Page talk:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/452

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because the product of labour has increased through one cause or other, and not through a diminished product necessitating the employment of the unemployed.

Coming now to the authors' practical proposals, they naturally devote some space to the prevailing controversy as to the best means of obtaining the eight hours day. They reject the idea of obtaining it by voluntary concession on the part of employers as being 'utopian'; they abjure trade-union agency as being 'cruel, costly, and untrustworthy,' and declare for State interference as the sole efficacious method. Now I am personally no enemy to State interference in this matter, and indeed believe it to be largely necessary; but why should Mr. Webb and Mr. Cox reject as utopian a method which they produce so much good evidence in their work of having already proved effective, and why reject as untrustworthy the method which has made the eight hours day a general and permanent possession in the only community in the world where it is a general and permanent possession at all? Why not try all methods, each in its place? Trade-union action may sometimes be costly, but in this matter of the eight hours day it has certainly shown itself much more expeditious than political agitation. Our authors themselves are quite sensible that law will be powerless in the absence of sufficient trade opinion to secure its enforcement, but when opinion is once there, law is often unnecessary. With all their love for an eight hours law, these writers would still apply the law with considerable reserve. They would not, for example, apply law to any trade unless a majority of the members of the trade asked for it, and they would even then apply no rigid eight hours limit to all trades alike, but would permit a variable maximum, as the trade will bear or desire, ranging between fifty-four and forty-five hours a week. They propose, therefore, no sudden simultaneous introduction of the systemthat, they admit, would 'dislocate industry;' but they would first introduce it into government and municipal employment; then by compulsion into trades in which the worst cases of overwork occurrailways, omnibuses, public-houses, shops, bakeries, and gasworks; and finally, into all other industries by 'trade option'that is by an order of the Home Secretary, obtained at the request of a distinct majority of the members of the trade.

work has gone rapidly into a second edition, and it amply deserves its popularity. It goes over a good deal of difficult but at the moment very interesting ground; beginning with a rapid review of previous forms of Socialism, then subjecting the Socialism of the present timethe Collectivism of Karl Marxto a thorough examination, and finally entering on a discussion of the contemporary Social question and the various remedies proposed for its solution. And no Superiority (talk) 07:04, 5 February 2023 (UTC)