THE EIGHT-HOUR DAY. T HE wretched strife in the engineering trade
continues, and the range of its baleful and paralysing activity grows wider. Within the last few days it has become known that a score or so of cycle manufacturers at Notting- jaam and the great houses at Oldham which make textile machines for half the world have decided to join in the lock-out policy. On such facts as these the fighting captains of the mighty industry concerned congratulate themselves, as showing the hardening of the employers' resolve to stand no more nonsense from the Trade-Unions. The Unions, on their part, adhere to their tactics—mis- taken, as it seems to us, even from the purely belligerent point of view—of promptly calling out the remaining 75 per cent. of their members wherever the masters begin by locking them out in batches of 25 per cent. It is esti- mated that for the past two weeks some seventeen thousand have been, and that next week about twenty thousand members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers may be, out of employment through the dispute. That is, indeed, by no means so large a number as was, at the out- set, expected by the employers to be thrown on the funds of the Society by this time; but if, as we understand, the strike and lock-out pay is at the rate of 15s. per week per man, and if the Society continues to pay, as it has been doing in some places, some 8s. a week each to large numbers of non-unionist engineers who have come out on strike in support of their unionist brethren, there can be no doubt that the drain is a very severe one. Nor is it difficult to show, as the special correspondent of the Tinie.s did on Tuesday, that the finances of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers do not appear to be in a position to endure such a drain for many weeks without endangering their ability to meet the various claims for sick, superannua- tion, and other benefits, which it is certainly most undesirable, even if it would be legal, for the Society's authorities to put aside in favour of the charges of war. Any expectations, however, of the early collapse of the fighting power of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and kindred Unions engaged in the present struggle, that may be based on such calculations as those just mentioned, fail to take account of other material circumstances. Even if twenty thousand members of the " Amalgamated " Society should Lbe out of work next week through the dispute, it is reasonable, as the Manchester Guardian points out, to reckon that sixty thousand members will still be employed, and at good wages ; and all those sixty thousand will be liable to levies in support of the men engaged in the fight. So far—and this is very important —the levies raised on members of the Society in work are stated to have provided a very large proportion of the sums distributed to the men out of work, and there seems good reason to suppose that the spirit which the conflict has evoked will cause even heavier levies to be met readily. In addition to the special resources thus available—though it would hi very unwise for the engineers to count on any- thing further—considerable sums will very possibly be forthcoming from the members of other Trade-Unions, who hold both that the present dispute has been unwarrantably forced on the engineers in the provinces, and that it is very undesirable for any great Union to be defeated in a pitched battle on the subject of the hours of labour. It is also quite conceivable that the general public might, if the necessity arose, contribute sub- stantially to prevent the complete triumph of the employers in a struggle which was not begun by them in a manner calculated to excite widespread sympathy, and which their leader, Colonel Dyer, maintains, in the state- ment on his part, issued on Wednesday, in a tone hardly worthy of issues so serious.
The long manifesto, which also Colonel Dyer, as Pre- sident, signs on behalf of the federated employers, in the Times of Thursday, is a graver document ; but its effect is appreciably diminished by the light thrown by the less formal utterance immediately preceding it, on the temper in which the masters are led. It will not do to dismiss the fact that the forty-eight hour week is and has been for years worked at important engineering establishments in different parts of the country as unworthy of con- sideration, because the gentlemen at their head are either ex-M.P.'s who "cherish the fond hope of again finding a seat in the House of Commons," or "philanthropists whose ancestors made a large fortune by not working forty-eight hours a week." That kind of thing is poor both in humour and in taste, and it cannot conciliate public sympathy to know that cases pointing against the view taken by the federated engineering employers are dealt with at the headquarters of the Federation in the spirit thus illustrated. Nevertheless there is a general desire to see all that can be advanced on both sides of the eight-hour question, and though we do not think that the masters' fresh recital of the manner in which the present conflict began will carry widely the conviction that their organisation is a powerful agency in support of " indus- trial peace," we are glad to recognise that they have put forward strongly some at least of the main arguments by which the London engineers' demand for a reduction of the working week from fifty-four to forty-eight hours is opposed. It means, say the employers, six hours' play a week, or nearly six weeks' holiday in the year, paid for as if that time had been worked. That alone, they maintain, would obviously be a heavy handicap upon them in their efforts to obtain a share of the markets of the world. To the contention that a man can produce as much in eight hours as he can in nine they reply, with polite incredulity, that it has not been shown to be the fact. "But," they continue, " what- ever may be the truth as regards the man, it is plain that a machine is incapable of turning out as much work in forty-eight hours as in fifty-four, unless there has hitherto been a deliberate restriction of output. It is true that workmen in charge of machines do restrict the output ; and the growth of the evil is a matter of great concern to employers. But the concession of an eight-hour day would be no guarantee against the continuance of dilatory tactics. And assuming a machine to be worked at its full capacity, it is manifest that it must produce more the longer it is worked. What the Amalgamated Society of Engineers requires, therefore, is not merely an additional holiday of six weeks a year for each man, but an additional holiday of six weeks a year for each machine, whose work is infinitely more costly. Clearly the cost of manufacture would be enhanced enormously, and it is cost which tells against British goods in foreign markets. Hitherto British commodities have held their own, so far as they have held it, in consequence of their superior quality. But this advantage is bound to dis- appear as machine-work displaces hand-work, and, invited to decide between two machine-made articles varying only or mainly in price, the foreign buyer will naturally choose the cheaper."
