TRADE-UNIONS 47 



he requires, society has no right to ask him to work longer ; 

 when he bargains with his master that he shall not be made 

 to work longer, this condition, so far from being directly inju- 

 rious to any third party, is beneficial to his fellow-workmen, 

 since more of them will be employed than if he worked sixteen 

 hours each da}*. Bat, says the Press, he ought to be energetic, 

 hard-working ; he ought not to be satisfied with what he can 

 earn in eight hours. Why not ? Is contentment so great a 

 crime ? The country will never progress if our workmen be- 

 come indolent, it is said. True enough ; but what is indolence ? 

 Do you for the progress of the country desire that workmen 

 shall work eight, ten, twelve, or sixteen hours each day ? Is 

 it not perhaps quite as well that 1,000 men should work 

 hard for ten hours a day, as 800 should work for fourteen, or 

 even 700 for sixteen hours each ? ' Ah ! but,' says the middle- 

 class lawyer, ' where should I have been if I had not worked late 

 every night for years ; and what a shame it is to prevent the 

 ambitious workman from pushing his way by hard work too ; or 

 suppose he has a large family, as I have, what an atrocious thing 

 is this that a trade society shall tell him Xo, you must not work 

 extra hours to gain enough to support and start your sons and 

 daughters in life ! These trade-unions are levellers, foes to merit 

 and progress.' Gentlemen who reason thus know neither the 

 objects nor the habits of workmen. If any individual who 

 pleased could work over-time without entailing equal work on 

 all his fellows, there would be little or no objection to over-time ; 

 but if over-time is made at all, it must be made by a large pro- 

 portion of the men employed in a shop. The engine must be 

 at work, the gas burning, the time-keeper at the gate, the fore- 

 man present; and does any one suppose this can be done 

 for an odd man here and there, who wishes to get on, or earn 

 extra pay ? Xo ; the rule in a shop is, that all or none work 

 over-time. Of course, one branch of the shop, as the pattern- 

 makers, may not be working extra hours, though the erecters 

 are ; but the work in any branch of the shop where over-time is 

 made must be in full swing, or over-time would not pay the 

 masters. Over-time, gentlemen, means this : You are en^a^ed 

 at a salary to work in an office from 9 to 5, which most of 

 you think long hours. One day your employer comes into the 



