PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. pel 
Certain expressions which have come into common use would seem to be 
significant of the needs and dangers of an industrial society highly advanced 
on the technical side. Thus we speak of the ‘cultured’ classes and the 
“leisured ’ classes. For the attainment of culture, leisure is essential to-day 
as it was not in the past in quite the same sense, ‘culture’ being broadly 
defined. I need not say that a ‘progress’ which meant the ‘specialising 
out’ of leisure for the sole enjoyment of one class would not commend itself 
to'any reasonable person ; and I do not discern any danger of ‘ progress’ of 
this sort; but there is some danger lest the growing importance of leisure 
generally, and of a proper use of leisure, should not be fully realised. 
Tangible things force themselves upon our attention as the more intangible 
do not, and some of us who have an economic bent of mind get into the 
way, in consequence, of thinking too much of the quantity of external 
wealth produced and too little of the balance between internal and external 
wealth. In ultimate terms, to those who care to put it that way, all 
wealth is life, as Ruskin insisted. There hardly appears to be any risk of 
a general underrating of external goods, but there is some risk of an 
underrating of the new needs of the life lived outside the hours devoted to 
production—which should themselves be, not a sacrifice to real living, but 
a part of it—and of an underrating of the dependence even of productive 
advance upon the widespread enjoyment and proper use of adequate leisure 
and an adequate income, 
Norte. 
The argument in the more technical parts of this address, concerned with 
the determination of the length of the working day, may be conveniently 
summarised with the aid of the following figure. In order to avoid the 
complexities arising from the redistribution of labour between the industries 
of a country, suppose that only one industry exists. Measure units of time 
in the working day along O X, and units of money along O Y. Consider 
first the unbroken lines, which represent the influences governing employers. 
The curve P expresses the long-period variations with the length of the 
working day of the marginal value of a fixed quantity of labour: the 
opinion that these can be represented by a curve has been defended in the 
body of this address. If O n hours are worked daily, the daily value of 
labour and the wage will ultimately be O n d a; if O b hours are worked, 
this value and wage rises to Oba; if Oe hours are worked, it falls to 
Oba—bef. The meaning of the curve P will now be plain. The curve is 
supposed to rise in the first instance because increasing the daily hours of 
labour would at first raise the level of efficiency, and if it did not the 
larger wage would. But P must begin to fall at some point, and eventually 
cross O X, as is demonstrated in the body of the address. Actually, of 
course, P could not start at O Y, because a man when engaged for only a 
fraction of his time daily could not live on the proceeds of his work, but it 
has been so drawn in the figures to enable us to picture the value and wage of 
labour by the area between the curve P and the co-ordinates. 
The curve ¢ k represents the immediate variations of the marginal 
value of a fixed quantity of labour with the length of the working day on 
the assumption that the normal working day has been O b. Hence the 
value of the normal product of the last minute of the working day O b is bg. 
Ex hypothesit O b g c must equal O b a. If the working day is lengthened 
to Oe the product will at first be augmented by bekg, but finally by a 
gradual decline it will sink to O b a — be f. 
The influences guiding the operatives are expressed in the dotted lines, 
the meaning of which must now be explained. Draw any vertical line dl 
to the left of b. Then d n is the addition made in the long run to the money 
income of the operative when the O nth increment of time is added to the 
