in the customary use of the term._
In the existing labour protective legislation, and in the impending
demands for Labour Protection, the maximum working-day is variously
enforced, regulated and applied. In order to arrive at a clear
understanding of the matter it will be necessary to examine the various
meanings attached by common use to the term working-day.
Let us take first the different methods of enforcement.
It is enforced either by contract and custom, or by enactment and
regulation. Hence a distinction must be drawn between the maximum
working-day of contract and the legal (regulated) working-day.
Now-a-days when we speak of the maximum working-day we practically have
in mind the legal working-day. But it must not be forgotten that the
maximum duration of labour has long been regulated by custom and
contract in whole branches of industry, and that the maximum working-day
of contract has paved the way for the progressive shortening of the
legal maximum working-day.
Even the party who are now demanding a general eight hours maximum
working-day desire to preserve the right of a still further shortening
of hours by contract, generally, or with regard to certain specified
branches of industry; the Auer Motion (Sec. 106) runs thus: "The
possibility of fixing a still shorter labour-day shall be left to the
voluntary agreement of the contracting parties."
Certainly no objection can be raised to making provision for the
maintenance of freedom of contract with regard to shortening the
duration of daily labour. The right to demand such freedom in
contracting, is, in my opinion, incontrovertible.
Next we come to the various modes of regulating the maximum working-day.
It may either be fixed uniformly for all nations as the regular
working-day for all protected labour, or it may be specially regulated
for each industry in which wage-labour is protected; or else a regular
maximum working-day may be appointed for general application, with
special arrangements for certain industries or kinds of occupation. This
would give us either a regular national working-day, or a system of
special maximum working-days, or a regular general working-day with
exceptions for special working days.
The system of special working-days has long since come into operation,
although to a more or less limited degree, by the action of custom and
contract. The penultimate paragraph of Sec. 120 of the _von Berlepsch_
Bill, admits the same system--of course only for hygienic purposes--in
the following provision: "The duration of daily work permissible, and
the intervals to be granted, shall be prescribed by order of the
Bundesrath (Federal Council) in those industries in which the health of
the worker would be endangered by a prolonged working-day."
The mixed system would no doubt still obtain even were the regular
working-day more generally applied, since there will always be certain
industries in which a specially short working-day will be necessary (in
smelting houses and the like).
The labour parties of the present day demand the regular legal
working-day together with the working-day of voluntary contract.
By maximum working-day we must, as a rule, understand the national and
international, uniform, legal, maximum working-day.
Thirdly, we come to the various aspects which the maximum working-day
assumes according to whether it is given a general or only a limited
sphere of application. In considering its application we have to decide
whether or not its protection shall be extended to all branches and all
kinds of business, and degrees of danger in protected industry, and
further, whether, however widely extended, it shall apply within each
industrial division so protected to the whole body of labourers, or only
to the women and juvenile workers.
The maximum working-day is thus the "general working-day" when applied
to all industries without exception. When this is not the case, it is
the restricted working-day, which may also be called the factory
maximum working-day, as it really obtains only in factory and
quasi-factory labour. The term factory working-day is further limited in
its application in cases where its protection extends, not to all the
labourers in the factory, but to the women and juvenile workers only, or
to only one of these classes. Hence a distinction must be drawn between
the factory working-day for women and children, and the maximum factory
working-day extended also to men. We shall therefore not be wrong in
speaking of this as the working-day of women and juvenile workers, nor
shall we be putting any force on the customary usage, if by factory
working-day we understand the working day prescribed to all labourers in
a factory.
We shall find a further limitation of the meaning in considering the aim
of the protection afforded, for in certain cases the maximum
working-day, even when extended to all labourers employed in a factory,
is restricted to such occupations in the factory as are dangerous to
health. In such cases, it might be designated perhaps the hygienic
working-day.
The maximum working-day, in the sense of the furthest reaching and
therefore most hotly contested demands for regulation of time, means the
uniform maximum working-day, fixed by legislation nationally, or even
internationally, and not the maximum working-day of factory labour
merely, or of female and child-labour in factories, nor the hygienic
working day. This working-day is authoritatively fixed--provisionally at
10 hours, then at 9 hours, and finally at 8 hours--as the daily maximum
duration of working-time, in the Auer Motion (Sec. 106 and 106_a_, cf. Sec.
130). Section 106 (paragraphs 1 to 3) runs thus: "In all business
enterprises which come within this Act (Imperial Industrial Code), the
working-time of all wage-labourers above the age of 16 years shall be
fixed at 10 hours at the most on working-days, at 8 hours at the most on
Saturday, and on the eve of great festivals, exclusive of intervals of
rest. From January 1st, 1894, the highest permissible limit of working
time shall be fixed at 9 hours daily, and from January 1st, 1898, at 8
hours daily." According to the same section, the 8 hours day shall be at
once enforced for labourers underground, and the time of going in to
work and coming out from work shall be included in the working-day.
"Daily work shall begin in summer not earlier than 6 o'clock, in winter
not earlier than 7 o'clock, and at the latest shall end at 7 o'clock in
the evening."
We have still two important points to consider before we arrive at the
exact meaning of the general maximum working-day. The first point
touches the difference between those employments in which severe and
continuous labour for the whole working-time is required, and those in
which a greater or less proportion of the time is spent by the workman
in waiting for the moment to come when his intervention is required. The
second point touches the inclusion or non-inclusion, in the working day,
of other outside occupation, of home-work, or of non-industrial work of
any kind, besides work undertaken in some one particular industrial
establishment. With regard to the first point, the question may fairly
be raised whether in industries in which a large proportion of time is
spent in waiting unoccupied, the maximum working-day is to be fixed as
low as in those industries in which the work proceeds without
intermission. And it is a question of material importance in the
practical application of the maximum working day whether or not work at
home, or in another business, or in sales-rooms, or employment in
non-industrial occupations, should or should not be allowed in the
normal working-day.
The labour-protective legislation hitherto in force has been able to
disregard both these points, for with the exception of the English Shop
Regulations Act (1886) it hardly affected other occupations than those
in which work is carried on without intermission. But there are points
that cannot be neglected when the question arises of a general maximum
working-day for all industrial labour, or all industrial wage-service
alike--as in the Labour agitation now rife in the country.
The Auer Motion, for instance, ought to have dealt with both these
questions in a definite manner; but it did not do this. With regard to
those occupations in which a large proportion of the time is spent in
merely waiting, _e.g._ in small shops, public-houses, and in carrying
industries, there is no proposal to fix a special maximum working-day,
except perhaps in the English Shop Regulations Act (12 instead of 10
hours for young persons). With regard to outside work, the Auer Motion
does not determine what may be strictly included within the eight hours
day. The question is this: is the maximum working-day to be imposed on
the employer alone, to prevent him from exacting more than eight or ten
hours work, or on the employed also, to prevent him from carrying on any
outside work, even if it is his own wish to work longer; the more we cut
down the general working-day, the more important it will become to have
a limit of time which will affect not only the employer but also the
employed, as otherwise the latter might, by his outside work, be only
intensifying the evils of competition for his fellow-workers. The Auer
Motion (Sec. 106) only demands the eight hours day for separate business
enterprises; therefore, according to the strict wording, there is
nothing to hinder the workman from working unrestrainedly beyond the
eight hours in a second business enterprise of the same kind, or in any
industry of another kind, in which he is skilled, or in non-industrial
labour, and thus being able to compete with other workmen. Does this
agree in principle with the maximum working-day of Social Democracy? Is
this an oversight, or a practically very important "departure from
principle"? We are not in a position to fully clear up or further
elucidate these two points. For the present we may assume that the
action of the Labour parties was well calculated in both these respects,
viz. in neglecting to draw a distinction between continuous and
intermittent labour, and in excluding outside labour from the operation
of the eight hours working-day.
Lastly, in accurately defining the meaning of the term we must not
overlook the fact that neither in respect to aim nor to operation the
maximum working-day is confined to the question of mere Labour
Protection. It has no exclusively protective significance.
It is true that the hygienic factory day, the factory day for women and
juvenile workers, and the factory day for men, are wholly or mainly
maximum working-days appointed for purposes of State protection, but the
maximum working-day may also serve to other ends apart from or in
addition to this. In the general eight hours day, for instance, the
economic aspect is of equal importance with the protective aspect of the
question. Under the socialistic system of national industry, where there
would no longer be any question of protection in service-relations, the
maximum working-day, together with the possibly more important minimum
working-day, directed against the idle, would serve to other important
ends; it would, for instance, give more leisure for the so-called
general mental cultivation of the people and would prevent new
inequalities.
We will consider in the first place the purely protective aspect of the
maximum working-day of the present, then the mixed protective and
economic aspect of the general maximum working-day.
2. _The maximum working-days of protective legislation: the hygienic
working-day, the working-day of women and children, the extended factory
working-day._
And first the _hygienic working-day_.
This is imposed on certain occupations and businesses on account of the
dangers to health arising out of the work, and on account of the
strength required in the work.
It is no longer opposed by any party. It is fully dealt with in the _von
Berlepsch_ Bill in the above-mentioned provision of the penultimate
paragraph of Sec. 120_a_.
By the insertion of this provision in Section I. of Chapter VII. of the
Imperial Industrial Code, the hygienic maximum working-day may be
extended by order of the Bundesrath (Federal Council) over the whole
sphere of industrial labour, not merely of factory and quasi-factory
labour. The Berlin Conference (resolutions 1, 2) demands the hygienic
maximum working-day for mining industries.
It is hardly necessary to prove that the hygienic maximum working-day
cannot be obtained merely by the efforts of the workers in
self-protection or by the general good-will of the united employers,
without general enforcement by enactment or regulation. Some employers
are unwilling even to maintain the shortening of the normal working-day
necessary to health, others who would be willing are prevented by
competition so long as the hygienic working-day is not enforced
generally and uniformly by enactment or regulation throughout that
particular branch of industry. The extension of the hygienic maximum
working-day to all occupations dangerous to health throughout the whole
sphere of industrial labour, is justified as a necessary measure of
Labour Protection.
No nation will suffer in the long run from the full extension of the
hygienic working-day. It is probable that the governments will advance
side by side in this direction.
_The factory working-day for women and juvenile workers._
This has long been enforced. The distress which brought it under the
notice of the English legislature has justified it for all time. It is
now scarcely contested.
Without special intervention of the State, the considerate employer is
not able to grant the ten hours limit, even to women and juvenile
workers, on account of his unscrupulous competitors.
Its enforcement with the help of a factory list offers no difficulties.
The grounds for demanding a maximum working-day for juvenile workers are
so evident that they need not here be indicated. We may, however, remark
in passing that this working-day is economically of no great importance
in view of the small number of juvenile workers. In the year 1888,
Germany employed in factory and quasi-factory labour 22,913 children
(14,730 boys, 8,175 girls) 169,252 young persons (109,788 males, 59,464
females); children and young persons together making a total of 192,165
(124,526 males, 67,639 females). The textile industries alone engaged
17.8 per cent. of the male, and 47 per cent. of the female child-labour,
that being the industry which also employs the largest number of female
workers.
The maximum working-day for female labour is necessary for all women
workers and not merely for married women, and in England it has long
been enforced. In the case of girls, work for eleven or twelve hours is
highly undesirable from the point of view of family life. "Experience
proves," says a Prussian inspector, "that girls so employed never become
good housewives, and that women so employed can never fulfil their
maternal duties, and on this account many well-meaning employers will
not employ married women after the birth of the first child. The evil
result of this appears more plainly the greater the number of women
workers; and its bad influence on married life and on the education of
children in workmen's families is very evident and makes itself felt in
other spheres of life. Isolated schools of housewifery and
working-women's homes are insufficient to meet the evil, especially as
the extension of textile industries and therewith the increase in the
number of women employed has by no means reached its highest point." The
more impossible it is to dispense entirely with female labour, the more
imperative does it appear to secure to all women workers, at least, the
maximum working-day, at best the 10 hours working-day (with 6 hours on
Saturday) long enforced in England.
The factory day of 6 hours for children and 10 hours for young persons
has already been enforced by the Industrial Regulations in Germany. Its
extension to all female workers is one of the most important steps
proposed by the _von Berlepsch_ Bill. At present the proposal is for an
11 hours day, but the Reichstag Commission ought to succeed in placing
the limit at 10 hours.[8]
The Resolutions of the Berlin Conference fix the time at 6 to 10 hours
for juvenile workers, and 11 hours for all female workers (III. 6, IV.
