The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection Part 8

Hence the very uniformity of the national and international maximum working-day of wage policy is a matter which calls up very grave considerations, which, however, we are not in a position to pursue any further in this book.

Even the complete prohibition of overtime work for the sake of meeting the acc.u.mulation of business, neither ensures a higher rate of wage per hour, nor a lasting removal and reduction of the superfluous supplies of labour. The very opposite result may ensue, at least, in all such branches of industry as undergo periodical oscillations of activity and depression, through the fluctuation of the particular demand on which they depend. If the effect on wages of the legal eight hours day is extremely doubtful, and the advisability of the measure more than questionable, we come in conclusion to ask very seriously whether the State is justified in enforcing more than the mere working-day of protective policy.

Without doubt the State ought to direct its social policy towards securing at least a minimum rate of wage compatible with a really human existence, as it does by Labour Insurance, for instance. It is a possible, though an extremely unlikely, case to suppose that it might take practical steps to realize the "proportional" or "fair" wage of _Rodbertus_ (although since the writings of _von Thunen_, theorists have sought in vain a method of determining this ideal measure), but even so, the practicability of such a course would have first to be demonstrated, and in my opinion this would probably be found to be not demonstrable.

But surely it has now been fully shown that it ought not to permit the sudden and general shortening of the working day by 20 to 30 per cent., an experiment the effects of which cannot be foreseen.

The State does not possess this right, either over property or labour.

It might affect injuriously the rate of wages of the whole labouring cla.s.s, or, at least, of such bodies of wage labourers as are employed in the production of such articles as are not actual necessaries of life.

The labourer might even have to bear the whole burden, since the rate of wages would suffer by this measure if a fall in national production were brought about without being counterbalanced by a lowering of the rate of profit and interest. The State has to take into consideration those considerable bodies of wage-labourers who (while keeping within the limits of the maximum working-day of protective policy) would rather work longer than earn less, and it will find it hard to justify to them the experiment of the eight hours day of a wage policy; for this would const.i.tute a very serious restriction of individual liberty for many workers, and those not by any means the least industrious or skilful.

Still we need not undertake here to work out the matter decisively from this point of view.

Will, however, the experiment be forced upon us? Who can deny this positively, in face of the irresistibly advancing democratic tendencies of const.i.tutional right in all countries? If it be forced upon us, it may, and most probably will, end in a great disappointment of the hopes of the Labour world.

It is perfectly clear that the decision of the matter rests with England. If this country does not lead the way, if she hesitates to enforce it in the face of the compet.i.tion of American, Asiatic, and soon, perhaps, of African labour, the experiment of a general eight hours day for the rest of Western Europe is not to be thought of. But in England it is precisely the aristocratic portion of the labouring cla.s.ses--the "old trades' unionists," the skilled labour--that has not not yet been won over to the side of the legal eight hours day, and it is doubtful whether it will yield to the leaders of unskilled labour: Burns, Tillett, and the rest. At the September Congress at Liverpool, in 1890, the Trade Unionist party brought forward in opposition to the general legal eight hours day, the eight hours optional day fixed by contract, in the motion of Patterson, if I have rightly understood the proposal. The motion was defeated by a majority of only eight (181 to 173).[12] If the legal eight hours day is rejected, does that preclude for all time the possibility of shortening the time of labour to less than the 10 or 11 hours factory day at present in force? By no means.

The fundamental error in the general legal working-day as it now stands, lies not in the a.s.sumption that it will gradually lead to a further shortening of the working-day, but in the a.s.sumption that the legal maximum working-day will bring about suddenly, generally, and uniformly results which in the natural course of economic and social development only the maximum working-day of free contract is calculated to bring about, and this gradually, step by step, tentatively, and by irregular stages; that is to say, that so material a shortening of the maximum working-day cannot possibly be attained to generally by any other means than by the shortening by free contract, here a little and there a little, of the maximum working-day within each industry and each country, and this equally outside as well as within the limits of factory and quasi-factory business. We may at all events be a.s.sured that the subst.i.tution of the legal eight hours day for the factory working-day of 10 or 11 hours is _not the next step to be taken_, but rather the further development of the maximum working-day of free contract by means of the continuous wage struggle between the organised forces of Capital and Labour to suit the unequal and varying conditions of place, time, and employment, in the various cla.s.ses of industry.

