it is confirmed by the opinions of German industrial leaders. Thus, Dr. Carl Friedrich von Siemens, a member of the German Economic Council, recently declared that German production had reached only 70 per cent of the pre-war volume, in explanation of which he assigned firstly the operation of the eight-hour day, secondly a diminished intensity in working as a consequence of socialistic infection, and thirdly the increase in unproductive labor following the extension of the principles of state socialism.
The statistics show that Germany has been importing more goods than it has been exporting, wherefore the simple deduction that the German people have not been even earning their own living. Here again we have German confirmation in the form of a declaration by Hugo Stinnes that the German people must work 10 hours per day, instead of eight, for the next 10 or 15 years in order to be able even to exist. Socialists see in such a declaration a project for the further “exploitation of the proletariat” and assert that “between Stinnes and the eight-hour day we will stick to the latter.” Here we have a clear-cut issue between the practical and the impractical.
The eight-hour day has been introduced in many industries in the United States without any harmful results, and possibly with benefits in some instances. Apart from the social benefit, however, there has always been doubt whether diminution in production has not been averted only by an increased counteracting effect on the part of management. There has never been any exhaustive study of the effect of reduction of working time from 10 hours to eight hours in an industry that is incapable of mechanicalization, at least not so far
