Sir Lyon Playfair on Thursday gave an excellent speech, or
rather lecture, to his constituents in South Leeds, on the condi- tions of labour. He thinks workmen overrate the average profit on capital employed in industry, which is nowhere very high, and underrate the profit which may be obtained by extra skill, care, and industry. It is to the latter they must look for the reduction of hours. Wherever they were present, he was in favour of an eight-hours day ; but the State could not make the system universal, because in so doing it must accept responsibility for the success or failure of its Acts. He was strongly opposed to any legislation which would prevent the good workman from doing his best, because it was on his struggle towards an ever-improving ideal that progress mainly depended. That argument will not, we fear, weigh as it should, workmen almost universally dis- regarding the future ; but the other, about the necessity of a higher kind of labour, will. The artisan aristocracy can and will consent to that bargain, but the half-skilled and the unskilled dread a demand for intense, and above all for con- scientious, labour. It exasperates them, and they want the State to make their work not only short but easy. The State can do it, but only at the cost of a heavy reduction in wages.
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