There is a good deal of ambiguity in labor statistics in regard to output with reduction of labor hours. It does not seem to be a rational proposition that the output must be the same with the 8-hour day as with the 9-hour day, even with commercial logic, to justify the 8-hour day. If an industry never has worked more than a 9-hour day the proposition may be justified in demanding that the 8-hour day do not fall short in output, especially when more improved machinery is used. We also assume that the limit of personal energy might not have been reached in the 9-hour workday. But if the day has been successively reduced anyway from 13 to 8 hours, it were folly to expect the output to be the same. A new logical and rational basis of computation for labor hours and output has to be established. An example from the Bureau of Statistics of New Jersey, 1905:

THE EIGHT-HOUR MOVEMENT.

A large shoe-manufacturing firm, located in Boston, Mass., where it employs nearly 3,000 people in its factories. The working hours in this establishment had been up to July 1, 1898, 59 hours per week. A change was made to 534 hours per week; no change was made in daily wages, and the result was a reduction in the labor cost of 1 per cent, and at the same time, the product per employe increased 2 per cent. In July, 1901, the 48-hour week was adopted with no change in daily wages. This resulted in an increase of 3 per cent in cost owing to a reduction of 8 per cent in the volume of product per employee. The 48-hour week was abandoned. The rational inference seems to be that as there was no loss but a gain in the first instance, it clearly is not a question of reducing to the 8-hour day, but from that length of a day to the 8-hour day. A loss in output with the 8-hour work day does not affect the prosperity of the country and its industries, but the private profit of the manufacturer, always disproportionately large, and altogether so with a workday longer than the 8-hour day.

W. A. Darbishire, slate-quarry owner in Wales: As much can be done in 8 hours as in 10. Product sometimes increased.

E. A. Young, Lord Penryn's agent in his quarries, has the same experience.

Shipwrights at Portsmouth and on the Clyde turn out as much work in winter in 48 hours as during summer in 52 or 53 hours.

Mr. Green, secretary of the National Union of Boot Clickers, states that the clickers in the Jewish shops, which are open only 5 days a week, do as much in their week of 48 hours as the Christian clickers do in their week of 54 hours.

In mining 8 hours or less was the old English standard for the working day, and more than a third of the collieries of England have returned to that standard.

South Yorkshire mines: Hours were reduced to 8 in 1858. Mr. J. Normansell, secretary of the South Yorkshire Miners' Association, stated in 1866 that more was got in that district in 8 hours than in many other districts in 12 and 14 hours.

The secretary of the Coal Masters' Association of South Yorkshire, in 1860, gave the same account.

Sir George Elliott, M. P., found the cost of getting coal at Aberdeen 25 per cent higher than in North Cumberland, although in

South Wales the workday was 12 hours and only 7 in North Cumberland.

A. Macdonald, M. P., miners' agent, told coal commission that no miner could work more than 8 hours a day.

Eight hours from bank to bank is the colliers' general ideal. Durham hewers had their hours reduced in 1872 to 7 and seem in 5 hours to do the same day's work they did before 1872 in 6 hours. J. W. Pease says, in regard to his own colleries, that the reduction of hours made no material difference in the output.

Coal owners seem to make no objection to the 8-hour day for underground labor; their difficulties all lie with the winding.

J. Connell, representing the Fife coal owners, admits that the Fife miners do as much work now under their 8-hour system as they did before under a 10-hour one.

G. B. Foster says that when labor hours were reduced by 2 hours in mining labors in North Cumberland in 1872. it made no odds in the output.

In a Monmouth mine the 8-hour system was given up only because of difficulty in keeping the wads open. The same applies to the midlands.

President of the Corporation of Miners in Germany: Miners attain their maximum productivity with 8 hours of effective work. With temporary prolongations the product is augmented to some extent for the first three or four weeks only.

Dr. Oldenberg, in his article on the "Westphalian miners' movement," says that it has been proved by important experiments in tunneling and mining labor that an 8-hour shift was more profitable than either a 12-hour or 6-hour one.

Cleveland iron mines send out more stone in an 8-hour day than formerly in 12 hours. Machines are used only in 5 mines out of 23, and the increase has occurred whether machines are used or not.

S. H. Johnson & Co., engineering works, Stratford, London, reduced hours from 54 to 48 a week, paying the same wages, and get more work now than they got before.