2, and V. 2). They further demand that the "protection of a maximum
working-day shall be granted to all young men between the ages of 16 and
18."
The working-day for women and juvenile workers has hitherto been
essentially a factory and quasi-factory maximum working day (cf. Bill, Sec.
154). England has, however, in the Shop Hours Regulation Act of June 25,
1886, extended protection to sale-rooms, of course only in favour of
juvenile workers, but with strict directions as to outside work. This
working-day in commercial business, amounts on an average to 12 hours in
the day (74 in the week, inclusive of meal-times). If the protected
person has already in the same day performed 10 hours of factory or
workshop labour, only 12 hours less 10 of shopwork are permitted; when
the time occupied in outside work amounts to the full workshop and
factory maximum working-day, additional occupation in the shop is
prohibited. The Act does not apply to those shops in which the only
persons employed are members of the family dwelling in the house or are
family connexions of the employer. Such intervention in respect of
household industry has already been begun but has not yet gone very far.
The general extension of the maximum working-day for women and juvenile
workers to all industries, including family industries, has been
demanded,[9] but is as yet nowhere enforced.
The specially short working-day for children necessitates alternating
shifts, as child labour, as a rule, is inseparably connected with other
work. English protective legislation directs in this case that children
(from 10 to 14 years) may be employed in one and the same place only for
half a day, either for the morning or the afternoon, or else on every
alternate day, for the full day; and the order of working-days must be
changed every week; in daily (half-day) employment, the actual working
time (without intervals of rest) amounts to 6 hours daily, and 30 to 36
hours weekly, in other cases 10 hours daily and 30 hours weekly.
_The factory working-day (in the strict sense): factory working-day for
adult males._
The extension of protection of hours of labour to adults in factory and
quasi-factory labour, by the so-called factory working-day (in the
strict sense) has already begun to make way in some countries.
In France it was enforced as long ago as by the Act of Sept. 9, 1848
(Art. I.), in which the limit was still fixed at 12 hours; in
Switzerland the limit was fixed at 11 hours by Art. II. of the
Confederate Factory Act of 1877; and in Austria by the Act of Mar. 8,
1885. Other countries have not hitherto adopted it. Great Britain and
other countries still hesitate to interfere in this way with the freedom
of contract for adults. Switzerland, on the other hand, is ready to
reduce the hours from 11 to 10, but whether Austria is prepared to do so
much is doubtful.
Germany also in the _von Berlepsch_ Bill has entered a protest against
the extreme length of the factory working-day. Here the course has been
strongly urged, sometimes of adopting an 11 hours, sometimes a 10 hours
day, meaning always the time of actual work, without reckoning intervals
of rest. In the discussion on the Imperial Industrial Regulations of
1869, Brauchitsch demanded a 12 hours factory day from the Conservative
benches, and Schweitzer for all large industries a 10 hours day (_i.e._
a 12 hours day, with intervals of rest amounting to not less than 2
hours).
The necessity for the limitation of the working-day of male adult
labourers to 11 or 10 hours, rests partly upon the same grounds as that
of the working-day for women and young persons. Hours of leisure,
besides the hours of night rest, are a necessity for men also, in order
that they may be able to live really human lives. Above all they ought
to be able to devote a few hours every day to their family, to social
intercourse, self-culture, and their duties as citizens. The economic
expediency of the restriction of working hours has been proved by
experience. The amount of work executed in the factories has been in no
way lessened by the adoption of the 10 hours day for women and children,
and moreover in England, wherever the 10 and 11 hours day for men has
been adopted without legal enactment, it has proved to be a beneficial
measure; this has also been the case in the Alsatian cotton
factories.[10] The factory inspectors in Switzerland unanimously report
the favourable effect of the 11 hours day on the amount of work
executed; and the same thing on the whole may be asserted of Austria.
In Switzerland the proposal that permission for overtime work should be
obtainable from the magistrates was several times rejected, "because the
employers soon perceived that the increased production scarcely covered
the increased expense of light and heating, and that the work was
carried on with less energy on the days following overtime work than
when the 11 hours day was adhered to." It is evident that there the 11
hours day is not considered too short. In general the employers in
Switzerland very soon declared themselves satisfied with the 11 hours
day; the workmen consider it a great benefit, and it has not led to the
greater frequenting of public-houses. The adoption of a maximum
working-day in Switzerland has put a stop to the practice on the part of
manufacturers of taking away their competitor's orders and executing
them by means of overtime work, so that amongst industrial managers
also, the tide is beginning to turn against too frequent indulgence in
overtime work.
In Saxony even, an examination into the advantages of the maximum
working-day shows "that the manufacturers themselves" (see General
Report for 1888 of the district inspector at Zwickau), "are opposed to
the long protraction of hours of labour; but every employer hesitates to
be the first to shorten the hours, fearing lest he should find too few
imitators, and be thereby thrown out of competition." The legal factory
working-day removes this fear.
Of course we have no experience to show that the further shortening of
the day to less than 10 hours would allow of the execution of as much or
more work than has hitherto been executed in more than 10 or 11 hours.
There is a limit to the possible increase of efficiency in machines and
in hand-labour, and in the two together. Labour Protection has neither
the intention nor the right to prohibit any labour that is not too long
to be physically and morally permissible.
At present there seems no necessity from the protective point of view
for more than an 11 or 12 hours day as a rule, with special hygienic
working-days of less than 10 hours, together with unrestricted freedom
of contract in regulating the hours of work below this limit.
Above the limit of 10 or 11 hours the lengthening of labour time seems
to diminish rather than to increase its aggregate productivity, and this
explains why the 11 and 10 hours day, without any intervention from the
State, has been so generally and successfully adopted by custom and
contract. It is the general experience, as the Duesseldorf inspector
notes in his report, that "those works in which the smallest amount of
labour is performed, have as a rule the longest hours of labour; all
attempts to increase the amount of labour at favourable periods of the
market, by offering higher wages, whilst at the same time maintaining
the long hours, have only attained a short-lived success, or have
altogether failed; the same result is produced when in certain
occupations the usually short hours of labour are prolonged in order to
profit by the opportunity of a good market; it is only for the first few
days that the increase in the amount of work executed corresponds to the
increase in the hours of work, and the old level is quickly resumed; on
the other hand, it is frequently affirmed by the managers that the
capacity for work of our labourers is in no wise inferior to that of the
English."[11]
The legal 11 or 10 hours day would not be justified if custom and
freedom of contract were sufficient to adjust the true proportions of
working time. This however is not the case, and the legal working-day is
therefore necessary in order to supplement the work of free
self-protection.
With regard to the voluntary adjustment of the duration of the
working-day, we find that the 10 and 11 hours day already prevails in a
large proportion of the German industries: as in Bremen, whence
according to the factory report, only 33.8 per cent. of the adult
labourers work beyond 10 hours, and only 3.8 per cent. beyond 11 hours,
and in Berlin, where in 3,070 firms, 71,465 male labourers work for 10
hours and less; and the same is reported by other district inspectors.
But side by side with this we find a longer and frequently a decidedly
too long working-day, and nowhere does every firm adhere to the 10 or 11
hours day. Even in the Lower Rhine Provinces the 12 hours working-day is
in force in the smelting houses (Hitze). In Saxony the same number of
hours obtains, as a rule, in textile industries, although many
manufacturers would prefer the 10 hours day, if all competitors would
adopt it. In Bavaria and Baden the 11 to 12 hours working-day prevails
widely. In certain separate kinds of work, as in mills and brick kilns,
the working hours are even longer.
The advisability of fixing the legal factory day at 10 or 11 hours is
not to be disputed. It is just where the 10 or 11 hours day has not been
secured by custom that, as a rule, the workmen and such managers as are
willing are least in a position to extort it by way of self-help from
other competing employers. And where custom has already led to the
general adoption of the 10 to 11 hours working-day, it seems quite
permissible to enforce it on such firms as have not adopted it.
It is no sufficient argument against the introduction of the extended
compulsory factory working-day, to say that the adoption of the
working-day for women and young persons would necessarily entail the
adoption of the working-day for men without recourse to legal
enforcement, since men could not be employed beyond the specified number
of hours, while this was forbidden in the case of women and young
persons employed in the same business. As a matter of fact, the larger
proportion of trades are carried on entirely, or mainly, by male
workers, though there may be a certain amount of purely accessory work
performed by women and young persons. Hence the adoption of the limited
factory working-day (_i.e._ for women and children) by no means
necessarily or uniformly entails its general adoption. Even in England
this has not been the case generally, and although we find that the
maximum working-day for men very largely obtains without legal
enactment, this has not been the result of the adoption of the legal
working-day for women and juvenile workers, but has been won by the
healthy struggle of the trades' unions for the maximum working-day fixed
by contract.
Now the question arises whether the 11 or the 12 hours day is to be
chosen, and whether the adoption of the factory working-day should be
proceeded with in Germany without its being adopted at the same time by
England and Belgium.
Several of the German States have recently introduced the 10 hours
working-day in their government works. This would point to a preference
for the 10 hours day. The proposal made by Switzerland at the Conference
for the adoption of this lower limit rests partly on the ground of its
agreement with the duration of the 10 hours day for women and juvenile
workers.
But here some caution is necessary. Private enterprise is not so free
from the dangers of competition as government enterprise; whilst Germany
might very well do with the 11 hours day since Switzerland and Austria
have been able to introduce it without harmful results.
The adoption of the compulsory 10 hours day might be ventured on without
hesitation, if once we had accurate international statistics as to
whether the different countries have already adopted the 10 hours day;
and, if so, for which branches of industry. We should then be able to
see the extent of the risk as a whole and in detail. Was not this very
matter, the ascertainment of the customary maximum duration of working
hours in separate branches of industry, pointed to as of immediate
importance in the resolutions agreed to at the Berlin Conference on the
drawing up of international statistics on Labour Protection? The general
adoption of the 10 hours day would certainly be hastened by these means.
Each country would then be sure of its ground in taking separate
proceedings.
German labour protective policy cannot be reproached with want of
caution, seeing that it has made no demand in the _von Berlepsch_ Bill
for the extended factory day, but only for an 11 hours working-day for
women.
Lastly, the question arises whether the maximum working-day under
consideration can, or shall, be extended beyond factory and
quasi-factory labour. Such extension has not as yet taken place.
Should such extension ensue, the limits of duration could hardly be
fixed so low for intermittent work, and for less laborious work (both
are found in trading industry and in traffic and transport business), as
for factory labour and the business of workshops where power machinery
is used. England, which is apparently the only country which regulates
the hours of young persons even in trade, has adopted for them a 12
hours working-day.
Further examination plainly shows that a simple uniform regulation would
be impossible in view of the extraordinary variety of non-continuous and
non-industrial occupations and handicrafts.
But in general it cannot be disputed that the need for regulation may
also exist in trading and in handicrafts, _e.g._ in bakeries (not
machine-worked) no less than in household industry. Here we often find
that the working hours are of longer duration than in factories and
workshops. In Berlin, figures have been obtained showing the percentage
of firms in which the working-day is more than 11 hours; and the
percentage of female and of male workers employed for more than 11
hours.
Number of Of Male Of Female
Firms. Workers. Workers.
In wholesale business 4.31 3.51 4.46
In handicraft 18.85 15.52 6.09
In trade 64.77 54.94 --
The necessity for extending protection beyond the factories cannot be
lightly set aside; in trade, excessive hours of labour are exacted from
workers not belonging to the family, and in continuous and intermittent
employments, and in household industry they are probably exacted from
the relatives. The same thing occurs in handicrafts. It is not
impossible for the matter to be taken in hand; but at present it meets
with many difficulties and much opposition. Only the factory and
quasi-factory maximum working-day for adults belong to the immediate
present.
3. _The maximum working-day of protective policy and of wage policy;
general maximum working-day; eight hours movement._
The general maximum working-day of 8 hours, as demanded since May 1st,
1890, rests admittedly on grounds, not merely of protective policy, but
also of wage-policy.
In so far as it is demanded on grounds of protective policy, it would
call for little remark. The only question would be, whether on grounds
of protective policy the maximum working-day is an equal necessity for
all industrial work, and whether this necessity must really be met by
fixing 8 hours, and not 11 or 10 hours, as the limits of daily work, a
question which, in my opinion, can only be answered in the negative.
