Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/822

 800 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL a permissive character, and should not be put in operation without 'the consent of two-thirds of the organized members of any trade;' and finally, replacing this by another resolution, a little more favourable to compulsion, to the effect that ' legislation relating to the hours of labour be enforced on all trades and occupations, save where a majority of the organized members of any trade or occupation protest by ballot-vote .against the same.' The last vote lay thus between two varieties of the trade option principle, and the one 'hich triumphed not only reduces the required consent from two-thirds to a bare majority of a union, but makes the law compulsory on trades that have no union, and permissive only on trades that have one. Much contention has been raised because the words 'eight-hours,' which seem to have stood in the last resolution as it was originally read to the Congress by its mover, were omitted from it in the copy delivered to the Chairman and incorporated in the minutes; but the words 'eight-hours ' are not in the other motion either, and are not needed, because both motions were obviously of the nature of riders on the previous general resolution in fayour of an eight-hours' Act, and not of substitutes for it; and the circumstance would not have been worth referring to but for the fact that nen like lr. Burr seem to lend countenance to the suggestion that the omission was the result of private arrangmnent, and secured the support of the 80 or 90 representatives of the cotton trade. But if it were known to 80 or 90 people from the first, it would never have taken weeks to get about; and besides there is no reason because a trade like the cotton trade prefers union agency to State agency, why it should therefore prefer union action, lettered by a two-thirds majority, to union .action by a bare majority. The voting was as follows: the motion for .an eight-hours' law was carried by 232 to 163, the amendment, making the law permissive, by 242 to 156, and the final amendment, making it permissive by a majority rather than two-thirds by 285 to 183, and whe afterwards put as a substantive motion, by 341 to 73. It would seem, herefore, that 73 members were opposed to all eight-hour legislation, 156 in fayour of the unconditional and universal eight-hours' law, 150 did not vote, and the remaining 200 odd prefer the trade option compro- mise. Trade option is not held, however, as a rigid principle, for the liners' Eight-hours' Bill was approved by the Congress at a subsequent sitting, by the large majority of 290 to 50. The remaining business of the Congress, which rarely occasioned controversy, was concerned either with proposed extensions or amend- ments of the Factory Acts and similar legislation, or with measures for strengthening the political and civil position of the working class. It was agreed to demand the application of the Factory Acts to laundries, public works and buildings in course of construction, and domestic workshops (defined as places in which one or more persons work for hire or wage), the appointment of more inspectors, the extension of the Fishing Boat Acts to other steam fishing vessels besides trawlers, the abolition of Sunday fishing where practicable, the raising of the age of