necessarily an economic benefit, although generally it is. The European countries, which have adopted the eight-hour day en masse, exhibit diminished production without exception, and without shutting our eyes to other contributory factors this is attributable in the main to the fewer hours of work. Diminished production spells diminished scale of living. The idealists who say to the laborers of a country that they should not work so hard tell them at the same time, though not in words, that they should not live so well.
Who can doubt that the shortening of hours in the United States, which here is coupled with an increased inefficiency per hour in many industries, is having the same effect? We do not see it plainly, for several reasons. Our labor statistics are but fragmentary. Our engineers and managers are making intense off-setting efforts. Our country is so rich that evil things and their consequences may be obscured for a long time. But examination of such data as are available is bound to find them pointing this way, which is indeed what is logically to be expected. It will be helpful to consider this subject in the light of the data presented in the sixth chapter of this book.
In the United States a relatively small proportion of the workers, especially those employed in continuous industry, have been engaged on 12-hour shifts. More men have been so employed in the iron and steel industry than in any other one industry. There was prolonged agitation for the abolition of that practice, not at all by the workers themselves but rather by persons who thought that no man should be required to work so long. A committee of the steel manufacturers reported a few months ago to the effect that
