PROOF-PRIVATE. 

Fabian Tract No. 48 . 


T HE Eight Hours Movement is at present waiting for the question of 
method to be settled. The general proposition that the State should 
step in to limit the number of hours in the working day to eight is 
popular enough. But general propositions are like resolutions of the 
House of Commons : they can only be given effect to by the passing 
.Of a Bill laying down the exact method by which the resolution is to 
be carried out. The whole country might be unanimous in fa,·or of 
the Eight Hours Day ; and yet nothing could be done until some 
practicable plan of enforcing it were embodied in a Parliamentary 
Bill, and passed into law. 

Some years ago the Fabian Society, seeing that this practical 
point must be faced, appointed a Comni.ittee to draw up a Bill. The 
result was what is now known as The Trade Option Bill, so-e<1lled 
because it left to every trade the option of putting itself under the 
Eight Hours law or not, according to its own view of its interests. 
T he Trade Union Congress of 1892 (Glasgow) turned the Trade 
Option Bill inside out by voting that it should apply to all trades except 
those which made a special demand to be exempted from it. 
This new proposal was called The Trade Exemption Scheme. The 
Fabian Society then appointed another Committee to draw up a 
Trade Exemption Bill, so as to meet the view" of the Trade Congress. 
The Committee did the best it could, but had to report that the 
working of Trade Exemption would be too expensive, troublesome, 
and complicated to be practicable, and that both Option and Exemption 
were unsound in principle. As an alternative it proposeJ a new 
scheme, called Trade Selection, which now stands as the b~st practical 
solution the Fabian Society is able to arrive at. 

In the meantime, some of the minor provisions of the originalTrade Option Bill had been embodied in the Factory Act of r8 ... ; 
and the Bill, being thus out-of-date, was withdrawn from circulation 
by the Society. The principle of Trade Option, however, had been 
taken up in various quarters, and is still before the public. The Trade 
Exe:nption Scheme is also in the field, as the decision of the Trade 
Congress in its favor has not been reversed. 

Besides these three schem(!S1 there is an uncompromising proposal 

to cut the Gordian knot by what is called a" Universal Bill," enacting 

simply that after it becomes law no employer shall employ any person

for hire more than forty-eight hours in one week under stringent 

penalties. 


2 
The country has thus before it four distinct methods ofestablishing 
2 
The country has thus before it four distinct methods ofestablishing 
an Eight Hour working day by law. They are :


I. Trade Option. 
2. Trade Exemption. 
3· Trade Selection. 
4· The Universal Bill. 
A scheme of Trade and Local Option, propused by11Mr. Tom Mann, 
and a modification of it proposed by Mr. W. Mather, M.P., may also 
be mentioned as samples of the suggestions arising out of the four 
leading plans. They will be described in their place later on. The 
object of the present pamphlet is to put the reader in possession of all 

.· 
the proposals made up to the date of publication, with those con-
siderations for and against which must be taken into account by 
every citizen and Trade Unionist before he can vote intelligently on 
the question. 
The Need for a General Bill. 
It must be especially kept in mind by middle class readers that 
the workers for weekly wages, whose votes will settle the Eight 
Hours question one way or the other, are not divided as between 
eight hours and nine, twelve, or sixteen. None of them want to work 
more than eight hours if they can help it, except by way of overtime 
The real question is whether each trade shall win the eight hour day 
separately for itself as the nine hour day has been won by some of 
them, or whether a general law shall impose it at one stroke on all 
trades. To the well-organised and consequently powerful trades, a 
general law means hampering themselves with the cau e of the mas 
of unskilled labor and multiplying the resistance of their own em-
ployers by that of the whole capitalist and employing interest in the 
country. The Northumberland and Durham miners, who, throughthe interaction of the Ten Hours for boys and the two-shift system 
haYe succeeded in reducing the hours of the hewers to seven per day 
or less ; and the Lancashire operatiYes, who have but one step to 
make from their legal Nine-and-a-half Hours to eight, will certainly 
use their practically perfect organisation to push forward the separate 
measures which they advoc~te for the limitation of their hours with-
out waiting until the other trades have advanced to their position.
On the other hand, the poorer and weaker trades, and the unskilled 
laborers, constituting the great mass of the population, are powerless 
except in combination with the whole body of labor, and are there-
fore in favor of a general law. Finally, there are trades which, 
though not powerful in themselves, can win Eight Hours separately 
through general outside support because their long hours of work are 
dangerous to the public. This is the case with the railway servants, 
in whose favor eyery collision acts as an unanswerable and terrible 
argument.
On the whole, the tendency among the best organised and most 
powerful , but least numerous ections of the working classe , is to 
solve the question piecemeal, trade by trade. But this section is also 
the least numerous and the least sweated ; and it has gained its 

