The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3935, 5 October 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1875.

Theke are in the Straits of Messina a rock and a whirlpool, so situated that in endeavoring to avoid the one, there is danger of being wrecked on the oilier. These parallel dangers very aptly illustrate the difficulty kindhearted men experience in their efforts to do good. Our correspondent “ Mercy ” seems to be in this difficulty : he would protect one class because he assumes they aro weak, but in so doing lie appears to forget the justice that others have a right to expect from their fellow-men. He expresses surprise that Mr Reid, Mr Gillies, and the Evening Stak should advocate the Bill permitting women to agree with factory proprietors to work any eight hours between six in the morning ana* six in the evening. He describes this as an extension of the hours of labor, and considers that it is inconsistent th.e arrangement should find advocacy bv friends of the working classes. It is precisely because wo desire to benefit the working classes that we wish to see the Bill become law. If u Mercy ” will look carefully at the arguments he uses, he will find they are chiefly expressions of apprehension that the eight hours’ system should bo evaded. Lest this should take place, and any woman by collusion with a factory proprietor bo induced to work more than eight hoiErs, he would decree that machinery as well as men and women shall do no> work. We will not at this moment discuss the

question of the abstract right every adult has to the free and unrestricted use of time and power to labor. The eight hours’ system has fixed the length of a working day, and defined the extent of labor to be given for a day’s wages. No employer, therefore, has a right to expect more than that for his money. But it must be plain in this arrangement machinery is not included. It may run all day and all night, and no one be the worse, although many may be tbe better for it. A little consideration on this point will show to “ Mercy” that the true interest of the working classes is to increase the amount of work to be done, and that tbe very design of the employment of machinery is to produce the greatest result at the least cost. Unless this is dope, there is no inducement for capitalists to invest money in expensive plant. “ Mercy ” points to the statements in the prospectus as to tho profits of the Mosgiel factory. The truth or falsehood of them does not affect the question of meddlfng by legislation so as to reduce them to nothing, or to raise them above what they were. It may be as well to remind our correspondent, however, that the Mosgiel factory, when founded by Mr Burns, had no Factory Act to contend with ; and if he made a profit, it was before Mr Bradshaw’s limitation of labor Act was passed. That Act has operated adversely, and, in strict justice, must be regarded as a breach of contract between Mr Burns and the Colony. He established a business under the sanction of certain laws, and in the course of its prosecution it has been subjected to another law which has a tendency to reduce the profit he had a right to calculate upon, if not to close the works. As we have before observed, “ Mercy’s ” principal objection seems to be that the law is liable to be evaded. If this argument be a sound one against the enactment of one law, it is'good against the enactment of all laws. We do not know any law more likely to be evaded than one which says, “Thou shalt not labor more than eight hours.” Does “ Mercy ” imagine that because eight hours is by custom in some cases, and law in others, made a day’s work, therefore no work is done when the closing minute is past 1 Could he lift the roofs off the houses of Dunedin, and from a convenient height view all that is done by mothers anxious- for their children’s welfare, wives desirous of helping their husbands, fathers and husbands desiring the comfort of their families, he would witness many a thousand pounds earned in the privacy of home during the year. We hardly think that “ Mercy” would desire this should be otherwise, although, strictly construed, it may be pronounced an evasion of the eight hm#§’ system. We have no doubt, and we give him the benefit of the opinion, that could the work of the Mosgiel factory be carried on in private houses, the people connected with it would earn many a pound of which they are now deprived. We would just for a moment ask whether they would not be the better for it ? Better in circumstances, more independent, and more likely to become employers of labor themselves through accumulating capital ? True, mercy is seldom separated from justice ; and it is because of tho interference of a law ) with the liberty that all have a right j to, that nobody regards working at i home a transgression of the eight hours’ •system. Mr Reid’s Bill proposes no secret working, and it is better that every transaction affected by it should be under the public eye. It is less likely to be evaded. But who are most likely to evade it? We may safely answer those whose interest it is to do so. It is not the interest of the proprietors, for it does not matter to them one jot by whom the work is done, so long as it is well done. The only conceivable circumstance that might tempt them to evade it would be the necessity for completing a contract, and the impossibility of obtaining additional mill hands to do it. As a set-off against this temptation is the penalty; which, if enforced, would at once destroy their profit on the transaction. It is not the mill-owners who are interested in evading the law. If, on the other hand, the employes wished to evade tho law, the millowuers would have at once a ready answer: “ Yon know we cannot allow you to work more than eight hours; the law has forbidden it.” We wish all workmen and workwomen to see their true interest. It is their interest largely to employ machinery, and in order to this it must be capable of being worked to a profit. If this can be done, the demand for labor will be increased, and their wages will be likely to be maintained : if it cannot be done, the demand for labor will be curtailed, and their wages will fall. We fully sympathise with “ Mercy ” in his wish to protect the weak from oppression; but there is a liability to the tyranny of kindness whenever mercy is not tempered by justice ; and that tyranny is more irksome than that of cruelty, because of the difficulty of turning to resist it.