The new and special feature which comes to the fore in the demand for
the general eight hours day, is the impress which (its advocates claim)
will be made by it on the wages question, and this in the interests of
the wage-labourer. The universality and the shortness of the maximum
working-day would lead, they say, to an artificial diminution of the
product of labour.
This second side of the question of the eight hours day, which touches
on wages, does not properly speaking come within the scope of a treatise
on the Theory and Policy of Labour Protection. We must not, however,
omit it here, for the demand for such a working-day is very seriously
confused in the public mind with the purely protective maximum
working-day, whereas the two must be clearly distinguished from each
other. By discussing and examining the general eight hours day, it must
be shown how important an advance it is upon the factory 10 hours day;
and it must be shown that the favour with which the factory 10 hours day
is to be regarded on grounds of protective policy, need not extend
necessarily to the general eight hours day; the one may be supported,
the other rejected; protective policy is pledged to the one, but not to
the other. From this standpoint we enter upon a consideration of the
eight hours day.
The demand is formulated in the most comprehensive manner in the Auer
Motion. What is it, according to this demand, that strictly speaking
constitutes the general eight hours day, implying two other "eights,"
eight hours sleep and eight hours recreation? If we are not mistaken in
the interpretation of the wording of the demand already given, the
"general working-day" means eight hours work for the whole body of
industrial wage-labour, admitting of specially regulated extension to
agricultural industry and forestry.
The Motion demands the eight hours time uniformly for all civilised
nations; without regard to the degrees of severity of different
occupations, and the degrees of working energy shown by different
nationalities; and without permission of overtime in the case of
extraordinary--either regular (seasonal) or irregular--pressure of work.
The Motion demands the eight hours maximum duration without regard to
the question whether the performance of labour is continuous or not,
hence without exclusion of the intermittent employments which are
specially difficult of control.
Moreover, in all probability, the mere preparatory work, which plays so
important a part in industrial service, in trade, and in the business of
traffic and transport, will be dealt with in the same manner as
continuous effective labour. At least we find no indication of the
manner in which preparatory work is to be dealt with as distinguished
from effective labour.
It does not appear in the text, but it is probably the intention of the
Auer Motion to apply the limitation of eight hours not only to work in
the same business, but to industrial work in different coordinated
businesses, to the principal industry and to the subsidiary industries.
Yet, as we have already noticed, we find no definite information on this
point, nor on the manner of enforcing the eight hours day; nor as to
whether it is to be an international measure enforced by international
enactment; nor yet as to whether it is to be adopted only by the
countries of old civilization, or also by the young nations of the new
world, and the countries of cheap labour in the South, and in Eastern
Asia.
On the other hand, the _object_ of the general working-day is fully and
clearly explained. It aims not only at fixing the time of rest for at
least eight hours daily, nor merely fixing the time of recreation
(pleasure, social intercourse, instruction, culture) for other eight
hours; but it also aims at an increase of wage per hour, or at any rate
at providing a larger number of workmen with full daily work by
diminishing the product of labour.
In judging of the merits of the eight hours day, one must lay aside all
prejudices and misconceptions. Hence we repeat that the hygienic
working-day may be admissible, even though fixed below eight hours. We
repeat, moreover, that the maximum working-day fixed by contract is not
to be opposed, even though it fall to eight hours, or below eight hours,
at first in isolated cases, but by degrees generally. We also say that
it is not impossible that certain nationalities, or all nationalities,
should some day attain to such a degree of energy and zeal for work, as
would justify the eight hours limit almost universally, and render it
economically admissible, as is already the case in certain kinds of
work. We are only concerned here with the general legal eight hours day
(not with the merely hygienic working-day of eight hours) to be legally
enforced on January 1st, 1898, or within some reasonable limit of time.
A few objections are advanced against the eight hours day, the
importance of which cannot be overlooked.
The maximum working-day applied only to industrial labour lacks
completeness, it is said; all work, even in agriculture and in public
business, should be limited to eight hours, if the general maximum
working-day is to become a reality. The Social Democrats would, perhaps,
meet this objection by further motions.
The general eight hours day is not quashed by the assertion that the
united nationalities, or the bodies of labourers of different
nationalities would never agree upon the matter. This is, indeed,
possible, even very probable; but it remains to be proved what may be
effected by international labour-agitation in an age of universal
suffrages and of world congresses, and especially in England, which has
already become so really democratic; an advance made by this country
towards a reasonable experiment would be decisive. The possibility of
attaining a sufficiently uniform, shortened, international working-day
will always be conceivable. Moreover, the imposition of protective
duties on the nations that hold back is held in reserve as a means
towards the equalisation of social policy.
More important are those objections which are raised on grounds of
protective policy against the eight hours day, not on account of its
shortness, but of its universality. It is affirmed that it is
unnecessary and could not be carried out without intolerable chicanery.
I am also inclined to think that the necessity for a maximum
working-day, on grounds of protective policy, does not extend much
beyond factory and quasi-factory labour (cf. Chaps. V. to VIII.), many
wage-workers finding sufficient protection in the force of public
opinion, in moral influence and custom.
The universalisation of the measure, it must be admitted, greatly
increases the difficulties of carrying it out successfully, especially
in non-continuous employments, in subsidiary and combined industries. It
would be difficult to carry it out without an amount of espionage and
control, intolerable, perhaps, to the sense of individual liberty in the
most diligent workers. The supporters of the eight hours day cannot meet
this objection by replying that under a real "government by the people,"
the whole measure would be practicable, and the demand for it
intelligible; for this is an attempt to thrust forward a proof having no
application to the policy of the present, which has to deal with
existing conditions of society; and it unwarrantably assumes that the
practicability of a "government by the people" has already been proved.
The supporter of the general legal eight hours day will be more
successful in meeting the above objection if he maintains that the
importance of so complete a universalization and so great a shortening
of the maximum working-day, from the point of view of the wages
question, more than outweighs any doubt as to the necessity of the
measure on grounds of protective policy, or as to the practicability of
carrying it out.
The decision for or against the general legal eight hours day lies
therefore in the answer to these two questions: whether the cherished
hope as to its effect on wages rests on a sure foundation, and whether
the State is justified in so wide an exercise of power in the interests
of one class in the present generation.
With regard to the first question, no very strong probability of success
has been shown, to say nothing of certainty.
We need only look at the practical aspect of the matter. By the legal
enforcement of a sudden and general shortening of the industrial
national working-time, by 20 to 30 per cent. of the working-time of
hitherto, higher wages are to be obtained for less work, or at least
room is to be given for the actual employment of the whole working force
at the present rate of wage!
How would an increase of wage, or even the maintenance (and that a
continuous one) of the present rate be conceivable in view of a sudden
general reduction of working-time by 20 to 30 per cent.? Only, indeed,
either by reduction of profits and interest on the part of the
capitalists, corresponding to the increase of wage, or by an increase in
the productivity of national industry, resulting from an improvement in
technique, and progress in skill and assiduity, or from both together.
Now no one can say exactly what proportion the profits and interest of
industrial capitalists bear to the wages of the workmen; if one were to
deduct what the mass of small and middle-class employers derive from the
work of their assistants (as distinct from what they draw from their
capital) the industrial rent--in spite of numbers of enormous
incomes--would probably not represent the large sum it is supposed to
be. Hence it is very doubtful whether it would be possible to obtain the
necessary sum out of profits.
Even if this were possible, it is by no means certain that the wage war
between Labour and Capital would succeed in obtaining so great a
reduction of industrial profits and interest, still less within any
short or even definitely calculated limit of time. Some amount of
capital might lie idle, or might pass out of Europe; or again, Capital
might conquer to a great extent by means of combination; or it might
turn away from its breast the pistol of the maximum working-day by
limiting production, _i.e._ by employing fewer labourers than before. It
might induce a rise in the price of commodities, which would diminish
"real" wages instead of raising them or of leaving them undiminished.
But even if Capital found it necessary in consequence of the legal
enforcement of the eight hours day to employ a larger number of workers,
it might draw supplies to meet this expense partly out of the countries
which had not adopted the eight hours day, partly out of agricultural
industry and forestry, and after half a generation, out of the increase
in the working population. Capital would also make every effort to
accomplish in a shorter time more than hitherto by exacting closer work
and stricter control, and by introducing more and more perfect
machinery.
With all these possibilities the eight hours day will not necessarily,
suddenly, and in the long run, increase the demand for labour to such a
degree that the employer will need to draw upon his interest, profits,
and ground rents for a large and general rise of wages, or for the
maintenance of the former rate of wage. At least, the contrary is
equally possible, and perhaps even highly probable.
Such an increased demand for labour would indeed ensue if the growth of
population were to be permanently retarded. But that it should be so
retarded is the very last thing to be expected under the conditions
supposed, viz. a general increase of "real" wages, which would obviously
render it more easy to bring up a family.
Hence the assumption that the eight hours day would lead to an increase
of wage, or the maintenance of the present rate of wage at the cost of
profits and interest, is not proven; so far from being certain, it is
not even probable. Therefore, it cannot serve to justify so violent an
interference on the part of the State, as the enforcement of the general
legal eight hours' day on January 1st, 1898. Such an interference would
be calculated to bring a terrible disappointment of hopes to the very
labourers whom it is intended to benefit.
Just as little can it be justified by the assumption that as much would
be produced (hence as high a wage be given) in a shorter working-day,
through the improvement of technique, and increased energy in work, as
in a working-day of 10 or 12 hours.
The increase in productivity could not be expected with any certainty to
be general, uniform, and sudden. The success of the experiment which has
been made with the 11 hours day, which prevents such excessive work as
is not really productive, cannot be advanced to justify the further
assumption that the productivity of labour increases in inverse ratio to
the duration of time. The increase of productivity through limiting the
duration of work does justify the 10 or 11 hours day of protective
policy precisely because the latter evidently stops short at that point
beyond which labour begins to be less efficient; we have no grounds for
assuming that the same justification exists for the eight hours day
demanded in the supposed interests of a wage policy. The increase of
productivity through the operation of the eight hours day would be more
than ever unlikely if the abolition of "efficiency" wage in favour of
exclusive time wage, which is one measure proposed, were to destroy the
inducement to compensate for loss of time by more assiduous work, and if
a fall in the profits were to curtail industrial activity.
But even supposing it certain, which it clearly is not, that an increase
of productivity would take place sufficient to compensate for the
shortening of time, it would still be doubtful whether the effect would
be felt in a rise or maintenance of the rate of wage, and not rather in
a rise in profit and interest. For the steadily increasing use of
machinery, which is assigned as one of the reasons why productivity
would remain unimpaired in spite of the shortening of hours, and more
especially if this should coincide with a rapid increase of population,
would actually lessen the demand for labour, and thus would improve the
position of Capital in the Labour market. On this second ground also, we
are precluded from supposing that the eight hours day would result in an
increase of wages.
But if it be granted that the balance would not be restored, either by
pressure upon profits and interest or by increased productivity, it then
follows that the wages of labour must necessarily _fall_ 20 to 30 per
cent. through such a shortening of the working-day. And this, as we have
seen, is not at all an unlikely issue.
The absorption of all the unemployed labour force, the industrial
"reserve army," in consequence of the adoption of the eight hours day,
is an assumption quite as unproven as the one with which we have been
dealing.
This result would not necessarily ensue even in the first generation,
since production might be limited, and even if the hopes of increased
productivity are not quite vain, it is quite possible that more
machinery might be employed without necessarily increasing the number of
workmen.
It is still more difficult to determine what in all these respects will
be the ultimate effect of the eight hours day. The further increase of
the working population--and, _ceteris paribus_, this would be the most
probable result of the expected increase in the rate of wage per
hour--may produce fresh supplies of superfluous labour; but the
eventual fall of wages consequent on a decrease in the productivity of
national work would necessarily increase the industrial "reserve army,"
through the diminished consumption and the consequent restriction of
production to more or less necessary commodities.
If a diminution of national production were really to result from the
adoption of the eight hours day, it would affect precisely the least
capable bodies of workers, and those engaged in furnishing luxuries, for
the demand for luxuries is the first to fall off; and the less capable
workers finally become the worst paid because they are able to
accomplish less in eight hours. Hence it follows that the uniform,
universal, and national eight hours day would have very different
results on the labouring bodies of each nation, and on the competing
bodies of labourers in separate industrial districts in the same nation.
Hence the very uniformity of the national and international maximum
working-day of wage policy is a matter which calls up very grave
considerations, which, however, we are not in a position to pursue any
further in this book.