3 

position only under the special protection of the State through 
Factory legislation. The piecemeal method which it favors would 
not help the mass of workers, who are comparatively unprotected byexisting legislation, and are too numerous and too cheap in the labor 
market to form really powerful organisations. Besides, if separate 
Eight Hour Acts had to be agitated for and brought forward and 
passed through the House of Commons on behalf of each of our 
I I ,ooo odd different trades, the whole time of Parliament would be 
required for many years for this one subject. This consideration 
alone puts piecemeal legislation out of the question. A general Bill 
is absolutely necessary. 

This conclusion brings us face to face with a formidable difficulty. 
A general Bill must apply alike to agricultural laborers and factory 
operatives, miners and members of " season trades," sailors and 
lawyers' clerks. Now it is not physically possible to bring industries 
so different as these under the same set of regulations. There must 
be separate regulations for separate industries ; so that here we appear 
to be landed back again in piecemeal legislation after all, just as we 
have shewn piecemeal legislation to be insufficient. There is only 
one way out of the dilemma ; and that is to pass a general law providing 
for piecemeal regulation. We must establish by law an administrative 
body whose business it shall be, without further intervention 
from Parliament, to establish such regulations in each trade 
as shall secure to the workers the benefit of an eight hours workingday. A practicable Eight Hour Bill must include the constitution of 
such a body-let us call it an Eight Hour Commission. Further, it 
must be capable of being put into operation promptly, and of beingadapted by the Commission to the requirements of all the various 
trades. And it must, of course, conform to the general principles of 
democratic legislation by making the welfare of the whole community 
paramount. Private interests and trade interests, whether advanced 
by Labor or Capital, must not be accommodated at the expense of 
national and international interests. The schemes about to be 
described must be judged with constant reference to these general 
principles. 

Trade Selection. 

Under this scheme the Home Secretary (pending the creation of 
a Minister for Labor) would be compelled to hold an enquiry into the 
duration of the hours of labor in a trade or industry (a) when directed 
to do so by either House of Parliament; (b) when requested to do so 
by a County Council, a Town Council, a duly registered Trade Union 
of the trade, or a Trades Council where there is no union ; (c) on a 
special report from an Inspector of Factories. For the purposes of 
such an enquiry the Home Secretary would be bound to appoint a 
Commission of three persons, one of whom must be a Factory Inspector, 
and one a woman in the case of trades employing women. 
The enquiry would embrace all trades directly dependent on the one 
mainly in question. The Commission would have all the powers 
necessary to enable it to prosecute its enquiries, including power to 


