98 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



The position of the employee is radically different from that 

 of the employer. When making a contract for the sale of his 

 labor power, the employee does not seek to establish a long 

 working-day. He wants a certain amount of exercise, and he 

 may even be glad to do some work for the pleasure which comes 

 of achievement, but a long working-day, or a day of intense or 

 otherwise exhaustive toil, is not desired. Not infrequently the 

 employee assumes a position antagonistic to the interests of his 

 employer. There remains, therefore, a wide margin within which 

 the interests of employers and employees are adverse to each 

 other ; and the immediate effect of the introduction of machinery 

 is rather to widen that area than to narrow it. 



It would doubtless be impossible to enumerate all of the causes 

 which have operated to give a shorter working-day in the more 

 recent years. Public opinion has doubtless had some influence in 

 this direction ; but, for the most part, the various causes have found 

 expression in, and have operated through, factory and labor laws. 



Just how far the legislation thus far enacted in behalf of em- 

 ployees has operated to give farm laborers a shorter working-day 

 it would, doubtless, be impossible to say. That the farm laborers 

 have, in some degree, profited by such legislation may be fairly 

 inferred from the testimony presented before the recent Industrial 

 Commission and summarized in the report of that commission as 

 follows : " Returns relative to the hours of daily service show the 

 influence of general labor agitation for shorter hours in shorten- 

 ing the day of rural service. The reduction is very general, and 

 greater where industrial and mechanical enterprise is dominant," ^ 



It is to be expected, however, that the working-day should be 

 longer on the farms than in the factories, for the outdoor life and 

 more varied nature of the employment promotes health and makes 

 it possible for farm workmen to continue their work through a 

 given period with, relatively, much less cost of vitality. 



That this is true will appear fairly evident from a consideration 

 of the following table taken from Dr. Amos G. Warner's work 

 on "American Charities." ^ 



1 Report of the Industrial Commission, 1901, Vol. XI, p. 82. 



2 Warner, American Charities, p. 107. 



