484 . REPORT—1890. 
of the consumer and will not affect the chief causes of poverty incident 
to our present organisation of industry. 
5. That the position of the chronic unemployed or residuum will not 
be materially improved. 
6. That in so far as additional labourers are employed to maintain the 
net produce, it will be at the expense of other workers, if the net produce 
remains the same but the number of producers increases. 
It is necessary to point out that arguments which may be urged 
against a general though unequal reduction of hours do not apply with 
the same force to a reduction of hours in a particular trade that may be 
the subject of special economic surroundings. Before venturing to ex- 
press an opinion on the desirability of reducing hours in a given industry, 
e.g. in mining, the economist will require to investigate these surroundings 
in order to estimate what loss, if any, will occur, and on whom such loss 
will fall. 
But even if there be a loss in a particular industry or a national loss, 
it may be more than made good to the nation by the beneficial effects on 
the working classes of greater leisure. Hence the importance of asking 
what will the working classes do with the hours they gain from toil. 
Looking at the development of university teaching amongst the North- 
umberland miners, the progress of co-operation in Lancashire, the interest 
that is being developed in education, elementary, commercial, and technical, 
by trade unionists, and the increasing attention that the working classes 
are giving to the work of government, it is more than probable that, as 
far as the skilled industries are concerned, the workers would on the 
whole utilise additional leisure in a manner creditable to themselves and 
useful to the State. 
APPENDIX. 
(a) The employer will probably prefer to maintain production by the 
use of machinery, or of improved machinery, rather than by employing 
additional labour. On the introduction of the ‘nine hours’ into the 
engineering trades many employers maintained their output without 
employing additional hands. 
(b) The owner of a factory handed it over to his son. At the end of 
a year he found that, owing to mismanagement, all profit was tending to 
disappear. He pensioned the son, employed a competent manager, and 
restored the business to former prosperity. 
(c) That a reduction of hours in a skilled industry will not per se 
afford additional employment is borne out by the following figures relating 
to the engineering trades. In 1871 the hours of labour in the engineer- 
ing trade varied from 60 to 54 per week, and the percentage of unemployed 
members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers was 1:3. In the 
following year the hours were reduced to a number varying from 54 to 
51 per week, the percentage of unemployed in the same society being 0°9. 
In 1875 a week of 54 hours was made universal. The number of members 
of the society and the number and percentage of unemployed members 
since 1872 have been as follows: 
as 