trade or industry and the community ; (c) what reduction of the 
hours of labor in the trade or industry was desirable, what should be 
the length of the working day and week, and what allowance should 
be made for emergencies, seasons, etc. ; (d) whether the case was a 
suitable one to be dealt with by the local authorities of the districts 
affected by the trade or industry. The report, together with those 
parts of the evidence which were not confidential, would be printedand laid before Parliament. 
Within three months after the presentation of the report, the 
Home Secretary would be bound either to report to Parliament his 
reasons for taking no action, or, if he determined to take action, to 
draw up an Order containing either (a) regulations prescribing the 
length of the working day and week, with such exceptions as he 
might deem advisable for emergencies, seasons, &c.; or (b) conferring 
upon County Councils and Town Councils in defined districts the 
power of regulating the hours of labor in the trade within limits 
specified in the Order. The Order, of either kind, would be laid 
before Parliament, and after the lapse of forty days would become 
law, unless the H ouse before the expiration of that time presented an 
address to the Crown against the Order or any part thereof. No 
request to vary or revoke an Order, or for a fresh enquiry after an 
Order had been refused by the Home Secretary, would be admissible 
until the expiry of one year from the date of the Home Secretary's 
report to Parliament. The same process of enquiry by a Commis-
sion would have to precede any fresh decision by the Minister. 
The local authorities specified in an Order of class (b), or any of 
them, would be permitted to combine together for the purposes of 
the Order. Before a bye-law, adopted by a local authority for the 
regulation of the hours of labor in a trade, became law, it would 
have to be submitted to the H ome Seeretary, in order that he might 
see that it complied with the terms of his Order. Before a local 
authority could vary such a bye-law, they would have to receive 
power to do so by a fresh Order. 
Precedents. 
The object of the propo ed Act is to get a continuous process of 
legislation without perpetual application to Parliament. The method 
suggested is a development of the practice of regulation by provi-
trade or industry and the community ; (c) what reduction of the 
hours of labor in the trade or industry was desirable, what should be 
the length of the working day and week, and what allowance should 
be made for emergencies, seasons, etc. ; (d) whether the case was a 
suitable one to be dealt with by the local authorities of the districts 
affected by the trade or industry. The report, together with those 
parts of the evidence which were not confidential, would be printedand laid before Parliament. 
Within three months after the presentation of the report, the 
Home Secretary would be bound either to report to Parliament his 
reasons for taking no action, or, if he determined to take action, to 
draw up an Order containing either (a) regulations prescribing the 
length of the working day and week, with such exceptions as he 
might deem advisable for emergencies, seasons, &c.; or (b) conferring 
upon County Councils and Town Councils in defined districts the 
power of regulating the hours of labor in the trade within limits 
specified in the Order. The Order, of either kind, would be laid 
before Parliament, and after the lapse of forty days would become 
law, unless the H ouse before the expiration of that time presented an 
address to the Crown against the Order or any part thereof. No 
request to vary or revoke an Order, or for a fresh enquiry after an 
Order had been refused by the Home Secretary, would be admissible 
until the expiry of one year from the date of the Home Secretary's 
report to Parliament. The same process of enquiry by a Commis-
sion would have to precede any fresh decision by the Minister. 
The local authorities specified in an Order of class (b), or any of 
them, would be permitted to combine together for the purposes of 
the Order. Before a bye-law, adopted by a local authority for the 
regulation of the hours of labor in a trade, became law, it would 
have to be submitted to the H ome Seeretary, in order that he might 
see that it complied with the terms of his Order. Before a local 
authority could vary such a bye-law, they would have to receive 
power to do so by a fresh Order. 
Precedents. 
The object of the propo ed Act is to get a continuous process of 
legislation without perpetual application to Parliament. The method 
suggested is a development of the practice of regulation by provi-
4 
examine witnesses on oath, to compel the production of time-books 
and other documents relating to the hours of labor, and to inspectfactories and workshops. In order to ascertain whether the workers 
in a trade were in favor of a reduction of the hours of labor in that 
trade, the Commissioi1 would have power to direct a vote to be taken 
by ballot of the employes in the factories and workshops concerned, 
where they deemed it feasible; or thty might proceed by holdingpublic meetings, or by calling witnesses. 