There is no objection to be offered to this manner of bringing about the shortening of the working-day. No one has any right or even any fair pretext for opposing it. No one need fear anything from the results of a general working-day introduced by this method, even if it should ultimately develop into the legalised maximum working-day of less than 10 hours.

There is the less reason for fear, as the working cla.s.ses themselves have the greatest interest in avoiding any step forward which would afterwards have to be retraced; the majority will prefer, within the limits of overwork, additional and more laborious working time with more wages, to additional recreation time and less wages.

Least of all does _Capital_ need to look forward with jealousy and suspicion to this visionary eight hours day which may lie in the lap of the future, but which will have come about, only gradually through a series of reductions _by contract_ of the working-day, each successive rise of wage and each successive shortening of the working-day having been occasioned by a steady improvement in technique, and a healthy increase of population. The sooner some such movement as this of the eight hours day, fixed by contract, ultimately perhaps by legislation, takes a firm hold, the more striking will be the improvement of technique, the more normal will become the growth of population, and the more peaceful and law-abiding will be the social life of the immediate future. Hence, I think we may contemplate the eight hours movement without agitation, and discuss it impartially, provided of course that the Labour Democracy is not permitted to tear down all const.i.tutional limitations upon its sole and undisputed sway.

The most important contribution that this chapter offers to the Theory and Policy of Labour Protection is then to show that the eight hours day of wage policy may be rejected, and may still be rejected, even if the 10 hours day, demanded on purely State protective grounds, is adopted.

The foregoing discussion will show conclusively that there is no question of the State pledging itself to Socialism by the purely protective regulation of the working-day.

Even from the standpoint of Social Democracy, the eight hours day as now demanded is not properly speaking a Socialistic demand at all. It may be that some of the leaders of the movement may seek by its means to weaken and undermine the capitalist system of production, but the demand does not in principle deny the right of private property in the means of production. The general eight hours day is an effort to favourably affect wages on the basis of the existing capitalist order. Not only the 11 hours or 10 hours day, but even the eight hours day would be no index of the triumph of Socialism. It may rather be supposed that the leaders of the movement thrust forward the eight hours day in order to be able to conceal their hand a little longer in the promised fundamental alteration of the "system of production." Therefore, we again repeat, even in face of the proclamation of a general eight hours day made at the "World's Labour Holiday," of May 1st, 1890, "There is no occasion to give the alarm!"

4. _The maximum working-day and the "normal working-day."_

What we understand by the maximum working-day--limitation (whether on grounds of protective policy or of wage policy) of the maximum amount of labour allowed to be performed within the astronomical day, by confining it within a certain specified number of hours--might also be called, and indeed used more frequently to be called, the "normal working-day." It is better, however, not to employ this alternative designation. When the word "normal working-day" is used in a special sense, it means something quite different from the maximum working-day; for it is a unit of social measurement by means of which it is supposed that we can estimate all labour performance however varying, both in personal differences and in differences of kind of work, so that we may arrive at a socially normal valuation of labour, and a socially normal scale of valuation of products. It is an artificial common denominator for the regulation of wages and prices which perhaps may be attained under the capitalist system, but which ultimately points to a socialistic commonwealth. The maximum working-day of protective right might exist side by side with the regulation of a "normal working-day," but it has no essential connection with it.

Hence we might pa.s.s by this normal working-day which is wholly unconnected with State protection, but we think it necessary to touch upon it. There still exists a confusion of ideas as to the maximum and "normal" working-days. The meaning of the latter is not formulated and fixed in a generally recognised manner. It is quite conceivable, nay even probable, if the Socialist fermentation among the labouring ma.s.ses should increase rapidly, that the proposal of a maximum working-day, will take the form of the "normal working-day," and that in the very worst and wildest development of the idea of normal working-time. This alone affords sufficient reason for our drawing a sharp distinction between the maximum working-day of protective legislation and the "normal working-day," and above all for clearly defining the meaning of the latter.

This is no easy task for several reasons.

The determination of the meaning of "normal working-day" includes two points: what we mean by fixing a normal, and what we should regard as "socially normal," _i.e._ just, fair, proportionate, and so on.

The normal working-day would be a State normalised working-day (as opposed to a restricted working-day) adopted for the purpose of preventing abnormal social and industrial conditions, and as far as possible restoring normal relations. This would be the widest meaning of normal working-day.