Even the complete prohibition of overtime work for the sake of meeting
the accumulation of business, neither ensures a higher rate of wage per
hour, nor a lasting removal and reduction of the superfluous supplies of
labour. The very opposite result may ensue, at least, in all such
branches of industry as undergo periodical oscillations of activity and
depression, through the fluctuation of the particular demand on which
they depend. If the effect on wages of the legal eight hours day is
extremely doubtful, and the advisability of the measure more than
questionable, we come in conclusion to ask very seriously whether the
State is justified in enforcing more than the mere working-day of
protective policy.
Without doubt the State ought to direct its social policy towards
securing at least a minimum rate of wage compatible with a really human
existence, as it does by Labour Insurance, for instance. It is a
possible, though an extremely unlikely, case to suppose that it might
take practical steps to realize the "proportional" or "fair" wage of
_Rodbertus_ (although since the writings of _von Thuenen_, theorists have
sought in vain a method of determining this ideal measure), but even so,
the practicability of such a course would have first to be demonstrated,
and in my opinion this would probably be found to be not demonstrable.
But surely it has now been fully shown that it ought not to permit the
sudden and general shortening of the working day by 20 to 30 per cent.,
an experiment the effects of which cannot be foreseen.
The State does not possess this right, either over property or labour.
It might affect injuriously the rate of wages of the whole labouring
class, or, at least, of such bodies of wage labourers as are employed in
the production of such articles as are not actual necessaries of life.
The labourer might even have to bear the whole burden, since the rate of
wages would suffer by this measure if a fall in national production were
brought about without being counterbalanced by a lowering of the rate of
profit and interest. The State has to take into consideration those
considerable bodies of wage-labourers who (while keeping within the
limits of the maximum working-day of protective policy) would rather
work longer than earn less, and it will find it hard to justify to them
the experiment of the eight hours day of a wage policy; for this would
constitute a very serious restriction of individual liberty for many
workers, and those not by any means the least industrious or skilful.
Still we need not undertake here to work out the matter decisively from
this point of view.
Will, however, the experiment be forced upon us? Who can deny this
positively, in face of the irresistibly advancing democratic tendencies
of constitutional right in all countries? If it be forced upon us, it
may, and most probably will, end in a great disappointment of the hopes
of the Labour world.
It is perfectly clear that the decision of the matter rests with
England. If this country does not lead the way, if she hesitates to
enforce it in the face of the competition of American, Asiatic, and
soon, perhaps, of African labour, the experiment of a general eight
hours day for the rest of Western Europe is not to be thought of. But in
England it is precisely the aristocratic portion of the labouring
classes--the "old trades' unionists," the skilled labour--that has not
not yet been won over to the side of the legal eight hours day, and it
is doubtful whether it will yield to the leaders of unskilled labour:
Burns, Tillett, and the rest. At the September Congress at Liverpool, in
1890, the Trade Unionist party brought forward in opposition to the
general legal eight hours day, the eight hours optional day fixed by
contract, in the motion of Patterson, if I have rightly understood the
proposal. The motion was defeated by a majority of only eight (181 to
173).[12] If the legal eight hours day is rejected, does that preclude
for all time the possibility of shortening the time of labour to less
than the 10 or 11 hours factory day at present in force? By no means.
The fundamental error in the general legal working-day as it now stands,
lies not in the assumption that it will gradually lead to a further
shortening of the working-day, but in the assumption that the legal
maximum working-day will bring about suddenly, generally, and uniformly
results which in the natural course of economic and social development
only the maximum working-day of free contract is calculated to bring
about, and this gradually, step by step, tentatively, and by irregular
stages; that is to say, that so material a shortening of the maximum
working-day cannot possibly be attained to generally by any other means
than by the shortening by free contract, here a little and there a
little, of the maximum working-day within each industry and each
country, and this equally outside as well as within the limits of
factory and quasi-factory business. We may at all events be assured that
the substitution of the legal eight hours day for the factory
working-day of 10 or 11 hours is _not the next step to be taken_, but
rather the further development of the maximum working-day of free
contract by means of the continuous wage struggle between the organised
forces of Capital and Labour to suit the unequal and varying conditions
of place, time, and employment, in the various classes of industry.
There is no objection to be offered to this manner of bringing about the
shortening of the working-day. No one has any right or even any fair
pretext for opposing it. No one need fear anything from the results of a
general working-day introduced by this method, even if it should
ultimately develop into the legalised maximum working-day of less than
10 hours.
There is the less reason for fear, as the working classes themselves
have the greatest interest in avoiding any step forward which would
afterwards have to be retraced; the majority will prefer, within the
limits of overwork, additional and more laborious working time with more
wages, to additional recreation time and less wages.
Least of all does _Capital_ need to look forward with jealousy and
suspicion to this visionary eight hours day which may lie in the lap of
the future, but which will have come about, only gradually through a
series of reductions _by contract_ of the working-day, each successive
rise of wage and each successive shortening of the working-day having
been occasioned by a steady improvement in technique, and a healthy
increase of population. The sooner some such movement as this of the
eight hours day, fixed by contract, ultimately perhaps by legislation,
takes a firm hold, the more striking will be the improvement of
technique, the more normal will become the growth of population, and the
more peaceful and law-abiding will be the social life of the immediate
future. Hence, I think we may contemplate the eight hours movement
without agitation, and discuss it impartially, provided of course that
the Labour Democracy is not permitted to tear down all constitutional
limitations upon its sole and undisputed sway.
The most important contribution that this chapter offers to the Theory
and Policy of Labour Protection is then to show that the eight hours day
of wage policy may be rejected, and may still be rejected, even if the
10 hours day, demanded on purely State protective grounds, is adopted.
The foregoing discussion will show conclusively that there is no
question of the State pledging itself to Socialism by the purely
protective regulation of the working-day.
Even from the standpoint of Social Democracy, the eight hours day as now
demanded is not properly speaking a Socialistic demand at all. It may be
that some of the leaders of the movement may seek by its means to weaken
and undermine the capitalist system of production, but the demand does
not in principle deny the right of private property in the means of
production. The general eight hours day is an effort to favourably
affect wages on the basis of the existing capitalist order. Not only the
11 hours or 10 hours day, but even the eight hours day would be no index
of the triumph of Socialism. It may rather be supposed that the leaders
of the movement thrust forward the eight hours day in order to be able
to conceal their hand a little longer in the promised fundamental
alteration of the "system of production." Therefore, we again repeat,
even in face of the proclamation of a general eight hours day made at
the "World's Labour Holiday," of May 1st, 1890, "There is no occasion to
give the alarm!"
4. _The maximum working-day and the "normal working-day."_
What we understand by the maximum working-day--limitation (whether on
grounds of protective policy or of wage policy) of the maximum amount of
labour allowed to be performed within the astronomical day, by confining
it within a certain specified number of hours--might also be called, and
indeed used more frequently to be called, the "normal working-day." It
is better, however, not to employ this alternative designation. When the
word "normal working-day" is used in a special sense, it means something
quite different from the maximum working-day; for it is a unit of social
measurement by means of which it is supposed that we can estimate all
labour performance however varying, both in personal differences and in
differences of kind of work, so that we may arrive at a socially normal
valuation of labour, and a socially normal scale of valuation of
products. It is an artificial common denominator for the regulation of
wages and prices which perhaps may be attained under the capitalist
system, but which ultimately points to a socialistic commonwealth. The
maximum working-day of protective right might exist side by side with
the regulation of a "normal working-day," but it has no essential
connection with it.
Hence we might pass by this normal working-day which is wholly
unconnected with State protection, but we think it necessary to touch
upon it. There still exists a confusion of ideas as to the maximum and
"normal" working-days. The meaning of the latter is not formulated and
fixed in a generally recognised manner. It is quite conceivable, nay
even probable, if the Socialist fermentation among the labouring masses
should increase rapidly, that the proposal of a maximum working-day,
will take the form of the "normal working-day," and that in the very
worst and wildest development of the idea of normal working-time. This
alone affords sufficient reason for our drawing a sharp distinction
between the maximum working-day of protective legislation and the
"normal working-day," and above all for clearly defining the meaning of
the latter.
This is no easy task for several reasons.
The determination of the meaning of "normal working-day" includes two
points: what we mean by fixing a normal, and what we should regard as
"socially normal," _i.e._ just, fair, proportionate, and so on.
The normal working-day would be a State normalised working-day (as
opposed to a restricted working-day) adopted for the purpose of
preventing abnormal social and industrial conditions, and as far as
possible restoring normal relations. This would be the widest meaning of
normal working-day.
The maximum working-days of protective policy, and of wage policy, are,
or aim at being, normal working-days in this widest sense. Both are
working-days legally normalised for the purpose of obtaining by a
development of protective policy, or of protective and wage policy
combined, more normal conditions of work. But this does not make it
advisable to adopt the alternative designation of normal working-day
rather than of maximum working-day. There are several kinds of normal
working-days in this wide sense, or at least we can conceive of several;
even minimum working-days might be looked upon as normally regulated
days. The term might designate the _normal_ working-day demanded on
political, social, or educational grounds, perhaps even the maximum
working-day which would secure to the worker every day leisure for the
non-industrial occupations above mentioned; moreover it might designate
a minimum normal working-day--almost indispensable under a communistic
government--which would compulsorily fix a daily minimum of labour, and
thereby ensure production adequate to the normal requirements of the
whole community; another normal working-day, in the widest sense of the
term, would be such a maximum working-day under a communistic
government, as should aim at preventing the diligent from working more
and earning more than others, and thereby destroying equality. None of
these normal working-days (in the widest sense) concern us now; the
existing social order does not require for its just and fair regulation
the introduction of such normal working-days, and the _cura posterior_
of a socialism or communism which as yet possesses no practical
programme is not a theoretically fruitful or practically important
matter for discussion, at least not within the limits of this book. The
normal working-day with which we need to concern ourselves here--and the
term is still frequently used in this narrower sense, though not
universally--is, as already indicated, that normal day which should
serve as a general standard of a socially equitable--normal or more
normal (compared to the old capitalist regulations)--valuation of the
performances of labour, and of the products of labour, as a means of
reducing the various individual performances of labour to proportional
parts of a "socially normal" aggregate of the labour of the nation, and
as a social measure of the cost of labour products, thereby serving as a
means to a "socially normal" regulation of prices.
_Rodbertus_ is the writer who has most clearly sketched for us the idea
of such a normal working-day. We shall best understand what is meant by
it, by listening to this great economic thinker. _Rodbertus_ sought for
a more normal regulation of wages, within the sphere of the existing
social order, by the co-operation of capital and wage labour, giving to
the wage labourer as to the employer his proportional share in the
aggregate result of national production.
As a solution of this problem, he lays down a special normal _time_
labour-day and normal _work_ (amount of work) labour-day, by considering
which two factors he proposes to arrive at a unit of normal labour which
shall serve as a common basis of measurement.
In order to bring about the participation of all workers in the nett
result of national production in proportion to their contribution to
it--hence without keeping down the better workers to the level of the
worst, and without endangering productivity--it is necessary, Rodbertus
holds, to reduce to a common denominator the amounts of work performed
by individual workers, which vary very considerably both in quantity and
quality. By this means he thinks we shall be enabled to establish a fair
relation between work and wages. The normal _time_ labour-day is to
furnish us with a simple measurement of the product of labour in
different occupations or branches of industry; and the normal _work_
labour-day is to give us a common measure of all the varying amounts of
work performed in equal labour time by the individual workers.
He points out that astronomically equal working time does not mean, in
different industries, an equal out-put of strength during an equal
number of hours, nor an equal contribution to society. Therefore the
different industrial working-times must be reduced to a mean social
working time: the normal _time_ labour-day. If this amounts to 10 hours,
6 hours work underground might equal 12 hours spinning or weaving work.
Or, which would be the same, the normal _time_ labour-day would be 6
hours in mining, and 12 hours in textile industries; the hour of mining
work would be equal to 1-2/3 hours of normal time, the hour of textile
work would be equal to 5/6 hour of normal time. The normal _time_
labour-day would serve to determine periodically the proportionate
relations which exist between the degrees of arduousness in labour of
different kinds, with a view to bringing about a just distribution of
the whole products of labour according to the normal proportional value
of its out-put in each kind of employment, in each department of
industry, such proportional value being determined by means of the
normal time measure. Also it would lead to the fair award of individual
wage, for if any one were to work only 3 instead of 6 hours in coal
mining, or only 5 hours in weaving or spinning, he would only be
credited with and paid for half a day of normal working time.
