LAND & WATER 
Dtcembcr 20, nji; 
tlic other (iav alxnit how hc.\vi>ujil wake in the niorning to. 
the clatter of the girls' and women's clogs -as \Uvy went past ■ 
liis house at lialf-past tive in the dark on their way to the 
mills. Me had exceptional oj)i>ortnnitv of judging the ^effect , 
of the long dav's work. an<l he told me how bonny children 
known to him k>st their colonr and their youthful energy in the 
hard dnidgen- of their daily toil. 
The most important recent sur\-ey of the subject is to be 
foiiiifl in an article bv Mr. Artiiur "(iiTcnwood, publislu>fl ui 
the I'olilhal Quarterly of ."September. 1914. Mr. GreenwiKxl 
jiointed out that the normal working day has been reduced by 
\er\- little for more than half a century; '; Tlie ten hmirs 
day ill textile factories dates back to 1847. Tlie main results 
of'factor\- legislation have been the .gradual elevation of the 
minimiun age of enfployment, the improvement of working 
conditions and the wider ajiplication of the law. In the mean- 
time; however, industrial juocesses have lieen spe^'ded up, 
the efhirt required in labour lias been intensified and res- 
jionsibilitv increased. Machines may be worked at a- greater 
rate or the nuinbyr of machines tended jht operative increased. 
Ill other words, though wages liave risen in the interval, the 
amount of effort e.\])eii(led per unit of time has certainly not 
diniinislied, but probably in many cases the reverse. There 
may be industrial processes where the fneasure of toil of the 
laliourer has decreased, though here the tendency is to super- 
sede those liitherto employed, by younger peo])le. The enor- 
mous increase of industrial productivity during the second 
half yf the nineteenth century, therefore, has brought little 
respite to the worker, though we may admit that many 
mechanical devices ha\c reduced the expenditure of purely 
j)hysical energy." 
Wanted a New Code 
The tnitli is that tJic time is ripe for a new universal industrial 
Code, laying down certain minimum conditions for all industiy. 
The distinction between textile and non-textile industries is an 
historical anomaly, and there is no point in keeping it. 
There is no conceivable argument to-day for ha\'ing a 
maxinnim working week of 55. I hours in a textile factory for 
women or young persons, and a maximum working week of 
Oo hours in a non-textile factory. Why should there be a 
74 hour week for the shopworker and no limit at all for the 
van boy ? Why should the doniestic servant be entirely 
tuiprotectcd while her sister who works in a factory, comes 
under special laws ? Mr. Greenwood estimates that half 
the occupied persons in England and Wales arc outside the in- 
dustrial code. 
We have tinkered with factory law and industrial law, 
making little extensions here and little rectifications there. 
The next step must be bolder and simpler ; the creation of 
a comprehensive code applying to industrial life everywhere, 
regulating the working week, and providing security against 
tlisease and danger, forbidding certain practices, such a^ the 
employment of boys at night, and controUing other abuses 
whether oi mill orworkshop, or of less organised occupations. 
Incidentally, it may be urged that a serious effort should 
be made in the international deliberations that will follow 
the war to secutjc a decent industrial minimum in all countries. 
The International Association for Labour Legislation was 
working at this subject for many years beforo the war. and 
not without success in certain directions, for common action 
was taken by different Governments on the c|uestions of the 
rmployment of women at night and the use of phosphorus 
in the making of matches. Unfortunately, the results of the 
last official conference, held at Berne in the autumn of 1912, 
were disappointing, for there was a general disposition to takt' 
the worst rather than the best standard as the normal. Our 
own delegates were no exception. Thus in the case of night 
work for boys, on which we had had a year or two before^ an 
inquiry in this country, and the apologists had argued that we 
could not afford to be more sensitive than our competitors, 
the Conference accepted the bad jnactices of Germany and 
Italy, and thus gave an official sanction to those j^ractices. 
At the end of the war we may hope for sufl'icient democratic 
jiressure in all countries to obtain a general improvement, 
though our law will no doubt be stricter than the code laid 
down for international use. 
In the working out of an Industrial Code the Councils will have 
animport;uit and responsible task, for.it will be their function 
to see how best each industry can be accommodated to the 
new arrangements. The law will, perhaps, prescribe a maxi- 
mum working day of eight hours, making a working week of 
44 hours. The clifferent Industrial Councils will discuss the 
most convenient method of arranging that week. There are 
strong arguments for abolishing all U(jrk before eight in the 
morning. Before the war, there were experiments on these 
lines in many textile factories round (ilasgow, and inaiin- 
facturers there recorded a gre.it improvement in time-keeping 
and quality of work. Another interesting experiment was 
made ill the linen weaving , sheds of Dunfermline. IIkiv 
■were ten facloraes, einplc^ymg l)etween four and iwi: thousaiul 
^Vorke^s, ch'iefly women.' The w(jrkpeople came largely from 
the surrounding country, and in some cases they had to start 
as early as four o'clock to reach the mill at six. At the instance 
of the workpeople, the employers instituted a new working 
dav : <S a.m. to 5.,;o p.m., with a break from 12.30. to 1..50. 