The maximum working-days of protective policy, and of wage policy, are, or aim at being, normal working-days in this widest sense. Both are working-days legally normalised for the purpose of obtaining by a development of protective policy, or of protective and wage policy combined, more normal conditions of work. But this does not make it advisable to adopt the alternative designation of normal working-day rather than of maximum working-day. There are several kinds of normal working-days in this wide sense, or at least we can conceive of several; even minimum working-days might be looked upon as normally regulated days. The term might designate the _normal_ working-day demanded on political, social, or educational grounds, perhaps even the maximum working-day which would secure to the worker every day leisure for the non-industrial occupations above mentioned; moreover it might designate a minimum normal working-day--almost indispensable under a communistic government--which would compulsorily fix a daily minimum of labour, and thereby ensure production adequate to the normal requirements of the whole community; another normal working-day, in the widest sense of the term, would be such a maximum working-day under a communistic government, as should aim at preventing the diligent from working more and earning more than others, and thereby destroying equality. None of these normal working-days (in the widest sense) concern us now; the existing social order does not require for its just and fair regulation the introduction of such normal working-days, and the _cura posterior_ of a socialism or communism which as yet possesses no practical programme is not a theoretically fruitful or practically important matter for discussion, at least not within the limits of this book. The normal working-day with which we need to concern ourselves here--and the term is still frequently used in this narrower sense, though not universally--is, as already indicated, that normal day which should serve as a general standard of a socially equitable--normal or more normal (compared to the old capitalist regulations)--valuation of the performances of labour, and of the products of labour, as a means of reducing the various individual performances of labour to proportional parts of a "socially normal" aggregate of the labour of the nation, and as a social measure of the cost of labour products, thereby serving as a means to a "socially normal" regulation of prices.

_Rodbertus_ is the writer who has most clearly sketched for us the idea of such a normal working-day. We shall best understand what is meant by it, by listening to this great economic thinker. _Rodbertus_ sought for a more normal regulation of wages, within the sphere of the existing social order, by the co-operation of capital and wage labour, giving to the wage labourer as to the employer his proportional share in the aggregate result of national production.

As a solution of this problem, he lays down a special normal _time_ labour-day and normal _work_ (amount of work) labour-day, by considering which two factors he proposes to arrive at a unit of normal labour which shall serve as a common basis of measurement.

In order to bring about the partic.i.p.ation of all workers in the nett result of national production in proportion to their contribution to it--hence without keeping down the better workers to the level of the worst, and without endangering productivity--it is necessary, Rodbertus holds, to reduce to a common denominator the amounts of work performed by individual workers, which vary very considerably both in quant.i.ty and quality. By this means he thinks we shall be enabled to establish a fair relation between work and wages. The normal _time_ labour-day is to furnish us with a simple measurement of the product of labour in different occupations or branches of industry; and the normal _work_ labour-day is to give us a common measure of all the varying amounts of work performed in equal labour time by the individual workers.

He points out that astronomically equal working time does not mean, in different industries, an equal out-put of strength during an equal number of hours, nor an equal contribution to society. Therefore the different industrial working-times must be reduced to a mean social working time: the normal _time_ labour-day. If this amounts to 10 hours, 6 hours work underground might equal 12 hours spinning or weaving work.

Or, which would be the same, the normal _time_ labour-day would be 6 hours in mining, and 12 hours in textile industries; the hour of mining work would be equal to 1-2/3 hours of normal time, the hour of textile work would be equal to 5/6 hour of normal time. The normal _time_ labour-day would serve to determine periodically the proportionate relations which exist between the degrees of arduousness in labour of different kinds, with a view to bringing about a just distribution of the whole products of labour according to the normal proportional value of its out-put in each kind of employment, in each department of industry, such proportional value being determined by means of the normal time measure. Also it would lead to the fair award of individual wage, for if any one were to work only 3 instead of 6 hours in coal mining, or only 5 hours in weaving or spinning, he would only be credited with and paid for half a day of normal working time.

The normal time day is not however sufficient to establish a just balance between performance of work and payment; for in an hour of the same industrial time value, one individual will work less, another more, one better, another worse. The combined interests of the whole community and the equitable wage relations of the different workers to each other, demand therefore the fixing of the normal performance of labour within a defined working time, in short the fixing of a unit of normal work.

