7 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



ing to his business or property can not be interfered with by legislation. 

 It has been declared by the courts that liberty, in its broad sense, as under- 

 stood in this country, means the right not only of freedom from actual im- 

 prisonment, but the right of one to use his faculties in all lawful ways, to 

 live and work where he will, to earn his livelihood in any lawful calling, 

 and to pursue any lawful trade or vocation. All laws, therefore, which 

 impair or trammel these rights, which limit one in his choice of a trade or 

 profession, or confine him to work or live in a specified locality, or exclude 

 him from his own house, or restrain his otherwise lawful movements, ex- 

 cept where the public health or safety intervenes, are infringements upon 

 his fundamental rights of liberty, which are under constitutional pro- 

 tection. (People vs. Warren, 34 N. Y. Supp. Superior Court, Buffalo, 942.) 



The impossibility of regulating the rate and hours of labor by legisla- 

 tion unless in the exercise of the police power, or law of public health and 

 safety, was recognized years ago by Chief-Justice Ruger, in McCarthy vs. 

 Mayor, who said in reference to the original eight-hour law then under 

 discussion : 



" It is well to premise that this act was not intended to affect or regulate 

 the rate of wages which should govern as between employer and employee. 

 That subject is left by the act, as it always must remain, open, to be fixed by 

 the agreement of the parties intending to enter into those relations. Expe- 

 rience has shown that legislation on the subject must always be futile and 

 ineffectual, for the reason that it is controlled by the natural laws determin- 

 ing the value of labor and property, and which are as much beyond the 

 power of statutes to affect as they are above the control of the wishes of the 

 parties interested therein." 



I do not mean to imply from the foregoing statements that I am opposed 

 to shorter hours for labor; on the contrary, I believe that a shorter working 

 day, wherever it is practicable, is beneficial alike to employee and employer ; 

 but under present conditions, it appears to me, after a careful survey of the 

 field, that there are some prominent obstructions which must be removed 

 before an eight-hour day can be universally adopted, or before the opera- 

 tives who now work ten hours a day can reasonably hope for a general 

 reduction to eight hours without a corresponding reduction of wages. 



Wise men usually count the cost of any new undertaking before embark- 

 ing in it, and a very simple calculation will show surprising figures as to 

 the additional cost of manufacture should employers be called upon to pay 

 the same wage for eight hours' that they now pay for ten hours' work. Let 

 us assume that an establishment employs a thousand hands (there are fac- 

 tories having capacity for four or five times this number), a reduction of 

 two hours per day per man would mean an aggregate of two thousand 

 hours' reduction per day in the shop. Assuming the average wage to be ten 

 cents an hour (this is much below the true average), the additional cost for 

 this item alone would be two hundred dollars per day ; while the loss from 

 decreased output and increased fixed charges, rate of interest on plant, etc., 

 per unit of product, would, I believe, extinguish any margin of profit ob- 

 tained under present prices in any manufactured article where competition 

 is keen. It is of course possible that in those occupations in which the 

 output depends more upon manual dexterity than upon the mere tending 

 of automatic machinery a decrease of hours may be partly offset by an 

 increase of effort ; but this would, I think, prove an exception, the effect of 



