SILK DRESSES AND EIGHT HOURS' WORK. 249 



They keep on at this rate ten years, and James has laid by two 

 thousand dollars, and John nothing. Now, the two thousand of 

 James earns ten dollars a month for him, and is better than a 

 good apprentice, because he pays the fund no wages and it costs 

 nothing for board. The reason why they are "now so wide apart 

 is that the extra hours of James have yielded fifteen hundred 

 dollars principal in the ten years, and five hundred dollars in in- 

 terest. John has nothing, because the expense of living of each 

 and support of the families has amounted to four hundred and 

 fifty dollars a year for each. In ten years more James will have 

 interest-money sufficient to meet the family expense of four hun- 

 dred and fifty dollars, and John will be with his nose still on the 

 grindstone. A company of ten such men would lose in ten years 

 twenty thousand dollars, and society would never make it up to 

 them. Society would not pay for one hundred pairs of shoes 

 when only seventy-five pairs were furnished, and the idea that it 

 would is a delusion. Many workingmen have gained in the last 

 half century, and the general condition has improved a great 

 deal, but no part of the money gain has been due to less hours of 

 labor. The people have grown rich during that time because 

 they have availed themselves of the increased means of production 

 which have been developed, and not because production has been 

 lessened by the laborer refusing to work the former number of 

 hours. Our riches are made up entirely of things produced, and 

 when we say we are richer, we mean that we have more things 

 which are the product of applied force. The increase of wealth, 

 as was stated before, has increased the disposition to build more 

 expensive houses and buy more elaborate furniture, and have an 

 endless variety of things deemed needless a few years ago, caus- 

 ing a demand for labor and an increase of wages that in a meas- 

 ure counterbalances the loss of time. This is what has helped 

 labor, and not the refusal to work more than ten hours. Had the 

 other two hours a day been worked, the laborer would have been 

 still richer by one sixth of the principal and all the interest on his 

 extra earnings during the whole time that the ten-hour rule has 

 prevailed. The workman, then, has simply exchanged the wealth 

 he might have got in the extra two hours for leisure of two hours ; 

 a very proper thing to do if he can afford it, but he hasn't had the 

 leisure and the money he might have earned in the lost time also. 

 The community is also the poorer to the same extent. It 

 misses just the amount of wealth that the laborer has failed to 

 produce in his idle hours. It finds on its hands a large body of 

 men advanced in years who might now be comfortable, but are 

 still struggling to meet the cost of increase in the style of living 

 consequent on the increase of wealth, when they are more than 

 one sixth short in possible resources. 



VOL. XL.- 20 



