544 TRANSACTIONS OF SKCTION Ff. 
augmented by a greater amount than 1s. multiplied by the number of 
operatives were the hours of labour increased, say from eight to nine, 
because labour, as every other agent employed in production, is paid not 
its aggregate but its marginal worth to the business in which it is employed. 
This proposition may be made more self-evident by the following example. 
Were labour rendered 25 per cent. more productive all round, the product 
and real wages would each be raised approximately 25 per cent., other 
things being equal; but as the product must be greater than aggregate 
wages the addition made to the former by the longer hours must be greater 
than the addition made to aggregate wages. 
Next, suppose that an agreement between employers, tacit or overt, is 
impossible, and that each employer will make what he can when he can. 
What hours, then, will competition among employers tend to bring about 
when humanitarian considerations and any resistance from the operatives 
are ruled out? Suppose the efficiency of labour at the time is that asso- 
ciated with a customary working day of ten hours. The product of the last 
fraction of the tenth hour could not be zero, for, if it were, ten hours would 
not be worked. The ultimate effect of extending the working day beyond 
nine hours is loss, not because the product of the last fraction of the ninth 
hour is zero, but because the product of the last fraction of the ninth hour 
just equals the ultimate reduction of the product of the other hours occa- 
sioned by the lengthening of the working day. Hence, on the assumption 
that employers are perfectly far-sighted, but that agreement between them 
as to working hours is lacking, the disposition on the part of each employer 
to reduce hours to nine would be weakened if each employer could not 
depend upon keeping operatives after he had brought them to the level of 
efficiency associated with the nine hours day. The reforming employer 
would run the risk of paying the whole cost of the labour value created by 
shorter hours and getting little in return; other employers might secure 
and exhaust the new labour value, and no permanent good would be effected. 
Nor would there be any more guarantee in the conditions supposed that 
the nine hours day would be retained, if instituted, for an employer could 
always snatch a temporary advantage by extending hours and paying 
slightly higher weekly wages. This is a general proof that, on the assump- 
tion made as regards the intelligence and foresight of employers and in 
the absence of agreement between them, the hours resulting in the maximum 
product would not necessarily establish themselves, no force on the side of 
the workpeople being supposed operative. 
I now pass on to analyse the determinants of the operative’s choice in 
the matter of the hours of labour, assuming that his wage equals his mar- 
ginal worth and that he knows it, and supposing in the first place that he 
is endowed with perfect prevision. ‘Two things affect him. which do not 
appeal to the self-interest of the employer, namely, the direct value-of his 
(the operative’s) leisure and the balance of satisfaction or dissatisfaction 
which his work yields of itself. Here I must interpolate the remark that 
by ‘satisfaction’ or ‘utility’ in this address I merely intend a con- 
ventional objective representation of the subjective fact of preference, 
behind which the economist qué economist cannot penetrate. I say this 
in order to evade the charge so frequently made against economics that it 
implies the acceptance of Utilitarianism, psychological or ethical. Picking 
up again the main thread of our discourse, we observe that, apart from the 
two considerations mentioned above, namely, the value of leisure and the 
satisfaction got directly from the activity of labour, the operative’s real 
income is maximised when his money income is maximised. Hence apart 
from these two considerations the choice, as regards the length of the work- 
ing day, of perfectly far-seeing operatives would be the choice of far-seeing 
employers were the latter combined. Now take the value of leisure into 
account. Any daily duration of production being premissed, if the utility 