The normal time day is not however sufficient to establish a just
balance between performance of work and payment; for in an hour of the
same industrial time value, one individual will work less, another more,
one better, another worse. The combined interests of the whole community
and the equitable wage relations of the different workers to each other,
demand therefore the fixing of the normal performance of labour within a
defined working time, in short the fixing of a unit of normal work.
Having normalised industry on a _time_ basis, we must now normalise it
on a _work_ basis. And this is how _Rodbertus_ proposes to do it:
According as the normal _time_ labour-day has been fixed in any trade at
6, 8, 10, or 12 hours (in proportion to the arduousness of the work,
etc.), the normal amount of work of such a day must also be fixed for
that trade, _i.e._ the amount of work must be determined which an
average workman, with average skill and industry, would be able to
accomplish in his trade during such a normal time labour-day. This
amount of work shall represent in any trade the normal amount of work of
a normal _time_ labour-day, and therewith shall constitute in any trade
the normal _work_ labour-day, which would be equal to what any workman
must accomplish within the normal _time_ labour-day of his trade, before
he can be credited with and paid for a full day, that is, a normal
_work_ labour-day. Hence if a workman had accomplished in a full normal
_time_ labour-day, either one and a half times the amount, or only half
the amount of normal work, he would _e.g._ in the six hours mining day,
for six hours work, be credited with a day and a half, or half a day
respectively of normal work time; whilst in spinning and weaving, on the
other hand, he would in the same way, for 12 hours work, be credited
with one and a half or a half-day respectively of normal work time.
In this way _Rodbertus_ claims to be able to establish a fair measure
and standard of comparison for labour times, not merely between the
various kinds of trades and departments of industry, but also between
the various degrees of individual efficiency. Each wage labourer would
be able to participate proportionately in that portion of the national
product which should be assigned to wage-labour as a whole. If therefore
this portion were to be increased in a manner to which we shall
presently refer, there would also be a rise in the share of the
individual workers, in proportion to the rise in the nett result of
national production. This scheme would form the groundwork of an
individually just social wage system, a system by which the better
workman would also be better paid, which would therefore balance the
rights and interests of the workers among themselves, which moreover
would ensure the productivity of national labour by variously rewarding
the good and bad workers, thus recognising the rights and interests of
the whole community, and lastly, which would continuously raise the
labour-wage in proportion to the increase in national productivity (and
also to the increasing returns of capital, whether fixed or moveable,
applied to production).
I may here point out, however, that with all this we should not have
arrived at an absolutely just system of remuneration of wage labour,
unless we introduced a more complete social valuation of products in the
form of normal labour pay instead of metal coinage.
But _Rodbertus_ wishes to see his "normal _work_ labour-day"--equal to
10 normal work hours--established as a universal measure of product
value as well as of the value of labour: "Beyond and above what we have
yet laid down the most important point of all remains to be established;
the normal _work_ labour-day must be taken as the unit of _work time_ or
_normal time_, and according to such work time or normal time (according
to labour so computed) we must not only normalise the _value of the
product_ in each industry, but must also determine the wages in each
kind of work."
He claims that the one is as practicable as the other. First, with
regard to regulating the value of product according to work time or
normal work. In order to do this the "normal work labour-day"--which in
any trade equals one day (in the various trades it may consist of a
varying number of normal time hours), and which represents a quantity of
product equal to a normal day's work--this normal work day must be
looked upon as the unit of work time or normal work, and in all trades
it must be divided into an equal number (10) of work hours. The product
in all trades will then be measured according to such work time. A
quantity of product which should equal a full normal day's work, whether
it be the product of half a normal time labour-day, or of two normal
time labour-days, would represent or be worth one work day (10 work
hours); a quantity of product which should equal half a normal day's
work, whether it be the product of a normal work time or not, would
represent or be worth half a day's work or five work hours.
The product of a work hour in any trade would therefore, according to
this measure, equal the product of a work hour in all other trades; or
generally expressed: Products of equal work times are equal in value.
Such is approximately the scheme of _Rodbertus_.
A really normal labour-day--normal _time_ and normal _work_
labour-day--would be necessary in any regulated social system that
sought on the one hand, in the matter of distribution of wages, to
balance equally "the rights and interests of the workers amongst
themselves"; and on the other hand, in the matter of productivity, to
balance equally the "rights and interests of the workers with those of
the whole community," by means of State intervention. It would therefore
be necessary not merely in a State regulated capitalist society, with
private property in the means of production, as _Rodbertus_ proposed to
carry it out under a strongly monarchical system, but also and specially
would it be necessary under a democratic Socialism, if, true to its
principles as opposed to Communism, it aimed at rewarding each man
proportionately to his performance, instead of allowing each man to work
no more than he likes, and enjoy as much as he can, which is the
communistic method.
The only difference would be this: that any socialistic system must
divide the nett result of production--after deducting what is required
for the public purposes of the whole community--in proportion to the
amount of normal time contributed, and must make the distribution in
products valued according to the cost of their production computed in
normal time; whilst _Rodbertus_, who wishes to preserve private
property, finds it necessary to add one more point to those mentioned:
the periodical normalisation of wage conditions in all trades. He is
very clear upon this point. "The State must require the rate of wage for
the normal working-day in any trade to be regulated and agreed upon by
the employers and employed among themselves, and must also ensure the
periodical readjustment of these regulations and the increase in the
rate of wages in proportion to the increase in the productivity of
work."
But _Rodbertus_ clearly perceived the difference between a normalised
capitalist system and a normalised socialism, neither communistic nor
anarchist. Were the workers alone, he continues, entitled to a share in
the national product value, every worker would have to be credited with
and paid for the whole normal time during which he had worked, and the
whole national product value would be divided amongst the workers
alone. For instance, if a workman had accomplished one and a half normal
day's work in his normal time working-day, he would be credited with 15
work hours, and paid accordingly; if he had only accomplished half a
normal day's work in the whole of his normal time working-day, he would
be credited with only five work hours. The whole national profit, which
would be worth x normal work, would then go in labour wage, which would
amount to x normal work. But such a state of things, which may exist in
the imaginations of many leaders of labour is, according to Rodbertus,
the purest chimera: "In no condition of society can the worker receive
the whole product of his normal work, he can never be credited in his
wage with the whole amount of normal work accomplished by him; under all
circumstances there must be deducted from it what now appears as ground
rent and interest on capital." Ground rent and interest on capital are,
according to Rodbertus, remuneration for "indirect work" for the
industrial function of directing or superintending production. "If
therefore the worker has accomplished, in his normal time working-day,
10 hours of normal work, in his wages he will perhaps be only credited
with _three_ work hours, in other words the product value of three work
hours will be assigned to him"; for the product value of one work hour
would represent perhaps his contribution to the necessities of the State
(taxes), and three work hours would have to go towards what is now
called ground rent, and another three to interest on capital.
It is impossible here to enter upon a complete critical discussion of
the practicability of the capitalist normal working-day, as conceived by
Rodbertus; but I may be allowed in passing to indicate one or two points
of criticism.
I maintain my opinion expressed above, that the cost of production in
terms of normal labour is not the only factor to be considered in the
valuation of products and the regulation of wages; hence, I still claim
that the social measure of value in terms of the cost of production
cannot be applied to labour products or to labour contributions without
reference to the rise and fall of their value in use. Should, however,
the State eventually interfere in the regulation of wages and prices,
then I allow that the normal working-day of Rodbertus would become of
importance to us for that purpose. For the rest, I hold that it has by
no means been proved that such an exercise of interference could succeed
even under a monarchical government based on private property, far less
under a democratic government with a socialistic system of ownership.
Neither do I regard it as proved that this method of State normalisation
would actually achieve the establishment of a more normal state of
affairs than can be arrived at in a social system where freely organised
self-help is the rule, _i.e._ where both classes, Capital and Labour,
can combine freely among themselves within the limits of a positive code
safeguarding the rights of the workers. The direction taken by modern
industrial life towards the harmonious conciliation of both classes, by
means of the wage-list, the wage-tariff, and the sliding scale with a
fixed minimum wage for entire branches of industry, and so forth,
promises an important advance towards the establishment of a more normal
wage-system.
In considering the question of the working-day as an instrument for
affecting wages, it will be found that on the whole perhaps as much, or
even more, may be achieved (and with fewer countervailing disadvantages)
by the maximum working-day of free contract, varying according to trade,
than by the normal working-day in the narrow meaning which Rodbertus has
given to the term.
The complete elimination of the capitalist individualistic method of
determining wages and prices, in favour of the measurement by "normal
time" and "normal work" alone, would be open to grave objections both in
theory and practice. Above all there is the practical danger of
overburdening the State with the task of regulating and normalising, a
task which only the most confirmed optimism would dare to regard
lightly. It appears to me exceedingly doubtful at the present whether
any State, even the most absolute monarchy with the best administration,
would be competent to undertake such a task. I can see no likelihood of
satisfaction on this point for some time to come, and must therefore
range myself on the side of those who claim a better chance of success
for the simpler method of improved organisation for the free settlements
of wage-disputes by united representatives of both classes. But these
and similar investigations are beyond the range of the main subject
under discussion in this book.
My task is to prove that the maximum working-day of protective policy,
or of protective and wage-policy, has nothing to do with the normal
working-day in its strict sense--whether it be the normal working-day of
Rodbertus separately adjusted in separate branches of industry, or the
all-round normal working-day of non-communistic socialism. The normal
working-day in the precise sense of Rodbertus, or even in the sense of
the more rational socialists, affords an artificially fixed unit of
value for the equitable determination of wages and prices; but it is
neither a regulation by protective legislation of the longest
permissible duration of the work within the astronomical day, nor a
method of influencing the capitalistic settlement of wages by the legal
enforcement of a much shorter maximum working-day. A normal working-hour
would serve as well as a normal working-day for a common denominator for
the uniform reduction of the various kinds of work to one normal measure
of time and labour, with a view to the valuation of the products and
contributions of labour.
It may be said that the normal working-day, in the sense of Rodbertus,
by virtue of its being a matter periodically fixed and prescribed, is a
normal working-day also in that wider sense in which the term may
equally be applied to the maximum working-day of protective policy. But
it cannot claim the title of normal working-day from the fact of this
_fixity_ or this _artificial regulation_, but only from the essential
fact that it serves the purpose of a valuation of labour products and
labour contributions on a scale which is really normal, _i.e. socially
just and equitable_.
The importance from a theoretic point of view of a distinction between
the maximum working-day and the normal working-day would of itself have
justified our dwelling on the foregoing details. But these details are
also of practical importance in considering the policy of the ten hours
day of Labour Protection, as against the legal eight hours day. One word
more on this point: _the eight hours day threatens to ultimately
develope, should Socialism as an experiment ever be tried, into a normal
working-day of the worst possible kind_.
Democratic Socialism has, hitherto at least, adopted on its party
programme no formulary of the normal working-day required by it. It will
scarcely find a better formulary than that of _Rodbertus_ (omitting the
periodical re-adjustment of the whole share of Labour as against
Capital, see pp. 123, 124). The normal measure of _Rodbertus_ would be
an incomparably superior method to that of regarding as equal all
astronomic labour time without respect to differences in the arduousness
of the labour in the various trades, no attempt being made to determine
the unit of normal work per normal time-day or normal time-hour. But
would Democratic Socialism have really any other course open to it than
to treat all labour time as equal, and so to bring about the adoption of
a socialistic normal time of the most disastrous type, viz. the
submergence of the _socially normal working-day_ in the _general maximum
working-day_?
To the enormous difficulties, technical and administrative, inherent in
the normal labour time of Rodbertus, would inevitably be added the
special and aggravated difficulties arising from the overpowering
influence of the masses under a democratic "Social State," on the
regulation of normal time. Social Democracy, as a democracy, would
almost necessarily be forced to concede the most extreme demands for
equality, _i.e._ the claim that the labour hour of every workman should
be treated as equal to that of every other workman, without regard to
degrees of severity, without regard to differences of kind, and without
regard to degrees of individual capacity and the fluctuations of value
in use. In any case the Social State would probably not dare to
emphasize in the face of the masses the extraordinary differences of
normal labour in astronomically equal labour time, _i.e._ it might not
venture to assign different rewards to equal labour times on account of
differences in the labour. And yet if it failed to recognise those
differences Social Democracy would be doomed from the outset.