At the conclusion of the enquiry, the Commission would have to 
report (a) what appeared to be the prevalent opinion among the 
members of the trade or industry as to the reduction of their hours 
of labor by law ; (b) the probable effect of such reduction on the 


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sional orders which forms so large a part of ·modern law-making. 
These orders come into operation either after being legalised by an 
Act of Parliament, or, without express Parliamentary confirmation, 
after being before both Houses for a given time and not being 
objected to either by resolution or address to the Crown. The 
Endowed Schools Acts, the Factory Acts, and the Local Government 
Act, 188/l, contain specimens of the procedure adopted in this 
scheme. Under the Factory Act, the Home Secretary has discretionary 
power to prescribe by Order the hours between which persons 
engaged in various occupations are to work; to determine 
whether certain classes of workers are to be allowed to work at 
night, and to exclude certain industries altogether from the Act, 
provided that the Order shall be laid before both Houses of Parliament 
for forty days, within which time it may be annulled by resolution 
of either House. Under the Trade Selection Scheme, the 
power of objecting to a Secretary of State's Order is taken away 
from the House of Lords, which does not in any way representindustry; and the action of the House of Commons is limited to an 
address to the Crown, in order to prevent vexatious inten·ention. 

Precedents may be found in the Education Acts and Public 
Health Acts for requiring local enquiries into matters of detail as a 
preliminary to legislation. The Public Health Acts also contain 
abundant precedents for allowing local authorities to make bye-laws 
on specific subjects within fixed limits. 

Communal Control. 

The working principle of the scheme is that the interests of the 
community demand that legislation affecting the hours of labor shall 
be completely under communal control. There is imposed upon the 
community the duty of seeing that no section of it is compelled to 
work under inhuman conditions ; but this imposes upon each part 
of the community the obligation of not demanding privileges which, 
though advantageous to individuals or trades, might be injurious to 
the community as a whole. No group of employes, no separatesection of the community, can claim to set the national forces in 
action for their own advantage, without the consent of the rest of 
the nation, as they could do under all the schemes which leave the 
question of enforcing the adoption of a shorter working day solely to 
the decision of the trade or of the trade unions concerned. Legislation 
to benefit any class without consulting the nation remains objectionable 
whether the beneficiaries be capitalists or landlords or 
workmen. The community must retain the power of safeguarding 
itself against the possibility of dislocation of trade or violent fluctuation 
in prices through an inopportune or excessive reduction of the 
hours of labor. While the community has not the power to compel 
the members of a trade to work longer hours than they desire, it has 
the right to insist that if they wish for a reduction which does not 
appear expedient to the community, they must achieve it by their 
own efforts. Conversely, the community must have the power to 
enforce the reduction of the hours of labor in a trade, even against 


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the wishes of the persons engaged in it, whenever it appears necessary 
for the general health or safety.

Under the Trade Selection Scheme provision is made to assert 
the control of the community and protect its interests, by fixing the 
responsibility for issuing or not issuing an Order upon a Minister 
who must submit his action or refusal to act, as the case may be, to 
the House of Commons. This is the utmost that can be done to 
bring the working of the scheme under the control of Parliament. 
Its efficacy will of course depend on the extent to which Parliament 
is under the control of the community. If it does not work freely 
and rapidly enough to carry out the wishes of the people, the remedy 
must be sought in Parliamentary Reform, and not in an impossible 
attempt to draft an Eight Hours Bill that would over-ride both 
Parliament and Minister. All that can be demanded of an EightHours Act is that the procedure it establishes shall not be needlessly 
slow, and shall not play into the hands of a Minister who might be 
unsympathetic or reactionary on the subject of Eight Hours, whilst 
being advanced enough on other points to make him, on the whole, 
a popular member of the Government. The provisions of the Trade 
Selection Scheme render it impossible for the Minister to refuse an 
enquiry into the condition of any trade ; and the enquiry itself is 
indispensable if the Eight Hour Orders are to be made workable, 
since they would become a dead letter by mere force of circumstances 
unless they were based on accurate information as to the 
technical conditions of the trade and the views of the workers. And 
it cannot be too emphatically urged that the greatest danger the 
Eight Hours Moveme11t has to fear is an unworkable Act. 