That is the kernel of the federated employers' case against the eight-hour day, and it is compactly and effectively put. We do not question that it contains much of the truth. It is, no doubt, the fact that the mechanical element in engineering production has been greatly developed in recent years, and that machine - tools are ever being improved, so that they do more and more what used formerly, if done at all, to require the exercise both of manual skill and of mental activity on the part of the workman. These machine-tools are often very costly, and their standing idle for a ninth part of the time during which at present they are worked may well be a prospect calculated to excite apprehension in their owners. More than that, it must be acknowledged that in the case of engineering pro- ducts, in which cheapness is the one thing, or the chief thing, desired by the purchaser, the diminution in the pro- ducing power of their machinery, which would be caused by the adoption of the eight-hour day, might quite con- ceivably result in British producers being undersold by their foreign competitors, whose workmen are already employed for longer hours at much lower wages. We must, however, express our strong doubt whether, in the long run, it is in respect of their cheapness that the pro- ducts of British engineering establishments, any more than of other British manufactures, will hold their own in the world's markets. Not only now, but in future we believe, and we are convinced that British master engineers themselves very largely recognise, that it is mainly on special quality that they must rely—quality alike of material and of finish—for the maintenance of their position in the face of foreign competition. And that special quality is to be obtained by that human element in the processes of production which the federated employers' manifesto relegates to a distinctly subordinate position. The modern machine-tools are, no doubt, in some cases to a very large extent automatic in their operation, but many of the most competent employers will tell you that it LS just as important as ever it was to have highly skilled workmen in charge, not of all, but of a large proportion of engineering operations. Many machine-tools have to be very carefully set and watched, and while any incom- petence or neglect in the charge of them entails upon the employer in a few minutes a large loss, special skill and zeal doubtless serve to secure a high standard both of quantity and quality in the output. It must be to some considerable extent the superiority of the human element in engineering production, together with cheapness of raw material, that has made it possible for British engineering employers during the past year or two to keep their works so fully employed in meeting the world's demands, notwith- standing the longer hours worked and the lower wages paid abroad, on which the masters' manifesto lays so much stress.
If so, a demand put forward at one part of the field of engineering production, in the alleged interest of the human element in that production, cannot be regarded as having been proved unreasonable by the line of argu- ment to which we have called attention. If the federated employers wish to convince the public that it was vital to them to resist such a demand, even at the cost of a struggle so disastrous as the present one—a struggle which is certain, during each week that it lasts, to send many customers abroad, whence they will, perhaps, never return—they must show that they have carefully weighed the arguments put forward in support of an eight-hour day by employers who have tried it. They must show that they have weighed the importance of getting workmen thoroughly contented, and with all their powers of mind and body throughout the working day at their fullest intensity. They must show that they have weighed all the economies in lighting, in lubri- cants, and in broken time which it is alleged that the eight-hour system secures. It is quite possible that they may have done so, but the manifesto published on Thursday does not prove it. It is an able, but a one- sided and insufficient, document. On the other hand, the operative engineers would occupy a much stronger posi- tion than they do if they were frankly to abandon the whole policy of restriction of output, which is alike inequitable to the masters and in the long run injurious to the working classes. In this respect the Amalgamated Society of Engineers presents an unfavourable contrast to the great Unions of the cotton operatives and the boiler- makers, and it is certain that no permanently satisfactory settlement of the engineering industry can be arrived at till the principle of every man doing his best is definitely adopted.
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