FARM MACHINERY 



99 



NUMBER LIVING AT STATED AGES OUT OF 1000 LIVING 

 AT AGE OF TWENTV-FIVE 



As a matter of fact, the length of the working-day, the condi- 

 tions under which work shall be done, and the wages to be paid 

 in any industry are questions which must all, ultimately, be de- 

 termined by economic law 2 and, to a very large extent, inde- 

 pendently for each industry according to the nature of the 

 to be done and according to the character of the workers. Hut 

 the economic law by which they are to be determined is not 

 necessarily the economic law which is most favorable to employers, 

 or to employees, or even to the interest of employers and em- 

 ployees jointly considered, any more than the policy of our federal 



1 The farmers and agricultural laborers are at present among the healthiest 

 classes of the population classified according to occupation. The young farmer 

 for some reason or other suffers a higher mortality than the laborer ; but at 

 thirty-five and upward the British farmer enjoys comforts which are beyond the 

 reach of the laborers. FAR R. .tistics," p. 403 



men can produce as much or nearly as much in eight hours as they can 

 in ten, eight hours is destined to become the working-day ; otherwise, not. The 

 owner of a stoneyard in Chicago has stated that his men could do as much work 

 in eight hours as in ten hours. Their work is fatiguing and It: lung i* 



gained by working the men over eight hours. Eight hours was the day's labor 

 in that yard, and the owner said so far as his business was concerned thr ri^ht- 

 hour question had solved itself. POWERS, " Labor Making Machin 