One of the advantages of the Trade Selection Scheme is the concentration 
of responsibility on a single Minister. This is the best 
public safeguard against any general reactionary tendency on his 
part or on that of the Government of which he is a member. An 
unpopular Labor Minister would damage his Government and his 
own future chances of office more than even an unpopular Home 
Secretary; and the administration of the Trade Selection Scheme 
would lie with the Home Secretary until a Labor Ministry was 
established. But here again it must be remembered that it passesthe wit of man to devise Acts of Parliament which will relieve the 
workers from their own responsibility in putting Ministers into 
power by their votes. If the electoral majority chooses to placereactionary administrators in power, it has no right to complain if 
those administrators go to work in a reactionary spirit. With a 
legislature opposed to the extension of State control, the operationof such a scheme as we are considering would be greatly hampered ; 
whilst a cast-iron general law would not stand the test of practice in 
the hands of a Government bent on discrediting it. On the other 
hand, with a legislature sympathetic to the claims of labor everythingthat is practicable can be done to secure the Eight Hours Day. It 
is as true now as it was when the "International" issued its first 
manifesto that "the emancipation of the laboring classes must be 
accomplished by the laboring classes." The one and only method of 


7 


securing good legislation and administration under our democratic 
system is for the workers to place in power a government in harmony 
with their aspirations, pledged to secure the amelioration of 
their condition concurrently with the good of the community. 

Disorganised Trades. 

It has been objected as against the Trade Selection scheme, as it 
was against the Trade Option Bill, that weak or disorganised trades, 
from their inability to pronounce in favor of a reduction of their 
hours, might escape the benefits of the scheme; and that only strong,
well-organised trades would be able to take advantage of it. Now, 
no kind of industrial legislation can be effective unless there are 
strong trade-unions willing to assist the authorities in enforcing it. 
As long as the textile trades continued weak, so long did the masters 
contrive to evade the Factory Acts or to whittle them away ; and so 
long did disloyal workmen co-operate with their masters in enslaving 
their fellows. The workers must face the fact that industrial legislation 
is of little use without a trade organisation to call attention to 
every attempt of the employers to violate it-and such attempts are 
constantly being made. Employers, unless confronted with a strongTrade Union, will not only punish all complaints made to the 
authorities by individuals with dismissal, but will even discharge employes 
who join a Union, until the Union becomes strong enough to 
force the employers to recognise it. Under these circumstances, 
little can be done for unorganised workers by any legislative scheme 
whatever. But it may be pointed out that the Trade Selection 
Scheme provides a strong incentive to the poorer workers to organise. 
They do not form Unions now because they are too poor to maintain 
the sick benefits and out-of-work benefits which form the sole inducement 
to members to join. But a reduction of hours, possibly involving 
also a rise in wages, would be well worth organising for without 
any benefits. The organisation would cost little ; would not need to 
saddle its funds with insurance business ; and could have a reasonable 
certainty of achieving its object under the Act, after which it would 
remain as a beginning of organisation for ordinary Trade Union purposes. 
Trade Selection would thus tend to call into existence the 
organisation without which neither it nor any other scheme can be 
completely effective. 

Trade Selection, however, does not abandon the unorganised 
workers to their fate. 

The Sweated Industries. 

