Why not ? The one and all-sufficing answer was that
the cost of production in Britain was much too high. The average employer declared that wages must be reduced. He did not deny that wages might have to be reduced, but he suggested very earnestly that a beginning might be made, not by reducing wages, but by increasing the number of hours worked. To propose an increase of hours is not, of course, the brutal pro- position which some people pretend that it is. Hours were shortened- immoderately owing to the pernicious doctrine that there would be more jobs to go round if everybody worked rather less. There was no urgent question of " more leisure" or " more rest " or " more opportunities for recreation." Lord Weir pointed out that the increase in the cost of British products last year owing to the shortened work might be estimated at over £200,000,000. That £200,000,000, he declared, could be wiped out at once with no reduction of wages.
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