816 EEPORT — 1887. 



Another explanation wliich has been sugrgested, and to which I have myself 

 been inclined to attach considerable weight as being plainly, as far as it goes, a 

 vera causa, is the extent to which the hours of labour have been reduced in many 

 ■employments in consequence of the improvement in the condition of the working 

 classes in the last hali'-centurv, and the growth of a disposition to take things 

 •easier, which has been the result of the general prosperity of the country. Such 

 causes when they exist, and when they are brought into operation, must tend to 

 diminish the rate of material growth in a country as compared with a period just 

 before when they were not in operation. If we could suppose them brought into 

 operation suddenly, all other things, such as the progress and development of in- 

 vention, remaining the same, such a reduction of hours of labour and growth of a 

 disposition to take things easy, must produce a check to the former rate of growth. 



After some consideration, however, although there is no doubt of the general 

 tendency of the causes referred to, I begin to doubt whether they would explain 

 adequately such a check to the rate of material growth generally throughout the 

 country as is assumed to have occurred. As regards the shortening of the hours 

 •of labour, which is the more definite fact to be dealt with, it cannot but be observed 

 that the shortening has by no means been universal. It has been conspicuous 

 among certain trades organised into trades unions ; but the unions, after all, only 

 include about a tenth part of the labour of the country. There has been no such 

 conspicuous shortening of the hours of labour among professional men, clerks, 

 domestic servants, and many others whose labour is an essential part of the general 

 sum total. Next — and this is perhaps even more important — the shortening of the 

 hours of labour is not coincident with the beginning of the last ten years, though it 

 has been in full operation for the whole of that period, but rather with the begin- 

 ning or middle of the previous ten years, viz., 18()0-75; so that it should have been 

 fully in operation upon the production of 1875; and the check to our I'ate of growth 

 if due to this cause should thus have been felt between I860 and 187"), rather than 

 between the latter date and the present time. The same with the general disposi- 

 tion to take things easy. This disposition did not spring up in a day in 1875, but 

 was probably as etlective as a cause of change in the earlier, as in the later, period. It 

 must count for something as a cause of the annual production of the country being 

 less at a given moment than it would otherwise be ; but in comparing two periods 

 ■what we have to consider is whether the growth of this disposition has been greater 

 in one period than in another; and there are no data to support such a conclusion 

 as regards the last ten years compared with the previous ten. 



We must apparently, therefore, reject this explanation also. It is not adequate to 

 account for theapparentchange that has occurred in the rate of our growth from the 

 year 1875 as compared with the period just before. Our progress in periods previous 

 to 1875 took place in spite of the operation of causes of a similar kind which were 

 then in operation, and there is no proof at all that the shortening of the hours of 

 labour and the growth of a disposition to take things easy have been greater 

 since 1875 as compared with the period just before than they were between 1865 

 and 1875 as compared with the period just before that. What is wanted is a new 

 cause beginning to operate in or about 1875, and the shortening of the hours of 

 labour and the growth of a disposition to take things easy do not answer that 

 description sufficiently. Something of the apparent change may be due to an 

 acceleration in recent years of the growth of a disposition to take things easy, but 

 •on the whole the explanation halts when we make a strict comparison. 



Another cause which may properly be assigned as a vera causa of a check to the 

 rate of material growth in the country is the unfavourable weather to agriculture 

 and the generally unprofitable conditions of that industry in recent years. Pro 

 tanto such intlueuces would make agricultural production less to-day than it would 

 otherwise be. Employment in that industry would also be diminished compara- 

 tivel}^ and perhaps absolutely, and a check to production generally would take 

 place while labour was seeking new fields. But the check arising in this manner, 

 as far as the general growth is concerned, has obviously not been very great. 

 More land in proportion has been turned into permanent pasture, but very little 

 land has gone out of cultivation altogether, and even the amount under the plough 