Take, for instance, the sweated industries. In them, owing to the 
way in which the workers are scattered and separated by small workshops 
and home-work, trade unions either do not exist at all or are 
very weak. Unlike the miners and factory operatives, the employesdo not know where to find one another. Their work isolates them 
into petty groups instead of massing them together in powerful regiments 
and shewing them their own numbers and strength. Unfortunately, 
the home-work which divides them in this fashion is in some 


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'trades increasing, be::ause it enables the wholesale dealer to throw all 
the expen es of manufacture on the workers. He can save the expense 
of providing properly ventilated and sanitary workrooms under 
the eye of the Factory Inspector by giving out his work ; and naturally 
he does give it out, since, even apart from the desire for larger 
profi ts, the competition of rival employers compels him to get it done 
as cheaply as possible. Therefore, in the trades which can be carried 
on in tenements, the factory or large workshop has little chance of 
existence, especially in large towns. The enforcement of a shorter 
working day would only place under an additional economic disadvantage 
the owners of those factories and large workshops which are 
now conducted under fairly good conditions and are struggling with 
the cut-throat competition of insanitary and overcrowded dens ; for 
in the large workshops the Act could be enforced, whilst in the small 
workshops and home-work places it could be easily evaded. Thus, 
unless special precaution are taken, any Act for the reduction of the 
hours of labor will infallibly cause good workshops to be shut up and 
manufacture to be tran ferred to places where all the conditions of 
labor are of the worst description. Therefore the Trade Selection 
Scheme provide that the report of the Commission shall include the 
effect the suggested reduction of hours would have on the conditions 
of the trade, and shall point out what measures should be taken to 
prevent the reform defeating its own ends. For instance, it would 
report, in the case of the sweated home industries, nothing can be 
done to limit the hour of labor by law until by special industrial 
legislation \\'Orkshops in dwelling-houses are deprived of the inequitable 
advantages which they at present possess over large and well-
conducted factorie and workshops. This can be done by making 
employers responsible for the conditions under which their work is 
done wherever it is done, and compelling them to disclose the whereabouts 
of the sweaters who now play hide-and-seek with the FactoryInspector. \Vhen in this way home-work has been killed and the 
sweated trades organised in factories, then, and not till then, will it 
be possible to legislate for the limitation of the hours of labor in those 
industries. 

Consultation of the Trade. 

Although the guiding principle of the Trade Selection Scheme is 
the neces ity of maintaining the control of the community over in-
dustry-that is, of the nation over the separate trades, it is eYident 
th:tt the regulations must not be drawn up by doctrinaire politicians 
on first principles, but by experts after special consultation with those 
concerned in the industry, both employers and employed. 

The Elasticity of the Scheme. 

There are some eleven or tweh·e thousand different trades in the 
United Kingdom, working under different conditions, subject to 
different emergencies, affected differently by the seasons and the 
weather, and consequently im·olving different needs and different 
demand . Even in the same industry there are enormous differences : 


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for instance, eight hours for a signalman in the cabin at Charing 
Cross terminus is a very different matter from eight hours for a porter 
at an out-of-the-way country station on a branch line where the 
work of the station-master and porter combined would not fill the 
time of a single man. A hard and fast forty-eight-hours-a-week law 
would either not work in these cases or else would soon be riddled 
by Amending Acts and exceptions. Even the engine-drivers desire 
a ten hours limits ; and most classes of raihYaymen would be satisfied 
if power were given to the Board of Trade to suppress habitual overworking 
without having a rigidly fixed working day. By requiring 
that an expert commission to enquire into the conditions of labor in 
an industry, and report not only on the desirability of reducing the 
hours of labor, but also on the form the restriction should take, we 
ensure the necessary elasticity of regulation. In some instances the 
regulations would be simple ; in others they would be anything but 
simple to the uninitiated. The terms of the agreement recently made 
in the London building industry for the reduction of the hours of 
labor to an average of forty-eight per week throughout the year ; the 
regulations affecting the length of the working day laid down in the 
Factory Acts ; and the known intricacy of the working of any railway 
system, show the complexity of the subject, and the futility of 
attempting to regulate our industrial system in any other way than 
by special rules suited to the requirements of each trade. In such a 
matter rigidity means failure. 

Dependent Trades. 