Having normalised industry on a _time_ basis, we must now normalise it on a _work_ basis. And this is how _Rodbertus_ proposes to do it: According as the normal _time_ labour-day has been fixed in any trade at 6, 8, 10, or 12 hours (in proportion to the arduousness of the work, etc.), the normal amount of work of such a day must also be fixed for that trade, _i.e._ the amount of work must be determined which an average workman, with average skill and industry, would be able to accomplish in his trade during such a normal time labour-day. This amount of work shall represent in any trade the normal amount of work of a normal _time_ labour-day, and therewith shall const.i.tute in any trade the normal _work_ labour-day, which would be equal to what any workman must accomplish within the normal _time_ labour-day of his trade, before he can be credited with and paid for a full day, that is, a normal _work_ labour-day. Hence if a workman had accomplished in a full normal _time_ labour-day, either one and a half times the amount, or only half the amount of normal work, he would _e.g._ in the six hours mining day, for six hours work, be credited with a day and a half, or half a day respectively of normal work time; whilst in spinning and weaving, on the other hand, he would in the same way, for 12 hours work, be credited with one and a half or a half-day respectively of normal work time.

In this way _Rodbertus_ claims to be able to establish a fair measure and standard of comparison for labour times, not merely between the various kinds of trades and departments of industry, but also between the various degrees of individual efficiency. Each wage labourer would be able to partic.i.p.ate proportionately in that portion of the national product which should be a.s.signed to wage-labour as a whole. If therefore this portion were to be increased in a manner to which we shall presently refer, there would also be a rise in the share of the individual workers, in proportion to the rise in the nett result of national production. This scheme would form the groundwork of an individually just social wage system, a system by which the better workman would also be better paid, which would therefore balance the rights and interests of the workers among themselves, which moreover would ensure the productivity of national labour by variously rewarding the good and bad workers, thus recognising the rights and interests of the whole community, and lastly, which would continuously raise the labour-wage in proportion to the increase in national productivity (and also to the increasing returns of capital, whether fixed or moveable, applied to production).

I may here point out, however, that with all this we should not have arrived at an absolutely just system of remuneration of wage labour, unless we introduced a more complete social valuation of products in the form of normal labour pay instead of metal coinage.

But _Rodbertus_ wishes to see his "normal _work_ labour-day"--equal to 10 normal work hours--established as a universal measure of product value as well as of the value of labour: "Beyond and above what we have yet laid down the most important point of all remains to be established; the normal _work_ labour-day must be taken as the unit of _work time_ or _normal time_, and according to such work time or normal time (according to labour so computed) we must not only normalise the _value of the product_ in each industry, but must also determine the wages in each kind of work."

He claims that the one is as practicable as the other. First, with regard to regulating the value of product according to work time or normal work. In order to do this the "normal work labour-day"--which in any trade equals one day (in the various trades it may consist of a varying number of normal time hours), and which represents a quant.i.ty of product equal to a normal day's work--this normal work day must be looked upon as the unit of work time or normal work, and in all trades it must be divided into an equal number (10) of work hours. The product in all trades will then be measured according to such work time. A quant.i.ty of product which should equal a full normal day's work, whether it be the product of half a normal time labour-day, or of two normal time labour-days, would represent or be worth one work day (10 work hours); a quant.i.ty of product which should equal half a normal day's work, whether it be the product of a normal work time or not, would represent or be worth half a day's work or five work hours.

The product of a work hour in any trade would therefore, according to this measure, equal the product of a work hour in all other trades; or generally expressed: Products of equal work times are equal in value.

Such is approximately the scheme of _Rodbertus_.

A really normal labour-day--normal _time_ and normal _work_ labour-day--would be necessary in any regulated social system that sought on the one hand, in the matter of distribution of wages, to balance equally "the rights and interests of the workers amongst themselves"; and on the other hand, in the matter of productivity, to balance equally the "rights and interests of the workers with those of the whole community," by means of State intervention. It would therefore be necessary not merely in a State regulated capitalist society, with private property in the means of production, as _Rodbertus_ proposed to carry it out under a strongly monarchical system, but also and specially would it be necessary under a democratic Socialism, if, true to its principles as opposed to Communism, it aimed at rewarding each man proportionately to his performance, instead of allowing each man to work no more than he likes, and enjoy as much as he can, which is the communistic method.

The only difference would be this: that any socialistic system must divide the nett result of production--after deducting what is required for the public purposes of the whole community--in proportion to the amount of normal time contributed, and must make the distribution in products valued according to the cost of their production computed in normal time; whilst _Rodbertus_, who wishes to preserve private property, finds it necessary to add one more point to those mentioned: the periodical normalisation of wage conditions in all trades. He is very clear upon this point. "The State must require the rate of wage for the normal working-day in any trade to be regulated and agreed upon by the employers and employed among themselves, and must also ensure the periodical readjustment of these regulations and the increase in the rate of wages in proportion to the increase in the productivity of work."