William Allan & Co., of Sunderland: Their experiment was in nature and results precisely analogous. Reduction of hours from

53 to 48.

Short Bros., shipbuilders, Sunderland, stated after 8 weeks' trial of the 8-hour day that they have every reason to believe that their production will be more than before.

James Keith, engineering firm, has found his men doing as much work after reduction to 8 hours as before.

Report of the English Government cartridge factory at Woolwick Arsenal claims that more work has been done after reduction to 8 hours a day than before.

Campbell Bannerman announced in Parliament the intention of the War Department to adopt the 8-hour system in all public ordnance factories.

Kynoch & Co., ammunition manufacturers, Birmingham, made reduction of hours from 54 to 48 a week without reduction in output. In 1868 the 8-hour day was introduced by law into all Government works in the United States in answer to a party purpose before an election. Immediately the wages of the men were reduced correspondingly.

The New York Tribune quotes that in the milling department pieceworkers under the 10-hour system made $2.60 per day; under the 8-hour system $2.88 per day.

In the water shops 23 pieceworkers earned under the 10-hour system $3.12 per day and $3.13 in 8 hours and increase of output in filing department.

L. & J. J. White, hardware manufacturers, Buffalo, ran their works 10 hours a day from 1842 to 1870 and 8 hours a day from 1875 to 1879, and found very little apparent difference in the amount of product.

Weed & Becker, cutlery firm, New York, state that though their nominal day of labor is 10 hours, they never actually run more than 8 hours because the work is exhausting. The product is the same.

D. Rylands, glass-blowing trade, introduced 8-hour system in 1887, but since gave it up for the following reasons: The man made as many bottles in 7 hours as before in 9 hours. The furnaces are not large enough to give a sufficient quantity of glass for the men working at that tremendous rate.

M. Heye, near Dusseldorf, reduced the hours of his workers from 10 and 11 to 8 hours and got as much of product from them after the reduction as before it.

All the chemical works on Tyneside except one have adopted the 8-hour shifts.

Mr. T. Steel, labor commission witness, made the statement when the 8-hour system was adopted, about the same product was obtained as under the 12-hour system, though in some cases assisted by improved machinery.

Gaskell, Deacon & Co., Widnes, have also substituted 8-hour for 12-hour shifts in their works and the wages earned are very little less and the men enjoy better health and comfort.

Brunner, Mond & Co., manufacturers of alkali and soda, Northwich, made the same change four years ago. Though they at first reduced the wages of their men, they have since raised them to the old rate. Hours were reduced from 12 to 8.

Mining experts in Germany have calculated that in mining three 8-hour shifts make effective use of 94 or 97 per cent of the 24 hours, while two 12-hour shifts make effective use of no more than 83 and sometimes no more than 67 per cent. A gain of 30 per cent on the day's production might be worth more to the employers than the wages of even 50 per cent more hands, because of the extra shift. With the above company the change did not involve an addition of 50 per cent to their staff, but only 12 per cent. They employed nine men for every eight they had employed before. A reduction of 28 hours from 84 to 56 per week made no measureable difference in output.

Sir Charles Tennant & Co. (now the St. Rollox Alkali Co.) have been working on the three 8-hour-shift system for the last 25 years in the vitriol department of their works on the Tyne and for a shorter period in the same department of their works in Glasgow with complete satisfaction and decided to extend the system to all other departments. The wages of all classes have, however, been reduced by about 10 per cent in the meanwhile.

Burroughs, Wellcome & Co., manufacturing chemists, London, worked on the 9-hour single-shift system. They introduced the

8-hour day, and say that the amount of work produced is very nearly the same if not quite as great as before, though none of their hands are paid by the piece, and that cost of production has not materially increased,

Caston & Co., type founders, London, reduced hours in 1890 with similar results.

Mark, Beaufay, M. P., jam and vinegar manufacturer, London, adopted 8-hour day in 1889. After one year of this system, he says:

We did more business in this year than almost any year I can remember. The wages were not paid by the piece.

Lord Brassey states in regard to masons' work during the construction of the Trent Valley line of railway, and particularly the station at Atherstone, two shifts of men were employed in the building, each of them working 8 hours a day. Each shift did more work than other men employed 10 hours a day.