The Home Secretary or Minister of Labor, by including in the 
terms of reference to the Commission and in his Order all mutually 
dependent trades, would be able to prevent the reduction of the 
working day in any trade from affecting cognate trades adversely. 
This is a highly important matter. Almost every industry is composed 
of several trades dependent on each other for the progress of 
the work ; and, generally speaking, any reduction of hours must 
apply to them all alike if utter confusion is to be avoided, and must 
not be dependent on the majority vote in one trade alone independently 
of the rest. In some cases a small but strong branch of industry-
for example, the enginemen in the cotton and woollen weavingindustries-holds all the rest at its mercy. This consideration is taken 
fully into account in the Trade Selection Scheme. It is ignored in 
both Trade Option and Trade E xemption. 

The Scope of Local Action. 

Under the Trade Selection scheme, permission is given for the 
delegation of legislatiYe powers to defined local bodies in selected 
cases. They are powers which, since they affect national interests, 
require to be carefully limited and bestowed with great discrimination. 
Yet in certain restricted spheres this local administration 
would be very useful. Trades whose markets are quite local, and 
which do not compete with the same trades ·in other districts, are 
eminently fitted to be dealt with locally. Such are the shopkeeping 


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industry, local monopolies (like tramways), and, to some extent, t~e 
building trade-all of which are more or less dependent on the districts 
in which they exist. 

Minor Points. 

No fresh machinery would be required for the enforcement of the 
Act, since it would be administered by the Home Secretary and the 
Factory Inspectors. It therefore has the great merit that it can be 
set in operation without any further delay than that necessary for the 
selection of the Commissions. When in the course of time the duty 
of administering the Act was transferred to a Minister for Labor, he 
would find himself in command of a system of Commissions and a 
trained staff of Commissioners which would be invaluable in his department.


Finally, it is hardly necessary to add that nothing in this scheme 
would interfere with the power of Parliament to legislate generally 
Qr specially for the further regulation of the hours of labor. 

PART II.-OTHER SCHEMES. 

It now remains to describe the other schemes which are before 
the public. Trade Option may be regarded as the first imperfect 
attempt at Trade Selection; and Trade Exemption, as has already 
been said, is only Trade Option turned inside out. Trade Selection 
is offered as a development of both, retaining what is valuable in 
them and providing against their defects. The Universal Bill is quite 
independent of them, and is the oldest and most obvious proposal for 
an Eight Hour Act. 

(a) The Universal Compulsory Bill. 
This measure would provide that no person in any form of national 
Qr municipal employment ; no person engaged on any railway, omnibus, 
or other mode of transportation ; no person employed in anymine, factory, workshop, or any industrial business conducted for 
profit, or in any shop or store; no domestic servant engaged in anyclub, hotel, or lodging-house; and no person engaged in agricultural 
labor should be employed for a longer period than eight hours in any 
one day, or than forty-eight hours in any one week, except in case of 
special unforeseen emergency. 

A story is current of a Czar of Russia who, when asked for his 
commands as to the route to be taken by a railway about to be constructed 
from St. Petersburg to Moscow, took a rule and made a 
straight line on the map from one town to the other. There can be 
no doubt that the Universal Bill has all the attractive simplicity,
intelligibility. and freedom from compromise of the Czar's plan. But 
as it stands it would simply not work. It could not be enforced unless 
a great majority of the workers were in favor of it; and this theyconfessedly are not. It makes no proYision for the different conditions 
of different trades. It would drive work from the inspected 


I I 

workshops and factories, where alone it could be enforced, into the 
sweaters' dens. It would be resolutely opposed by powerful trades 
like the ironworkers, as well as by the whole capitalist interest, and 
would thus not only be delayed for many years, but could not, when 
it passed, be put into operation without the creation of all the machinery 
required by the Trade Selection Scheme. In short, it does not 
overcome the difficulties of the question : it only leaves them out of 
account. They would crop up the moment the Act came into actual 
operation; and the whole question would have to be fought again 
over an Amending Act which would have to struggle against the · 
discredit brought on the movement by the failure of the first attempt. 