But _Rodbertus_ clearly perceived the difference between a normalised capitalist system and a normalised socialism, neither communistic nor anarchist. Were the workers alone, he continues, ent.i.tled to a share in the national product value, every worker would have to be credited with and paid for the whole normal time during which he had worked, and the whole national product value would be divided amongst the workers alone. For instance, if a workman had accomplished one and a half normal day's work in his normal time working-day, he would be credited with 15 work hours, and paid accordingly; if he had only accomplished half a normal day's work in the whole of his normal time working-day, he would be credited with only five work hours. The whole national profit, which would be worth x normal work, would then go in labour wage, which would amount to x normal work. But such a state of things, which may exist in the imaginations of many leaders of labour is, according to Rodbertus, the purest chimera: "In no condition of society can the worker receive the whole product of his normal work, he can never be credited in his wage with the whole amount of normal work accomplished by him; under all circ.u.mstances there must be deducted from it what now appears as ground rent and interest on capital." Ground rent and interest on capital are, according to Rodbertus, remuneration for "indirect work" for the industrial function of directing or superintending production. "If therefore the worker has accomplished, in his normal time working-day, 10 hours of normal work, in his wages he will perhaps be only credited with _three_ work hours, in other words the product value of three work hours will be a.s.signed to him"; for the product value of one work hour would represent perhaps his contribution to the necessities of the State (taxes), and three work hours would have to go towards what is now called ground rent, and another three to interest on capital.

It is impossible here to enter upon a complete critical discussion of the practicability of the capitalist normal working-day, as conceived by Rodbertus; but I may be allowed in pa.s.sing to indicate one or two points of criticism.

I maintain my opinion expressed above, that the cost of production in terms of normal labour is not the only factor to be considered in the valuation of products and the regulation of wages; hence, I still claim that the social measure of value in terms of the cost of production cannot be applied to labour products or to labour contributions without reference to the rise and fall of their value in use. Should, however, the State eventually interfere in the regulation of wages and prices, then I allow that the normal working-day of Rodbertus would become of importance to us for that purpose. For the rest, I hold that it has by no means been proved that such an exercise of interference could succeed even under a monarchical government based on private property, far less under a democratic government with a socialistic system of owners.h.i.+p.

Neither do I regard it as proved that this method of State normalisation would actually achieve the establishment of a more normal state of affairs than can be arrived at in a social system where freely organised self-help is the rule, _i.e._ where both cla.s.ses, Capital and Labour, can combine freely among themselves within the limits of a positive code safeguarding the rights of the workers. The direction taken by modern industrial life towards the harmonious conciliation of both cla.s.ses, by means of the wage-list, the wage-tariff, and the sliding scale with a fixed minimum wage for entire branches of industry, and so forth, promises an important advance towards the establishment of a more normal wage-system.

In considering the question of the working-day as an instrument for affecting wages, it will be found that on the whole perhaps as much, or even more, may be achieved (and with fewer countervailing disadvantages) by the maximum working-day of free contract, varying according to trade, than by the normal working-day in the narrow meaning which Rodbertus has given to the term.

The complete elimination of the capitalist individualistic method of determining wages and prices, in favour of the measurement by "normal time" and "normal work" alone, would be open to grave objections both in theory and practice. Above all there is the practical danger of overburdening the State with the task of regulating and normalising, a task which only the most confirmed optimism would dare to regard lightly. It appears to me exceedingly doubtful at the present whether any State, even the most absolute monarchy with the best administration, would be competent to undertake such a task. I can see no likelihood of satisfaction on this point for some time to come, and must therefore range myself on the side of those who claim a better chance of success for the simpler method of improved organisation for the free settlements of wage-disputes by united representatives of both cla.s.ses. But these and similar investigations are beyond the range of the main subject under discussion in this book.

