Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/263



JUNE, 1891

THE PROBABLE EFFECTS OF AN EIGHT HOURS DAY ON THE PRODUCTION OF COAL AND THE WAGES OF MINERS

the introduction of an eight hours day for miners reduce the output of coal? Will it also reduce wages? These two points I propose to examine apart altogether from the particular method adopted for securing the limitation of hours. Too much attention has been given to the relative merits of an eight hours day imposed by the legislature and an eight hours day obtained by concession. The amount of coal a man can hew in a given time is entirely independent of the process by which such time is fixed, and the wages of a miner under an eight hours day will be the same whether the eight hours be a legal or a voluntary limit.

At the conference held in the early part of this year between the representatives of the coal-owners and of the Miners' Federation, the miners expressed the view that, if an eight hours day were conceded, they had no fear 'that there would be any diminution of the output.' To this statement the coal-owners replied: 'It is impossible to understand upon what ground this statement rests. The usual practice in the midland counties, Lancashire and Cheshire, and North and South Wales, is to work a single shift. It is also the custom to wind coal from eight to ten hours. If every person employed underground is to be drawn out within eight hours of the time he goes down it is manifest that coal winding cannot be carried on for more than six and a half to seven hours, and in many instances even less than that, as