86 American Economic Association [884 



than he can sustain for a constancy." l In short, it is 

 the interest and purpose of the employer to so manage 

 his establishment that he may secure from it the high- 

 est net return. He is producing for a market, and the 

 more promptly he can supply the demands of that 

 market the greater are his chances of making a profit ; 

 and hence the need for " the utmost rate of speed," and 

 also for the most constant operation of the factors of 

 production consistent with the conditions named. " The 

 highest result with the least expenditure of means," 2 is 

 the motto of the employer. 



One factor, the machine, can work almost continu- 

 ously day and night ; and its efficiency is the same for 

 the twenty-fourth hour as for the first hour or for any 

 intermediate hour. Indeed, except as occasional stops 

 may be requisite in order that the machine be kept in 

 repair, the more continuously it is kept at work the 

 less likely it is to deteriorate and the less likely that it 

 will become worthless by reason of the invention of a 

 better machine. Whether we consider the work of a 

 machine for a day, for a year, or for its whole life-time 

 as a producing agent, it is most effective and yields the 

 highest net return to its owner when operated almost 

 continuously. 



The other factor, the workman, cannot work con- 

 tinuously for any great length of time. There must be 

 portions of each day given to rest and recuperation ; 

 and the efficiency of the workman in the last hour of a 

 long working-day is much less than in any other 

 hour, unless, perhaps, in the first. In the average em- 

 ployment requiring the use of little or no machinery, 

 we may assume that the first hour's work of each work- 



!See Karl Marx : Capital, p. 413. 

 2 Brooks: The Social Unrest, p. 20 r. 