My task is to prove that the maximum working-day of protective policy, or of protective and wage-policy, has nothing to do with the normal working-day in its strict sense--whether it be the normal working-day of Rodbertus separately adjusted in separate branches of industry, or the all-round normal working-day of non-communistic socialism. The normal working-day in the precise sense of Rodbertus, or even in the sense of the more rational socialists, affords an artificially fixed unit of value for the equitable determination of wages and prices; but it is neither a regulation by protective legislation of the longest permissible duration of the work within the astronomical day, nor a method of influencing the capitalistic settlement of wages by the legal enforcement of a much shorter maximum working-day. A normal working-hour would serve as well as a normal working-day for a common denominator for the uniform reduction of the various kinds of work to one normal measure of time and labour, with a view to the valuation of the products and contributions of labour.

It may be said that the normal working-day, in the sense of Rodbertus, by virtue of its being a matter periodically fixed and prescribed, is a normal working-day also in that wider sense in which the term may equally be applied to the maximum working-day of protective policy. But it cannot claim the t.i.tle of normal working-day from the fact of this _fixity_ or this _artificial regulation_, but only from the essential fact that it serves the purpose of a valuation of labour products and labour contributions on a scale which is really normal, _i.e. socially just and equitable_.

The importance from a theoretic point of view of a distinction between the maximum working-day and the normal working-day would of itself have justified our dwelling on the foregoing details. But these details are also of practical importance in considering the policy of the ten hours day of Labour Protection, as against the legal eight hours day. One word more on this point: _the eight hours day threatens to ultimately develope, should Socialism as an experiment ever be tried, into a normal working-day of the worst possible kind_.

Democratic Socialism has, hitherto at least, adopted on its party programme no formulary of the normal working-day required by it. It will scarcely find a better formulary than that of _Rodbertus_ (omitting the periodical re-adjustment of the whole share of Labour as against Capital, see pp. 123, 124). The normal measure of _Rodbertus_ would be an incomparably superior method to that of regarding as equal all astronomic labour time without respect to differences in the arduousness of the labour in the various trades, no attempt being made to determine the unit of normal work per normal time-day or normal time-hour. But would Democratic Socialism have really any other course open to it than to treat all labour time as equal, and so to bring about the adoption of a socialistic normal time of the most disastrous type, viz. the submergence of the _socially normal working-day_ in the _general maximum working-day_?

To the enormous difficulties, technical and administrative, inherent in the normal labour time of Rodbertus, would inevitably be added the special and aggravated difficulties arising from the overpowering influence of the ma.s.ses under a democratic "Social State," on the regulation of normal time. Social Democracy, as a democracy, would almost necessarily be forced to concede the most extreme demands for equality, _i.e._ the claim that the labour hour of every workman should be treated as equal to that of every other workman, without regard to degrees of severity, without regard to differences of kind, and without regard to degrees of individual capacity and the fluctuations of value in use. In any case the Social State would probably not dare to emphasize in the face of the ma.s.ses the extraordinary differences of normal labour in astronomically equal labour time, _i.e._ it might not venture to a.s.sign different rewards to equal labour times on account of differences in the labour. And yet if it failed to recognise those differences Social Democracy would be doomed from the outset.

It can thus be easily understood why Social Democracy has. .h.i.therto evaded her own peculiar task of precisely determining a practicable, socialistic, normal working-day.

There were two ways in which it was possible to do this: either by merely agitating for an exaggeration of the maximum working-day of capitalist Labour Protection, or by adhering to the communistic view which altogether denies the necessity for any reduction to normal time.

And we find in fact among Social Democrats, if we look closely, traces of both these views.

According to the strict requirements of the Socialists, not only a maximum working-day, but also and especially a minimum working-day ought properly speaking to be demanded in order to meet the dire and recognised needs of the large ma.s.ses of the people. Instead of this, Social Democracy holds out the flattering prospect of a coming time in which the working-day for all will be reduced to two or three hours, so that after the need for sleep is satisfied, at least twelve hours daily may be devoted to social intercourse, art and culture, and to the hearing or delivering of lectures and speeches. No attention whatever is paid to the trifling consideration, that either there might be a continual increase in the population and a growing difficulty in obtaining raw material for the purposes of production; or on the other hand that the population might remain stationary or decrease, and therewith progress in technique and industrial skill might come to an end.

While more and more the hopes of the people are being excited by promises of great results from the progressive shortening of the maximum working-day--through the increased productivity of labour--still we hear nothing with reference to the normal working time, or the regulation by it of values of products and labour. The party has not yet, to my knowledge, committed itself at all on this point; it is probable therefore that it has not arrived at possessing a clearly worked out conception of this, the very foundation question of the socialistic, non-communistic "Social State"; still less has it any programme approved by the majority of the party.