It can thus be easily understood why Social Democracy has hitherto
evaded her own peculiar task of precisely determining a practicable,
socialistic, normal working-day.
There were two ways in which it was possible to do this: either by
merely agitating for an exaggeration of the maximum working-day of
capitalist Labour Protection, or by adhering to the communistic view
which altogether denies the necessity for any reduction to normal time.
And we find in fact among Social Democrats, if we look closely, traces
of both these views.
According to the strict requirements of the Socialists, not only a
maximum working-day, but also and especially a minimum working-day
ought properly speaking to be demanded in order to meet the dire and
recognised needs of the large masses of the people. Instead of this,
Social Democracy holds out the flattering prospect of a coming time in
which the working-day for all will be reduced to two or three hours, so
that after the need for sleep is satisfied, at least twelve hours daily
may be devoted to social intercourse, art and culture, and to the
hearing or delivering of lectures and speeches. No attention whatever is
paid to the trifling consideration, that either there might be a
continual increase in the population and a growing difficulty in
obtaining raw material for the purposes of production; or on the other
hand that the population might remain stationary or decrease, and
therewith progress in technique and industrial skill might come to an
end.
While more and more the hopes of the people are being excited by
promises of great results from the progressive shortening of the maximum
working-day--through the increased productivity of labour--still we hear
nothing with reference to the normal working time, or the regulation by
it of values of products and labour. The party has not yet, to my
knowledge, committed itself at all on this point; it is probable
therefore that it has not arrived at possessing a clearly worked out
conception of this, the very foundation question of the socialistic,
non-communistic "Social State"; still less has it any programme approved
by the majority of the party.
To represent equal measures of working time of different individuals in
different trades by unequal lengths of normal time, or, in other words,
to assign unequal rewards to astronomically equal measures of working
time, is an idea that goes assuredly against the grain with the masses
of the democracy. It is found better to be silent on this point. Hitze,
who has taken part in all transactions of protective legislation in the
German Reichstag, states from his own experience that the parliamentary
wing of the Social Democrats has always had in view the _maximum_
working-day, and never the _normal_ working-day. He says: "None of those
who have moved labour resolutions in the German Reichstag (not even such
of them as were Social Democrats) have ever contemplated the
introduction of the normal working-day, either as intended by the
socialistic government of the future, or as conceived by Rodbertus--but
they have always had in their minds the maximum working-day only--the
fixing of an upward limit to the working time permissible daily, even
though they may frequently have made use of the rather ambiguous
expression 'a normal working-day.'"
It will, however, be impossible for the movement to continue to evade
this main point. In spite of all danger of division, in one way or
another the party must come to a decision, must formulate on its
programme some socialistic normal working-day as a common denominator
for the valuation of commodities, and the apportionment of remuneration
to all. The result of this would be to destroy all the present illusions
concerning the possibility of providing employment for the industrial
"reserve army," and securing a general rise of wage per hour by means
of the adoption of an eight hours day.
There are then only three courses open to them; either to develope the
normal working-day logically into a socialistic form, perhaps by making
use of the proposals of Rodbertus; or secondly, to treat the maximum
working-day as the normal working-day, _i.e._ to regard the hours of
astronomical working time of all workers as equal in value (without
attempting any reduction to a _socially normal_ time), and to make this
the basis of all valuation of goods and apportionment of remuneration;
or, thirdly, the communistic plan of dispensing with all normal
working-time on the principle that each shall work as little as he
chooses, and enjoy as much as he likes.
The first of these possible courses--the adoption of the views of
Rodbertus--is rendered unlikely by the democratic aversion to reckoning
equal astronomical times of work as unequal amounts of normal work, to
say nothing of the practical difficulties and deficiencies which I have
already pointed out in Rodbertus' formulary.
The second course is the one that would more probably be followed by the
Social Democrats; viz. the completion of their programme by identifying
the standard of normal working-time with the astronomical individual
working-time, _i.e._ by assigning a uniform value to all hours of
astronomical time. But in this event Social Democracy would alienate the
very pick of its present following; for this identification would
involve that the more industrious would have to work for the less
industrious, and the latter would gain the advantage. It can hardly in
any case come to a practical attempt to enforce this view; but even
theoretically the strongest optimism will not be able, I believe, to
explain away the probability, approaching to a certainty, that such an
attempt, implying the grossest injustice to the more diligent and
skilful workers, would literally kill the labour of the most capable,
and would therefore lead to an incalculable fall in the product of
national work, and consequently also in wages. But it would be extremely
difficult to convince the masses, among whom the Socialist agitation is
mostly carried on, of the truth of this contention. They would
undoubtedly demand in the name of equality that the astronomical hour
should be treated as the normal working-hour, and this has already shown
itself in the demand for a general minimum wage per hour.
It would be no great step from this to the third and most extreme
alternative. This would be that there is, forsooth, no need for any
normalisation, or for any normal working-day! It should no longer be:
"to each according to his work, through the intervention of the State!"
but rather, "to each one as much work as he can do, and as much
enjoyment as he pleases!" Even that craze for equality, which would make
a normal time-measure of the astronomical hour of the maximum
working-day, would be superseded, and the identification of the maximum
and normal working-days would be set aside by such a view as this.
Practically, we need not fear that matters will go to this extreme. But
it is interesting to note (and since the expiration of the German
Socialist Laws in 1890), it is no longer treading on forbidden ground
to point out that this cheap and easy agitation in the direction of pure
communism which went on for years even under the Socialist Laws and
before the very eyes of the police, has to-day already taken a very wide
hold by means of fugitive literature and pamphlets.
It is not my intention to assert that the present leaders of Social
Democracy are scheming to treat the astronomical working-hour as the
unit of normal time in the event of the introduction of a socialist
government. They are not guilty of such madness. As I have shown, the
present leaders of the Social Democrats are aiming at the eight hours
day only as a protective measure and a means of affecting wages, and
they aim at realising it purely on the present capitalist basis. They do
not give the slightest indication of desiring that the eight hours day
should give to all workers the same wage for every hour of normal or
astronomical working-time. Social Democracy still confines its activity
entirely within the limits of the capitalist order of society, however
much isolated individuals might wish to step forward at once, and
without disguise. But would the present leaders be able to hold their
own if the masses expressed a desire to have each astronomical
labour-hour in their maximum working-day (at present of eight hours, but
no doubt before long of six hours) recognised as the normal time-hour?
I trust that in the foregoing pages I have at least succeeded in making
this one point clear; that the Policy of Labour Protection has nothing
to do with any normal working-day. And for this reason: that it rejects
the _"universal" maximum working-day_; and rejects it not merely as a
measure of protective policy, but also as a measure affecting wages.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] This has so far not yet been done.
[9] Auer Motion, Sec. 130.
[10] Cf. The Commentary on Dollfuss in Brassey's _Work and Wages_.
[11] Official records for 1885.
[12] The motion of Patterson runs thus: "That, in the opinion of this
Congress, it is of the utmost importance that an eight hours day should
be secured at once by such trades as may desire it, or for whom it may
be made to apply, without injury to the workmen employed in such trades;
further, it considers that to relegate this important question to the
Imperial Parliament, which is necessarily, from its position,
antagonistic to the rights of labour, will only indefinitely delay this
much-needed reform."
BOOK II.
CHAPTER V.
PROTECTION OF INTERVALS OF WORK: DAILY INTERVALS, NIGHT REST, AND
HOLIDAYS.
1. _Daily intervals of work._
The uninterrupted performance of the whole work of the day is not
possible without intervals for rest, recreation, and meals. Even in the
crush and hurry of modern industry, certain daily intervals have been
secured by force of habit and common humanity.
Yet the necessity for ensuring such intervals by protective legislation
is not to be disputed, at least in the case of young workers and women
workers in factory and quasi-factory business. From an economic point of
view there is nothing to be urged against it.
In addition to the protection of women and young workers with regard to
duration of daily work, England has also enjoined intervals of rest for
all protected persons. In textile industries the work must not continue
longer than 41/2 hours at a time without an interval of at least half an
hour for meals; within the working day a total of not less than 2 hours
for meals must be allowed. In other than textile industries, women and
young persons have a total of 11/2 hours, of which one hour at least must
be before 3 o'clock in the afternoon; the longest duration of
uninterrupted work amounts to 5 hours. In workshops where children or
young persons are also employed, the free time for women amounts to 11/2
hours; in non-domestic workshops where women alone are employed (between
6 a.m. and 9 p.m.), 41/2 hours is the total. The same time is allowed to
young persons. In domestic workshops no free time is legally enforced
for women; for young persons it amounts to the same time as that for
women alone in non-domestic workshops.
I do not wish to deal with the regulations of all countries; I am only
concerned to point out that, as compared with the labour protective
legislation of England, the foremost industrial nation, German
legislation on the protection of intervals appears to be rather
cautious, as even in the _von Berlepsch_ Bill it merely secures regular
intervals for children within the 6 hours work, and for young persons
(from 14 to 16 years) an interval of half an hour at mid-day, besides
half an hour in the forenoon and afternoon, and for women workers an
interval of an hour at midday (Sec. 135_f_).
The English law requires simultaneous intervals for meals for all
protected persons working together in the same place of business; and
such intervals may not be spent in the work-rooms where work is
afterwards to be resumed.
The _von Berlepsch_ Bill (Sec. 136, 2) requires only the young workers to
leave the work-rooms for meals, and even this with reservation: "During
the intervals the young workers shall only be permitted to remain in the
work-rooms on condition that work is entirely suspended throughout the
interval, in that part of the business in which the young workers are
employed, or where it is found impracticable for them to remain in the
open air, or where other rooms cannot be procured without
disproportionate difficulty."
The lengthening of the mid-day interval for married women or heads of
households, to enable them to fulfil their domestic duties, is
recommended by the German Reichstag and provided for in the _von
Berlepsch_ Bill, in the fourth paragraph of Sec. 137, as follows: "Women
workers above the age of 16 years, having the care of a household, shall
be set free half an hour before the mid-day interval unless this
interval amounts to at least 11/2 hours. Married women and widows with
children shall be accounted as persons having the care of a household,
unless the contrary is certified in writing by the local police
magistrate, such certificate to be granted free of stamp and duty." This
measure indicates a fragmentary attempt from the outside to protect the
woman in her family vocation, and as such belongs to the question of
protection of married women. The opponents of the measure--and they are
many--make the objection that the result will be that women with
families will be unable to obtain employment. Whatever may be said for
or against the measure, there is no doubt that an interval of an hour
and a half at mid-day ought to be granted to every workwoman, to place
and keep her in a position in which she can discharge the duties of
preparing the family meals and looking after her children. Therefore the
injunction of a mid-day interval of 11/2 hours in all factory business in
which women over 16 years of age are employed would perhaps be a juster,
more effectual, and more expedient measure, and would not prejudice the
employment of women. But will it be possible to bring about the
international uniform extension of the present interval of two hours to
two hours and a half (inclusive of the forenoon and afternoon
intervals)? The problem is surrounded by undeniable practical
difficulties.
The Auer Motion (Sec. 106_a_, 2. cf. Sec. 130) demands the extension of
protection of intervals of work to all industries. Hitherto it has only
been extended to women and young workers, and only to such as are
employed in factory and quasi-factory business. We need not here go into
the question whether it can be proved to be to some extent necessary in
the more irksome and laborious trades and in household industry.
2. _Protection of night rest ("Prohibition of night work.")_
Night rest has long been subjected by force of custom and necessity to
very comprehensive measures of protection. Nevertheless it has become
more or less of a necessity, even for men, to supplement such protection
by extraordinary intervention of the State in factory and quasi-factory
industrial trades, in some cases also in handicraft business (_e.g._ in
bakeries, in public-house business, and in traffic and transport
business). The self-help of the workmen and the moral influence of the
civil and religious conscience are no longer a sufficient power of
protection.
The entire general prohibition of all industrial night work would go
beyond the limits of practical necessity, and the State would have no
means of enforcing such a general prohibition.
Exceptions to the prohibition of night work are unavoidable, even in
factory and quasi-factory business (cf. Chap. VII.).
The number of women and children employed in night work is not great. It
might, however, become greater through the introduction of electric
lighting in Germany. Protection of night rest for women and children is,
therefore, as practically necessary as ever.
