258 LAND AND LABOR. 



menced at the foundation of society widens and rises 

 until all classes are involved, and the condition is 

 reached under which we are suffering. 



Therefore we are compelled, first, to ascertain how 

 this competition at the foundation of society, among 

 the workers and laborers, from the street scavenger 

 upwards, may be removed. This reduces the matter 

 to a very simple proposition, easily understood, and a 

 result readily effected. Where there is but a single 

 loaf, with two struggling for it, and equally necessi- 

 tous, the struggle may be at once ended, and both 

 quieted, by a division of it between them. Especially 

 so when the divided loaf would give each an abun- 

 dance. So with the labor loaf; there is abundance 

 for all. Divide it ; it will satisfy all. 



The means for this division are as simple as the 

 proposition itself. Those who labor now do so for 

 from ten to twelve hours a day throughout the coun- 

 try. There are, certainly, cases and classes where the 

 time of labor is as much as fifteen and even eighteen 

 hours a day ; and others that go as low as eight or six 

 hours. But the mean is not far from eleven hours. 

 An equal division of this time would be five and one 

 half hours a day. But the great manufacturers of 

 Massachusetts, through their Bureau of Statistics of 

 Labor, propose a reduction of the hours of labor to 

 six, provided it is a national movement. Following 

 are three of the propositions, all from the great textile 

 interest. See Tenth Annual Keport, for 1879. 



( e ) " You can say we shall not work certain persons more 

 than so many hours per day or week, but if we can dispose of 

 our goods at a profit, and of all we can make, nothing can 



