A474 REPORT—1890. 
shortening of hours might benefit in one way the unfortunate class 
whose condition is described in the ‘ Lords’ Report on Sweating,’ it will 
not of necessity maintain or improve their wages. ‘ We give out our 
work to whoever will take it, to the man who will do it best and the 
cheapest, and we get off with the least trouble,’ says the employer. 
‘We cannot check the supply of native workers,’ says Miss Potter. . . .! 
‘The large supply of cheap female labour, occasioned by the fact that 
married women, working at unskilled labour in their homes . . . and. not 
wholly supporting themselves, go forth to work at what would be starva- 
tion wages to an unmarried woman.’ Shorter hours of labour may coexist 
with poverty, especially where the supply of unskilled labour is large 
and combination is absent. Low wages are largely responsible for the 
long hours of the unskilled worker, and the first step towards the amelio- 
ration of his position would be a rise in wages rather than a shortening of 
hours, as the latter would follow the former. 
It must also be remembered that unless a man is a ‘ wealth-creating’ 
worker the community will derive no benefit from his labour. It is 
possible for a man to work, and yet to destroy more than he produces ; 
in such a case the community may find itself benefited by supporting 
that man in idleness rather than by allowing him to destroy, under the 
guise of producing, wealth. The State is not, therefore, of necessity a 
gainer by the employment of the unemployed—it only gains in so far as 
such employment results in a real increase of wealth.” 
On the other hand, it has been suggested to me by a keen observer 
that to give employment even to a wealth-destroyer might be regarded 
as an alternative plan to our present system of poor relief. The objection 
to such a method of supporting unproductive individuals in this way lies 
in the fact that the burden would fall on particular employers instead of 
being borne by the community as a whole or by some definite section 
thereof. 
Let us, however, assume that by the employment of additional hands 
the net produce (say in a year) is maintained. We have now the same 
amount of net produce as before, but a greater number of producers, 
In other words, though the total produce is the same the production per 
producer per year is reduced, and from the point of view of distribution 
the net production per head per annum is of greater importance than the 
net produce. 
The argument that the production might be increased by the system 
of ‘shifts’ was met by the statement of one of the witnesses examined 
before the Royal Commission on the Depression of Trade. ‘If you pro- 
duced double the quantity of goods, and there was no demand for them 
you would be compelled to sell the goods at a cheaper rate, and 
instead of benefiting the manufacturer and the workman, it would injure 
them: they would have such a large stock of goods that they would 
come to a deadlock.’ Resort might be had to ‘shifts’ in order to main- 
tain the net produce, but this would only be possible in those imdustries 
» Contemporary Review, ante. 
? It is on this principle that Mr. Booth’s suggestion of a State-supported class is 
based. The same principle applies to employers. See Appendix (0b). 
3 Q. 1,334. 
