THE EIGHT HOURS' PROBLEM.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 2950, 11 June 1891, Page 4

THE EIGHT HOURS' PROBLEM.

Jn a recent speech on commercial topics, the Marquis of Salisbury thus referred, amount other subjects, to the Eight Hours' Movement, and his remark* thereon show a keen insight into and a thorough appreciation of tho difficulties surrounding any legislative action in tho mattor: — This desire,hesaid,to use the public power for the purpose of controlling tho action of other men has taken one particular form in tho desire that the Legislature shall interfere to require that in one particular indnstry—the mining industry—men shall work only eight hours a day. Now, Ido not in the least cavil atthe spirit in which this has been urged by men who have not had a long experience of political power, and who have not considered all the results to which political facts may lead. The desire that, as a rule, human labour way limited to eight hours a day is a desiro for which I have a groat respect, fori believe that, as a rule, eight hours' work—all employment is not work-—is quite as much labour of tho muscles'or tension of tho brain as an average man can give. But that, is quite a different thing from requiring that it should bo imposed by Act of Parliament. (Hear, hear.) By all means let all legitimate pressnre of opinion be n.sed in all trades and industries to which it is suitable. There are industries where the labour is continuous ; there are iudustries where the labour is interrupted. You cannot make any rule for all. By all means let it be adopted where it can, but in this country we have adopted a rule with respect to the interference of Parliament to which we have up to this point steadily adhered, and which I do not believe any Parliament will depart from with impunity. Our rule is, with respect to the labour of those who are unprotected, women and children. Parliament is right, to interfere: that with respect to all the causes that affect the health of the community Parliament has the right to interfere with industry ; but that with the ordinary labour of the adult man Parliament has not a right to interfere. (Prolonged cheers.) And I believe if you once leave that sound ground of principle, if you once pass the rubicon which separates you from the domain of Socialism, you will part with your commercial and industrial supremacy, anil some decades or generations hence will shrink back to your old ground with all that lost for which you once might have struggled. (Cheers.) I see there are persons who say that it ought to be confined to miners, and that it is absurd to extend it to any other vocation, but that as the majority of miners—it is not the whole body—wish it, it ought to lie enacted for them. But arc they so simple as to think, if such a principle can be introduced and can he made to work, it will not be ex tended to other industries? How are you to separate the miner from the quavrytiian, the quarry man from the navvy who works on the railway, or the navvy from the other labourers upon the railway ? You will find that eich industry is chained to another industry by a link of arguments you cannot break (hear, hear), and that, having conceded it in the matter of mines, if it can be sustained, which I greatly doubt, the pressure will be very strong to extend it to other industries as well. But my belief is that it will not work at all. Parliament uses such grand language in its enactments that it has got to believe that it is omnipotent, but that is a very great mistake. Parliament is a potent engine, and its enactments almost always do something, but they very seldom do what the originators of these enactments meant. (Laughter.) The result, to use a technical phrase, is the resultant of a composition of two forces, and the two forces are the enacting force of Parliament and the evading force of the individual. (Laughter.) If the enactment squares with the public conscience, it will be carried out ; if it has been adopted as tho result of agitation, or at the bidding of a class, if it overrides the rights of minorities and tramples on principles which the conscience of the natiou approves, that Act of Parliament will have no effect in obtaining the objects for which it was made, but it will have an effect in surrounding the industry which it touches with precaution and investigations, inspections and regulation, in which it will he slowly enveloped and stilled. Take this question of mines. Supposing to that the price of coal is high and labour is scarce, and a number of men desire to sell their spare labour, their labour after eight hours a day, for the purpose of meeting a great public want, do you imagine you could send these men to prison ? Do you imagine, if you did Bend them to prison, that they would not have a thousand ways of concealing within the law what they were doing ? And your only means of carrying out this sinister object of the law would be to multiply regulations and to appoint inspectors until the gradually lengthening coils of red tape would stifle and throttle the industry which you are touching. (Cheers.)