SILK DRESSES AND EIGHT HOURS' WORK. 245 

 SILK DRESSES AND EIGHT HOURS' WORK. 



By J. B. MANN. 



THE remark occurs in a recent editorial article in a prominent 

 religious newspaper commending the eight-liour movement 

 that if all the women who want silk dresses could have work, all 

 the silk factories in the country could be set in motion and would 

 furnish employment to the many thousands of people then idle ; 

 or words of that import. The proposition at first sight seems 

 philosophical, but is it not reasoning in a circle ? Having work, 

 people will buy silks. If they buy silks, the factories will run. ^ If 

 the factories run, the people will have work. The old lady said : 

 " This snow will never melt until the weather is warmer, and the 

 weather can never be warmer until the snow has melted." Mak- 

 ing the statement does not solve the problem. 



When we look at the matter with care we find, sorrowfully, 

 that the women who have no silks are the very ones who do the 

 hardest work ; and hence, as they are working clear up to the limit 

 of human endurance to get bread, they have no time left over to 

 put into silk dresses. This fact upsets the theory. Horace Greeley 

 had a theory that poverty in cities could be cured by getting the 

 poor to go West and engage in farming ; entirely overlooking the 

 fact that the next sixpence the poor man could get, and the next, 

 and so on, must go for bread, thus putting a trip to the West out 

 of the question. 



But the imagining of philosophers in regard to the remedies is 

 of small account, because want of work is not in this country one 

 of the leading causes of poverty, as every careful observer knows. 

 There are at least a dozen things which are more potent causes of 

 the evil, and too much work, by which constitutions are broken 

 and health ruined, is one of them. Is the remedy, therefore, not 

 to be found in the eight-hour movement ? I answer, No. The 

 eight-hour movement does not approach the root of the evil. It is 

 assumed by the promoters of the movement that society has a 

 given amount of wants which require a given amount of labor to 

 supply, and hence it is inferred that if all the workers cut down 

 their hours from twelve to eight, the men now out of employment 

 will come up and do the work the others have relinquished. In 

 that way it is claimed that there Tvill be work for all. Another 

 theory is that men will accomplish as much in the long run in 

 eight hours as they now do in twelve. It is evident on the face 

 of it that both theories are not true, because if as much should be 

 done by the present workers after the change as before, no more 

 would be left for the others to do than they have now. And in 

 that case the present workers would come much nearer to ex- 