The actual condition of Labour Protection in regard to night work, and
the efforts and tendencies to be discerned in reference to it at the
present time, are as follows. The resolutions of the Berlin Conference
demand the cessation of night work (and Sunday work) for children under
14, also for young persons, of 14 to 16 years and for women workers
under 21 years of age.
The _von Berlepsch_ Bill (Sec. 137_i_) altogether excludes night work for
women in factory (Sec. 154) and quasi-factory business.
Of course exceptions may be permitted by order of the Bundesrath
(Federal Council). The power of the Bundesrath to grant exceptions is
very general and unrestricted (Sec. 139_a_, 2). "The employment of women
over 16 years of age in night work in certain branches of manufacturing
industry in which such employment has hitherto been customary, shall be
permitted subject to certain conditions demanded by health and
morality."
The Auer Motion demands the exclusion of all women and young persons
from "regular" night work.
3. _Protection of holidays._
Protection of daily intervals secures the necessary intermission of work
during the day. Protection of night rest guarantees the necessary and
natural chief interval within every astronomical day. Protection of
holidays makes provision for the no less needed ordinary and
extraordinary intermission of work during entire days, Sundays, and
festivals.
Strictly speaking, protection of holidays has long existed. The Church
exercised a powerful influence in this respect over legislation and
popular custom. Labour protection only seeks to restore this protection
in its entirety (and as far as possible in its former extent--hence not
merely in factory and quasi-factory business) in the State of to-day,
which is practically severed from the controlling influence of the
Church. Holidays are a general necessity; not merely a necessity for
young persons, not merely in factory and quasi-factory industries, but
in all industries.
But England, the greater number of the North American States, Denmark,
Holland, Belgium, France and hitherto Germany (with its highly
unpractical article Sec. 105, 2, of the Imp. Ind. Code), grant protection
of Sunday rest only to their "protected persons," and only in factory
and quasi-factory business; but we must not here forget that there
exists also protection of opportunities for religious observances
extending over nearly the whole area of national industry, which is
enforced partly by law and partly by tradition.
Austria prohibits Sunday employment in _all_ industrial work.
An important extension and equalising of protection of holidays in
Europe is projected in the resolutions of the Berlin Conference. The
resolutions read as follows: "1. It is desirable, with provision for
certain necessary exceptions and delays in any State: (_a_) that one day
of rest weekly be ensured to protected persons; (_b_) that one day of
rest be ensured to all industrial workers; (_c_) that this day of rest
be fixed on the Sunday for all protected persons; (_d_) that this day of
rest be fixed on the Sunday for all industrial workers. 2. Exceptions
are permissible (_a_) in the case of any business which on technical
grounds requires that production shall be carried on without
intermission, or which supplies the public with such indispensable
necessaries of life as require to be produced daily; (_b_) in the case
of any business which from its nature can only be carried on at definite
seasons of the year, or which is dependent on the irregular activity of
elemental forces. It is desirable that even in such cases as are
enumerated in this category, every workman be granted one out of every
two Sundays free. 3. To the end that exceptions everywhere be dealt with
on the same general method, it is desirable that the determination of
such exceptions result from an understanding between the different
States."
The _von Berlepsch_ Bill ensures a very extensive measure of protection
of holidays by the following means: it extends the application of
provisions Sec. 105_a_ to 105_h_ in paragraph 1 of Chapter VII. of the Imp.
Ind. Code to all workshop labour, it strictly limits Sunday work in
trade and defines the permissible exceptions: moreover, it allows of
unlimited extension of this kind of protection to all industry by means
of an imperial rescript (Sec. 105_g_), and finally it foreshadows further
protective action in the sphere of common law (105_h_).
The Auer Motion contains a general extension and simplification of
protection of holidays (Sec. 107, 1): "Industrial work shall be forbidden
on Sundays and festivals" (with certain specified and strictly defined
exceptions).
Protection of holidays serves to four great ends: religious instruction,
physical and mental recreation, family life and social intercourse.
Protection of holidays has to take special measures to meet these four
special ends.
In the first place holidays must be general, for the whole population,
in order to allow of instruction in common, and general social
intercourse. For this reason even the most "free-thinking" friend of
holiday rest will be willing to grant it in the form of Sunday rest and
festival days, and will allow it to be so called; in France and Belgium
only, as appears from the reports of the Berlin Conference, do
difficulties lie in the way of allowing protection of holidays to take
the form of protection of Sundays and festival days.
The second end subserved by protection of holidays will be to ensure
that only the absolutely necessary amount of work shall be performed on
Sundays in those industries in which there is only a conditional
possibility of devoting the Sunday to recreation, family life, and
social intercourse, especially in carrying trades, employment in places
of amusement and in public houses, in professional business, personal
service, and the like, also in all labours which are socially
indispensable. We shall return to this question in Chapter VII.
(exceptions to protective legislation). The question now arises whether
the religious protection of holidays does not already indirectly serve
all the purposes of the necessary weekly rest for labour. This question
must be answered in the negative. It is true that this does effect
something which Labour Protection as such cannot effect, in that it
extends beyond the workers and enforces rest on the employers also and
their families. But it does not ensure to the workers themselves the
complete protection necessary, and it does not fulfil all the purposes
of protection of holidays.
The actual condition of affairs in Germany is as follows, according to
the "systematic survey of existing legal and police regulations of
employment on Sundays and festivals" (Imperial Act of 1885-6). In one
part of Germany the police protection of the Sunday rest is in effect
only protection of religious worship. In another group of districts, the
suspension during the entire Sunday of all noisy work carried on in
public places is enforced, but within industrial establishments noisy
work is not forbidden. A third group of rules lays down the principle
that Sundays and festivals shall be devoted not only to religious
worship and sacred gatherings, but also to rest from labour and
business.
The rules contained in this group apply especially to factory labour,
but in many cases also to handicraft and various kinds of trading
business, without regard to the question whether the work carried on in
such business is noisy or disturbing to the public, exceptions being
granted in certain defined cases. This third group of rules is in force
in the provinces of Posen, Silesia, Saxony, the Rhine Provinces,
Westphalia, the former Duchy of Nassau, and in the governmental district
of Stettin, but in all these only with respect to factory work; also in
the former Electorate of Hesse, the Bishopric of Fulda, the province of
Hesse-Homburg, and in the town of Cassel; in Saxony, Wurtemburg,
Mecklenburg Schwerin, Mecklenburg Strelitz, Saxe-Altenburg,
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Anhalt, Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, the old and the new
Duchy of Reuss and Alsace-Lorraine.
A supplementary statistical inquiry into the extent of Sunday work in
Prussia (not including districts whose official records could not be
consulted) shows that Sunday work is carried on:--
_In wholesale industries_: in 16 governmental districts, by 49.4%
of the works, and by 29.8% of the workers.
_In handicraft business_: in 15 governmental districts, by 47.1% of
the works, and by 41.8% of the workers.
_In trading and carrying industries_: in 29 governmental districts,
by 77.6% of the employers or companies, and by 57.8% of the
workers.
Hence there can be no doubt as to the necessity in Germany for
extraordinary State protection of the Sunday holiday, by means of
protective legislation, applying also to handicraft business and to a
part of trading and carrying industry.
About two-thirds of the employers and three-fourths of the workmen have
declared themselves for the practicability of the prohibition of Sunday
work, nearly all with the proviso that exceptions shall be permitted.
The duration of holiday rest practically can in most cases be fixed from
Saturday evening till early on Monday morning.
The _von Berlepsch_ Bill proposes to enforce legally only 24 hours; the
Auer Motion demands 36 hours, and when Sundays and festivals fall on
consecutive days, 60 hours.
The shortening of work hours on Saturday evening in factory industries
and in industries carried on in workshops of a like nature to factories
is a very necessary addition to Sunday rest; provision must also be made
to prevent the work from beginning too early on Monday morning if Sunday
protection is to attain its object. The shortening of work hours on
Saturday evening is especially necessary to women workers to enable them
to fulfil their household duties, and it is necessary to all workers to
enable them to make their purchases. England and Switzerland grant
protection of the Saturday evening holiday.
Legislation will not have completed its work of extending protection of
holidays, even when the limits have been widened to admit trading
business. Further special regulations must be made for the business of
transport and traffic. Switzerland has already set to work in this
direction. In Germany, in consequence of the nationalisation of all
important means of traffic, much can be done if the authorities are
willing, merely by way of administration.
We cannot lay too much stress on this question of the regulation and
preservation of holiday time by means both of legislative and
administrative action. For its actual enforcement it is true the
co-operation of the local police magistrates is necessary, but the
regulation of this protection ought not to be left in their hands. It
must be carried on in a uniform system and with the sanction of the
higher administrative bodies. We shall return to this question also in
Chapter VII.
CHAPTER VI.
ENACTMENTS PROHIBITING CERTAIN KINDS OF WORK.
Besides the mere protective limitations of working time and of the
intervals of work, we have also the actual prohibition of certain kinds
of work. Freedom in the pursuit of work being the right of all, and work
being a moral and social necessity to the whole population, prohibition
of work must evidently be restricted to certain extreme cases.
Such prohibition is however indispensable, for there are certain ways of
employing labour which involve actual injury to the whole working force
of the nation, and actual neglect of the cares necessary to the rearing
and bringing up of its citizens, and there are certain kinds of
necessary social tasks, other than industrial, the performance of which,
in the special circumstances of industrial employment, require to be
watched over and ensured by special means in a manner which would be
wholly unnecessary among other sections of the community. And thus we
find a series of prohibitions of work, partly in force already, and
partly in course of development.
1. _Prohibition of child-labour._
This is prohibition of the employment of children under 12 years of age
(13 in the south), of children under 10 years of age, in factory work
(see Book I.). Prohibition of child-labour must not be confused with
restriction of child-labour (see Book I.), viz. restriction of the
labour of children of 12 to 14 years of age, in the south of 10 to 12
years of age. It does not involve prohibition of _all_ employment of
children under 12 years of age, such as help in the household or in the
fields.
The prohibition of child-labour within certain limits is necessary in
the interests of the whole nation, for the physical and intellectual
preservation of the rising generation, hence it is to the interest also
of the employers of industrial labour themselves.
Special Labour Protection with regard to child-labour is indeed
necessary. Ordinary administrative and judicial protection evidently are
insufficient to ensure complete security to childhood. Equally
insufficient are any of the existing not governmental agencies, such as
family protection; the child of half-civilised factory hands and
impoverished workers in household industries needs protection against
his own parents, whose moral sense is often completely blunted.
Prohibition of child-labour in factory and quasi-factory industries
rests on very good grounds. It is not impossible, not even very
improbable, that prohibition of child-labour may sooner or later be
extended to household industry; the abuse of child-labour is even more
possible here than in factory work; the possibility is by no means
excluded by enforcement of school attendance. But all family industry is
not counted as household industry. The extension of Labour Protection
in general, and of prohibition of child-labour in particular, to
household industry, raises difficulties of a very serious kind when it
comes to a question of how it is to be enforced.
In the main, prohibition of child-labour will have to be made binding by
legislation. In its eventual extension to household industry, the
Government will however have to be allowed facilities for gradually
extending its methods of administration.
The task of superintending the enforcement of prohibition will in the
main be assigned to the Industrial Inspectorate. The oldest hands in any
business, the "Labour Chambers," and voluntary labour-unions, will
moreover be able to lend effectual assistance to the industrial
inspector or to a general labour-board. The factory list of young
workers may be used as an instrument of administration.
In Germany childhood is protected until the age of 12 years. The
extension of prohibition of child-labour to the age of 14 years in
factory and quasi-factory business, is, however, in Germany probably
only a question of time. The Auer Motion in regard to this represents
the views of many others besides the Social Democrats. Switzerland, as I
have shown, has already conceded this demand, claimed on grounds of
national health. The impending Imp. Ind. Code Amendment Bill places the
limit at 13.
An internationally uniform advance towards this end by the equalisation
of laws affecting the age of compulsory school attendance, would
certainly be desirable.
The widest measure of protection of children is contained in the
Austrian legislation, which decrees in the Act of 1885, that until the
age of 12 years children shall be excluded from all regular industrial
work, and until the age of 14 years, from factory work: "Before the
completion of the 14th year, no children shall be employed for regular
industrial work in industrial undertakings of the nature of factory
business; young wage-workers between the completion of the 14th and the
completion of the 16th year shall only be employed in light work, such
as shall not be injurious to the health of such workers, and shall not
prevent their physical development."