Herr Friese, windowblind maker at Hamburg and Berlin, tried the 8-hour day in his Berlin factory with such satisfactory results that he adopted it as a permanent arrangement in 1892. The majority of the hands earned better wages in 8-hour work than in 9.

Cabinetmaking works in New York adopted the 8-hour system in 1885, with no reduction in output.

The proportion of 8-hour establishments in the United States to the total number of establishments is exactly the same now as half a century ago and includes a diversity of trades.

In Massachusetts there is only one trade in which 8 hours is the general rule-artificial tooth making.

The 8-hour day is adopted in 5 out of 31 establishments for the manufacture of arms and ammunition; in 17 out of 255 shipbuilding yards; in 35 out of 547 printing and bookbinding firms; in 36 out of 217 tobacco factories; 28 out of 2,582 metal works; in 30 out of 2,257 boot and shoe factories; in 10 out of 3,334 building firms; in 3 out of 1,000 carriage works, and so on in 32 different branches of industry. It is to be presumed that in the face of overwhelming competition there is no loss of output.

Green, M'Allen, and Feilden, printers and engravers, London, say they tried the 8-hour system for seven months and found it financially a failure. The test seems not to have been fair, as overtime was worked.

Thomas Bushill & Sons, printers and bookbinders, Coventry, reduced hours from 54 to 50 without diminution in output. He states that there is a greater disinclination to overtime work on the part of employers than before.

The Missouri Labor Bureau reports that the 8-hour day was introduced among book printers in that State, without causing any diminution in daily output.

In Manchester the lithographic printers had their workday of 9 hours reduced to 64 hours, and the labor commission was informed that there was very little difference in the output.

Mr. Thorne, secretary of the gasworkers union, states that the 8-hour shift is now the most common rate in the provinces even before 1886. The average wages were only few pence a week lower in the 8-hour work than in the 12-hour ones. Since the establishment of the gasworkers' union, the 8-hour system has been adopted

in a number of provincial towns and also in London. The London gas companies have not had the same results out of the shorter day, but the reduction of work has been in no case nearly proportional to the reduction of hours. Other cases now disappearing have contributed to a partial failure of the experiment. The gasworkers of Sheffield have compressed nearly as much work into 56 hours a weer as they used to do in 84 hours a week.

FINAL REPORT OF THE INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION, 1902.

THE 8-HOUR DAY.

A representative of the building trades testified that the workers do more proportionately in 8 hours than they did formerly in 9. Through invention and the introduction of machinery, buildings are now put up as cheaply as they were in 1872 and 1873 when the hours were 10 per day.

A representative of the Chicago Bridge and Structural Iron Workers' Union states that the 8-hour day has so increased the efficiency of the laborer that there is actually more work done in 8 hours than was formerly done in 10 a day.

A boiler manufacturer testifies that he does not think the men do as much in 8 hours as they did in 9 hours, taking 1 day as the basis of comparison, but that at the end of year he believes he would find that they had done just as much as with the longer hours. One condition necessary is the careful selection of men and fair treatment.

A manufacturer of mining machinery states that it is to the interest of the manufacturer to employ his men only 8 hours, since he gets better service out of them.

Three 8-hour shifts were introduced in the sheet steel mills in 1889 in place of two 10-hour shifts with advantage.

The 8-hour day was adopted 1896 in the bituminous coal mining industry of Utah; in 1897 in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. A number of coal operators work upon that basis in Colorado, although the 8-hour law was declared unconstitutional. It is generally agreed that the miner does as much work in 8 hours as in 10.

This is not quite the state in the case of the furnacemen in the smelters of Utah and Colorado. The discrepancy is due to the fact that they can only take so much material an hour and the furnacemen can do no more work on that account.

One witness states that under the Utah law there is very little difference in the amount of work accomplished by common labor.

In some of the metal mines of Utah and Colorado three shifts, 8-hour each, have been introduced instead of two shifts of 10 hours. The mines produce more not only because the men do as much in 8 hours as in 10, but because the mines are not forced to lie idle 4 hours out of each day.

An operator in the Massillon district in Ohio states that where a mine is prepared to take care of the coal, a miner can produce as much in the 8-hour as he could in the 8 or 9 hour workday. Coal haulage has never been as prompt as it should be.