SHORTER HOURS—BETTER WORK.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 852, 14 June 1910, Page 4

SHORTER HOURS—BETTER WORK.

Under this head Wood Hutchinson, A.M., M.D., writes as follows in “Outing.” “The unanimous experience of the entire world of industry is that the shorter the hours of work, so far, the larger the output per labourer, the higher the wages, and the lower the percentage of labour cost in the product, A ten-hour day pays everybody concerned better than a twelve-hour day ; and an eight-hour than a ten-hour. How much further the reduction can profitably go remains to be seen. Yet the “successful man” element in every community has to be beaten over the head with a club, either in the form of a strike, or of factory and industrial legislation by indignant public sentiment, every time it is proposed to shorten hours and allow decent opportunity for healthgiving recreation in the open air to the slaves of the mine gallery, of the shop with its human chokedamp or disease-bearing dust, of the foundry that melts human lives in its furnaces as part of the raw material, or of the “stitch, stitch, stitch in poverty, hunger and dirt” in the garment factories, formerly known as sweat shops.”