The resolutions of the Berlin Conference recommended the prohibition of
employment in factories of children below the age of compulsory school
attendance.
Resolution III. 4 requires: "That children shall previously have
satisfied the requirements of the regulations on elementary education."
Exclusion of child-labour extends beyond the general inferior limit of
age, in individual cases where the employment of children is made
conditional on evidence of their health, as in England. And here the
medical certificate of health comes in as a special instrument of
administration in Labour Protection.
In certain kinds of business, prohibition of child-labour extends beyond
the general inferior limit of age. England has led the way in such
prohibition, excluding by law the employment of children below the age
of 11 years in the workrooms of certain branches of industry, _e.g._
wherever the polishing of metal is carried on; of children below the
age of 14 years, in places where dipping of matches and dry polishing of
metal is carried on; of girls below the age of 16 years, in brick and
tile-kilns, and salt works (salt-pits, etc.); of children below the age
of 14 years, and girls below the age of 18 years, in the melting and
cooling rooms in glass factories; of persons below the age of 18 years
in places where mirrors are coated with quicksilver, or where white-lead
is used.
2. _Prohibition of employment in occupations dangerous to health and
morality._
Such prohibition seems necessary in all industrial trades. It is however
difficult to enforce it so generally, and hitherto this has not been
accomplished.
The Imperial Industrial Code in the _von Berlepsch_ Bill (cf.
resolutions of the Berlin Conference, Chap. IV. 4, and V. 4) admits an
absolute prohibition of all female and juvenile labour, under sanction
of the local authorities (Sec. 139_a_ 1.): "The _Bundesrath_ shall be
empowered to entirely prohibit or to allow only under certain
conditions, the employment of women and young workers in certain
branches of factory work, in which special dangers to health and to
morality are involved." The same Bill (Sec. 154, 2, 3, 4) extends such
prohibition over the greater part of the sphere of quasi-factory
business.
The last aim of protection of health--the exclusion of such injurious
methods of working as may be replaced by non-injurious methods in all
industrial work, and for male workers as well as for women and
children--must be attained by progressive extension of that
administrative protection to which the _von Berlepsch_ Bill opens the
way for quasi-factory labour (Sec. 154). It would be difficult to carry out
in any other way the Auer Motion, for the "prohibition of all injurious
methods of working, wherever non-injurious methods are possible."
The general principle of prohibition might be laid down by law, and the
enforcement of such prohibition, by order of a Supreme Central Bureau of
Labour Protection, might be left to the control of popular
representative bodies and to public opinion. Special legal prohibition,
with regard to certain defined industries and methods of work injurious
to health, would not be superfluous in addition to general prohibition;
such special prohibition is already in force to a greater or less
degree.
The success of the prohibition in question depends on the good
organisation of Labour Protection in matters of technique and health; on
the efficiency of local government organs, as well as of the Imperial
Central Bureau, and on the impulse given by the more important
representative organs of the labouring classes. All these organs need
perfecting. Special prohibition needs the assistance of police
trade-regulations in regard to instruments and materials dangerous to
health.
The work that has already been done in the way of protection of morality
by prohibition is not to be under-valued, although much still remains to
be done. No sufficient steps have as yet been taken to meet that very
hateful and insidious evil so deeply harmful to the preservation of
national morality, viz. the public sale and advertisement of
preventives in sexual intercourse, such as unfortunately so frequently
appear in the advertising columns of newspapers, and in shop windows.
This is not merely a question of protecting the morality of those
engaged in the production and sale of such articles, but also of
protecting the morality of the whole nation, maintaining its virile
strength, and to some degree also preserving it from the dangers to the
growth of population, incidental to an advanced civilisation. The powers
at present vested in the police and magistrates to deal with offences
against morals would probably be sufficient to stamp out this moral
canker that is eating its way even into Labour Protection, without the
scandal of legislation. But it is not by ignoring it that this can be
accomplished.
The intervention of the State as regards Labour Protection in such
factory and quasi-factory work as is dangerous to health and decency, is
doubtless justified in its extension to household industry and trading
industry of the same kind; for neither is the moral character of the
generality of employers and heads of commercial undertakings
sufficiently perfect, nor are the discretion and self-protection of the
workers sufficiently strong and widespread to render State protection
unnecessary and voluntary protection sufficient.
3. _Prohibition of factory work for married women, or at least mothers
of families._
This is a specially useful measure of protection. Modern industrial work
has done a great injury to the family vocation of the woman, and thereby
to family life; non-governmental agencies of Labour Protection, in its
widest sense, have not been able to prevent this evil.
But the exclusion of wives and mothers from all industrial work, or from
earning money in any kind of domestic occupation, would be far too
extreme a measure. Certain industrial work has always fallen to the
share of the female sex, and the absolute prohibition of female
employment in any kind of industrial work would render large numbers of
persons destitute, especially in the towns, and would thereby expose
them to moral dangers and temptation.
The organs and instruments of administration for the protection of
married women in factory and quasi-factory work, would be the same as
for all other branches of protection of employment of women and young
workers.
Prohibition of factory work for married women is advocated in the most
decisive manner by _Jules Simon_, _von Ketteler_, and _Hitze_. Even the
chief objection to such protection--the danger of the diminution of
worker's earnings, tempting them to seek immoral means of livelihood--is
combated in the most remarkable and convincing manner by Hitze. This
worthy Catholic writer meets the consideration of the loss of the
factory earnings of women, with the counter-considerations of the
depression of wage caused by the competition of female labour, and of
the waste of money at public houses and on luxuries that takes place in
such families as are left without a housewife or mother. We must be
ready to make great sacrifices in the attainment of so great an object,
for no less important a matter is at stake than the restoration of the
family life of the whole body of factory labourers.
Only we must be under no delusion as to the difficulties of the
immediate and complete enforcement of the prohibition. The adaptation of
motor-machinery to use in the house, enabling the wage-earner to remain
at home, might perhaps render it practically possible to carry out the
prohibition in question.
It would also be necessary that the measures taken should be
internationally uniform, so that separate national branches of industry
might not suffer. A practical solution of the problem can only be
arrived at after a careful collection of international statistics as to
the married women and mothers employed in factory and quasi-factory
work. Here especially, if in any department of Labour Protection, does
the State require the support of the influence of the Churches, and of
the organised, simultaneous, international agitation of the Churches in
furtherance of this object. Whoever reads the above-mentioned
writings--_Hitze's_ pamphlet gives extracts from the powerful writings
of Jules Simon and von Ketteler--will derive therefrom some hope of the
final success of Labour Protection in one of its most important future
tasks. In the present situation of affairs I know of nothing which can
shake the validity of _Hitze's_ conclusions.
In the meantime, restriction of employment of all female factory labour
to 10 hours, as proposed by the commission appointed by the German
Reichstag (see below), must be welcomed as an important step in
advance. _Hitze_ remarks: "The first condition of all social reform is
the establishment of family life on a sound and secure basis. But how is
this possible, so long as thousands of married women are working daily
in factories for 11 and 12 hours, and are absent from their homes for
still longer? Can domestic happiness and contentment flourish under such
circumstances? And is the danger any less because concentrated in
defined districts? For example, in the inspectoral district of Bautzen,
in 1884, nearly 5,000 women were drawn away from their family life by
factory work. No extended mid-day interval is granted to married women,
so far as information on this point is to be obtained. Is it merely
accidental that wherever employment of children is customary, there also
the work of the mothers is more frequent? And must not the man's
earnings be lessened if the wife and child are allowed to compete with
him? And is it merely accidental that Saxony, which is precisely the
place where female and child labour is most largely employed, should
also be the special haunt and stronghold of Social Democracy? Have we
any right to reproach the Social Democrats with causing the destruction
of family life, if we show ourselves indifferent to the actual loosening
of family ties through the regular and excessive work in factories of
housewives and mothers? Ought we to delay any longer in appealing to
legislation, when the dangers are so pressing? What will become of the
youth and future of our people if such conditions become normal? And in
fact, unless legislation interferes, the number of factory women and of
factory children will increase, not decrease. What a prospect!"
Separation of the sexes in the workrooms wherever possible, special
rooms for meals and dressing, and provision for education in
housewifery, are measures which are all the more urgent, if we grant the
impossibility of altogether excluding women from factory work. This
further protection is above all necessary for girls.
4. _Prohibition of the employment of women during the period immediately
succeeding child-birth._
Whilst prohibition of factory work for wives and mothers is of the first
importance for the protection of family life, exemption from work during
the period immediately succeeding child-birth of all women engaged in
factory and quasi-factory employments, is a measure that is necessary
for the health of the mother and the nurture of the newly-born.
The exclusion of pregnant women from certain occupations is another
important question; the Confederate Factory Act leaves this in the power
of the _Bundesrath_.
Prohibition of the employment of nursing mothers in factories is a
measure that has long received recognition in some countries, and lately
it has become general.
The resolutions of the Berlin Conference demand that the protection
should cover a period of 4 weeks; Switzerland already grants protection
for 8 weeks, a period which is recommended in Germany by the Auer
Motion; the _von Berlepsch_ Bill proposes 4 weeks (instead of 3 weeks as
hitherto appointed by the Imp. Ind. Code); the Reichstag Commission
proposed 6 weeks, and this will probably be the period adopted.
If it were necessary to enforce exemption from work after childbirth for
_all_ women engaged in industrial wage-labour, even this would scarcely
be found to be attended with insuperable difficulties.
The Auer Motion on this point receives no notice in the _von Berlepsch_
Bill.
It would be preferable in itself for such exemption to become general
even for factory women, without special protective intervention from the
State. But under the existing moral and social conditions legal
prohibition of employment can hardly be dispensed with.
The measure may be carried out by the help of the official birth-list,
or of a special factory list of nursing mothers. The industrial
inspector will not be able to do without the help of the workers
themselves.
The economic difficulties of the question are partly met in Germany by
the existing agency of Insurance against sickness for all factory
workers, which grants assistance during the period of lying-in, as
during sickness. The means of help provided by the family and the club
have to supply the additional assistance necessary for the nursing
period.
The granting of state assistance to women during the lying-in period,
without which exemption from work would be a questionable benefit, is
vigorously opposed by some on grounds of morality as likely to promote
the increase of illegitimate births, and by others from the point of
view of the population question.
The question was brought before the German Reichstag, on the
representation of Saxony, in 1886. Petitions from twenty-one district
sick clubs in the chief district of Zwickau demanded the withdrawal of
the legal three weeks assistance of unmarried women after childbirth, on
the ground that this was calculated to promote an increase in the number
of illegitimate births. The petitions were accompanied by statistics of
each club showing that the funds were actually called in to assist more
unmarried than married women. No information however was given as to the
proportion between married and unmarried women members of the club, an
omission which rendered the statistics worthless. Moreover the
conditions existing in Zwickau are hardly typical of German industry as
a whole.
A general collection and examination of statistics of sick funds must be
made, and possibly the necessary information may be obtained by
comparison of the numbers of births during the periods before and since
the introduction of Insurance against sickness, and especially in such
districts as had no free clubs, before the introduction of Insurance,
for the assistance of women after child-birth.
Probably it will be found that the increase in the number of
illegitimate births is not due to the assistance granted after
child-birth by the official sick fund, if we take into consideration
that in the district mentioned the assistance granted during the three
weeks only amounted to from 7 to 12 marks, generally to less than 10
marks. "If," says _Hitze_, "the meagre sum of the assistance granted
could lead to an increase of illegitimate births, this fact would be
more shocking than the number itself." I take it that the root of the
evil lies, not in the lying-in-fund, but in the destruction of family
life and sexual morality by the employment of women in factories.
5. _Prohibition of employment of women and children in work
underground._
This prohibition is claimed in the interests of family life, of
morality, and of the care of the weaker portion of the working class.
The enforcement of this prohibition comes within the province of the
police in the mining districts, and of the industrial inspectorate.
But it is probably best that it should be legally formulated.
The extension of the prohibition to all women is recommended generally
in the resolutions of the Berlin Conference, and the work has already
been commenced in the _von Berlepsch_ Bill.
The enforcement of the measure will meet with some difficulties in the
mines of Upper Silesia, but it will also remedy serious evils.
The force of public opinion is insufficient to prevent the employment of
women in work underground. The very necessary demand for prohibition of
employment of women in work on high buildings, follows on the
prohibition of their employment underground. Such employment is almost
completely excluded by custom.