The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY,APRIL 3,1912. LABOUR PROBLEMS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 82, 3 April 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY,APRIL 3,1912. LABOUR PROBLEMS.

Lecturing in Manchester recently. Professor Hobhouse dealt with tm social and economic claims of labour, and touched upon the great industrial problems confronting the world at this time. He expressed the view that the claims of labour could, beroughly stated in the old-fashioned phrase of a fair day's wage for a fair day's,,,work. The question'was what did. "fair"i .'.mean.,, , Was.'' there any scientific standard by .which impartial people 'could judge? The question was not hl one for the economist pure and simple, who was concerned with the:actual facts of wages, but rathei for the sociologist, who could rightlj consider the economic facts alid ethical ideals in relation to one another. As to the "fair day's work," the difficulty was not so great. It would be generally agreed that it should bear a close relation to the strain put upon physical and mental energies. A man's work ought to give full exercise to his faculties and never to overtax them, and wherever work was adjusted to this equation there a fair day's work was being done. This implied considerable differences between one occupation and another. Many brain workers-found five hours a day their limit. If they attempted more they affected less. On the other hand, a man might be on duty for ten or twelve hours, and have little consecutive effort to tax him. A man or woman needed leisure from regular work, however, even if it were light in itself, and the more mechanical the work the greater the need of ample time for exercising the more human faculties and living the life of a civilised being. The "fair" wage wa? something much less easy to define on any comprehensive principle. On? might say that in any transaction a fair apportionment was one which gave back to each man value equal to that which he had put in. What the manual worker expended was his energy; the expenditure involved .1 certain waste of tissue, and the value equal to that was at least such a wage as made good that waste. The worker put out so much muscular energy in the day. Like a steam engine, he must be fed, or he would run down; but though like a steam engine in requiring a supply of energy from without, the worker was very unlike the steam engine in two things. On the one hand he could not work unceasingly ,aud yet must be kept going during the hours of rest. On the other hand—unfortunately for him in the world of competition—be could make shift to do for a time without enough coal. Thus the equation between intake of food and output of energy only worked itself out in course of time. It was only by degrees tint insufficient food, bad bousing, want of warmth, lack of proper clothing would tell on the health, and through health on the efficiency of work. Hence low wages might pay if there was no necessity to retain the workman over the time in which their iileffects would have begun to tell on his work. The worker would not regard his wage as a fair one unless it were enough to repay him for what he put into his work; that was his strength, and it depended upon his health. The lecturer quoted figures

from Mr Rowntrce’s works showing that .32 per cent, of the adult male workers in England earn less than 25 s a week, and lie gave reasons fm thinking that none of them would he earning a fair wage in the sense defined. This grave deficiency of remuneration was the source of labour troubles, and constituted the greatest economic problem of the day.