262 LAND AND LABOR. 



( e ) " Taking the interest as a whole in the United States, it 

 would appear that if a general law could be made to extend to 

 all the States, affecting all alike, reducing the hours of daily 

 labor, such general interests would, in our opinion, thereby be 



promoted "We believe shorter hours of labor would 



be better for the physical well being of the operatives, and we 

 shall be glad to see such a limitation when it can be made gen- 

 eral the country over. We protest, however, against 



partial limitation, applying only to our State." Pages 157-8. 



(/) " It would be impracticable to run our mills nine and 

 two tenths hours per day, and produce the same financial re- 

 sults as is produced by the mills outside of Massachusetts, 

 which run eleven hours or more. . . . . . My mill has run ten 



hours per day, and the Nashua mill eleven hours per day. . . . 



... It is thus evident that the manufacturers of Massachu- 

 setts suffer a direct disadvantage in their competition with 

 those of other New England States of ten per cent, on the 

 amount of their pay rolls. This I believe to be true as com- 

 pared with all the other New England States." Page 158. 



(/,) "By the Act of the legislature of 1874, the hours of labor 

 for all females, and males under eighteen years of age, were re- 

 duced to ten per day, or sixty per week. This law has been 

 passed by no other New England State ; and the consequence 

 is, that the cotton manufacturers of Massachusetts are to-day, 

 with difficulty, able to compete with the other New England 

 States, on account of the increased cost of manufacture, caused 

 by the lessened production." Page 160-61. 



(m) "With regard to a further reduction in time, I would 

 say that the present time of sixty hours per week is long 

 enough, provided our competitors in Rhode Island, Connecti- 

 cut, and New Hampshire work the same hours ; but, as they 

 work sixty-six hours per week, the result is operating disas- 

 trously for Massachusetts." Page 162. 



Here is abundant testimony showing that any leg- 

 islative action by any one State, or any portion of 

 the States, reducing the hours of daily labor, must 



