Note 173-6 — Chapter III

Norfolk country workmen never worked more than 10 hours a day except in harvest and seed time. But a plowman there accomplished as much in 5 days as another in 8. (Marshall, Rural Economy of N., 138.) In southwestern Germany, the country working day is from 2 to 4 hours shorter than in the northeast, and yet just as much is accomplished in the former quarter. (von der Goltz, Ländl. Arbeiterfrage, 88, 131.) Thus the coal diggers of South Wales work 12 hours a day, those of Northumberland, 7; and yet the same achievement is 25 per cent. dearer in case of the former. In the construction of the Paris-Rouen Railroad, the English achieved more than the French, although the former worked from 6 A. M. to 5:30 P. M., and the latter from 5 A. M. to 7 P. M. (Brassey, 144 ff.) Examples from English manufactories in Marx, Kapital, I, 401 seq. In an English factory the hours worked were 12, and afterwards, 11. This caused the number of attendants of the evening school to grow from 27 to 98. (Horner.) Dollfuss, in Mühlhausen, reduced the number of hours worked from 12 to 11, and let the wages remain the same as before. The result was besides a great saving made in fuel and light, a surplus product of at least 1-2/3 per cent. Something similar observed by M. Chevalier, Cours, I, 151.

Hence J. Möser, Patr. Ph., III, 40, desired, on this account, that work in the evening should be prohibited by law. In England, not only the moral necessity, but also the economic general utility of leisure time of workmen has been defended, among others by Postlethwayt, Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, I, prelim. Discourse, 1751. A beautiful law, V Moses 24, 15. Only, care must be taken not to go to the other extreme, which is still more detrimental to personality. The North American ideal of 8 hours a day for work, 8 for eating, sleeping, etc., and 8 for leisure, would be injurious except to workmen intellectually very active. But the provision to be met with in many states of the Union and in the arsenal employ of the government, that in case of doubt, the work day is to be tacitly assumed as of 8 hours, has, it is said, correspondingly lowered wages. See supra, § 168.