The weekly total of hours was thus reduced by 15 per cent.; 
a 5 per cent, rise was granted in piecework rates and the time 
workers were given their old wages. Tlie L'actory Inspector 
reported in 1914. that some of the pieceworkers had lost in 
.wages, but that the workix'ople were entirely in favour of the 
change, though the employers were not unanimous. 
The Weekly Holiday 
It may Ix-, on the other hand, tjuit the workpeople in .a 
particular industry may prefer some other arcangement.- It 
is believed that tlie alternative method of taking a weekly 
lioUday, adopted during the scarcity in the textile industry, 
is more popular with the workpeople concerned. Differeiii 
arrangements might be chosen in winter and smnmcr, for it i-- 
working before sunrise that makes the early start such a hard- 
ship. .\t any rate, we'may take it that the long day, which 
swallows up a man's life, is going to disappear, and that th< 
working hom^s of the future will be \ery different. Each 
industry through its council will be able to formulate the views 
of employers and workpeople, and the worksho]) committees 
will be able to make tlu- arrangements that suit different 
workshops. Meanwhile, the industries that employ boys af 
night can be called upon to devise some .satisfactory altev- 
iiati\e. 
.Take, again, the question of insurance against unemployment. 
The method oi compulsory contributory insurance through 
the Board of Trade is clearly wrong in principle. If we want 
to realise hot\- perverse it -is we lia\-e only to remind ourseh^es 
that not long ago there was a strike because the workj^eoplr 
found that without their knowledge, their industry had been 
scheduled under the Act. In other cases. Trade Unions 
have had to piesent their statistics to make good their conten- 
tion that the Act ought not to be extended to them, to n^sist, 
in fact, a form of special taxation. The only good provision 
in the Act was the provision that enables Trade Unions to claim 
from the State a certain proportion <jf the amount they spend 
on out of w'ork benefit. 
The Industrial Councils will be able to thresh out different 
methods of making provision against unemplovment, and 
each council will have the advantage, both in this and other 
respects, of the experience gained in other industries. ' Thus, 
there have been arrangements in force in the dyeing industry 
during the war under which employers and Trade L'nions 
combine in providing out of work benefit. Two important 
features are to be found in these arrangements. The work- 
man has practical security of tenure and the Trade U'nioii 
acts as the Labour Exchange for the industry. An employer, 
that is to sa}', reports his vacancy to the Union, and the 
Union fills it. It is clear that if those councils act with the 
vigour that may be expected from bodies of responsible men 
entrusted with important duties, a great part of the work of 
the Labour ICxchanges will pass into the hands of the Unions. 
This is all to the good. And for such work as is left to the 
. Labour Exchanges, it is important to bring the Trade I'nionisni 
into closer and more responsible touch with the administration 
of these offices. Mr. C. M. Lloyd suggested in his interesting 
book on Trade Vnionism (A. and C. Black) that the manage- 
ment of the E.xchanges might gradually be brought under 
their direction. ' 
Arrangements such as these will go some way to break the 
tyranny of a system of which workmen and many who are not 
workmen are painfully aware in the present industrial world. 
:\len will be putting their minds together in each industrv 
in th- effort not merely to make the industry more efficient, 
but to give power and effect to the wills of the men and women 
engaged in it ; to discover how, in the phrase of one of the 
victims of the early factory system, the workman's life can 
become a pleasure to him, " Aiid when the Trade Unions take 
a direct and conscious share in the corftrol of that industrv, 
acting not as the servants of capital, but as accredited re- 
])resentatives of the producers, anew self-respect will take 
the i)laceof the sense that he belongs to a subject and exploited 
class which has haunted the workman mind since the catas- 
trophe of the Industrial Revolution. 
Not, of course, that these benefits will follow automaticallv 
Irom the adoption of the recommendations of the Whitlex 
Committee. 1 hese recommendations' are necessarily vague 
and indefinite. ICach industry must work out its own salvation 
and construct its own schemes, ^^■e cannot say more for tlu- 
settling up of Industrial Councils than that these Council- 
will provide an oppejrtmiity ; it will depend on the use madi 
ol thai oi.purlunity whether the next chapter in our industrial 
history is to be a chapter of nroL'ress. 