(i.) Trade Option. 

The Trade Option plan is best known through the Bill issued by 
the Fabian Society in May, 1890, and now withdrawn from circulation. 
It provided that : " Where it is proved to the satisfaction of a 
Secretary of State that a majority of the persons employed throughout 
the United Kingdom in any one trade or occupation are in favor 
of the maximum hours of labor in that trade or occupation being 
fixed by law, or if already so fixed, being altered by law, he shall byorder made under this part of the Act declare a maximum number 
of hours per day or per week for such trade or occupation. No 
order made in pursuance of this section shall declare a maximum 
number of hours of labor per week in excess of fifty-four." The Bill 
further provided that the Secretary of State should institute an 
enquiry into the expediency of making such an order whenever he 
deemed fit or when requested "by the committee or other executive 
body of any duly registered trade union, or, in the case of there 
being no duly registered trade union in the trade or occupation in 
respect of which the application is made, by the committee or other 
·executive body of any trades council, trade union congress, or other 
association or federation of trade unions." The mode of ascertaining 
the wishes of the trade, whether by public enquiry, or by taking a 
poll, or by any other means, is left entirely in the hands of the 
Secretary of State. 

The expressed object of this Bill was "that legislation shall automatically 
follow the expressed wish of the majority of any trade," 
and though the mode of ascertaining the wish of the majority, the 
responsibility of determining when it is declared, and the extent to 
which it is to be followed rest solely with the Secretary of State, the 
wish of the majority in each separate trade is put forward as the 
only factor to be considered, to the exclusion of all regard for the 
interests and welfare of the other trades and the rest of the nation. 
This is the flaw in the Bill which led the Fabian Society to develop 
it into the Trade Selection Scheme. 

At the Glasgow Trades Union Congress a trade option resolution 
was proposed on behalf of the cotton operatives, as follows : " That 
this Congress is of opinion that the time has arrived when the 
workers in any trade or occupation in which a majority of the 
{)rganised workers desire to have an eight hours day, or forty-eight 


12 

hours per week, should have the same secured to them by legal 
enactment." In the course of the debate it was explained that the 
opinion of the trade was to be ascertained by ballot. The principaldifferences between this scheme and the former are that all workers 
who are not members of trade unions are to be disregarded, and that 
the hours are to be reduced to forty-eight per week or not at all, 
no freedom being left to the trade or to the Secretary of State in 
this respect. 

(ii.) Trade Exemption Schemes. 

At the Glasgow Trade Union Congress the following" trade exemption" 
resolution was carried : "That the Parliamentary Committee 
promote a Bill regulating the hours of labor to eight per day, 
or forty-eight per week, in all trades and occupations, which Bill 
shall contain a clause enabling the organised members of any trade 
or occupation protesting by ballot against the same to exempt such 
trade or occupation from its provisions." 

The only attempt yet made to provide a working plan for this 
clause was made by a Fabian committee in fulfilment of instructions. 
from the Society to draft a Trade Exemption Bill. This draft Bill, 
which was condemned as impracticable by the Society on the recommendation 
of the committee itself, goes beyond the Congress resolutions 
in providing that exemption should depend, not on the vote of 
"organised" workers only, but of all the members of the trade. A 
Select Committee appointed by Parliament would arrange all the 
ten or eleven thousand trades in industries, those which were mutually 
dependent being grouped together. A trade register would be 
compiled quinquennially, in the same way as the Parliamentary 
register, every worker being entered there according to his residence 
and occupation. The County Councils, to whom would be entrusted 
the carrying out of the Act, would compile from this register local 
lists of all the persons employed in each industry. On the presentation, 
within a giYen time, of a petition from at least ten per cent. of 
the persons engaged in any industry requesting that a poll should be 
taken to decide whether that industry should be excluded from the 
Act, each County Council would take a poll of the persons engagedin that industry in much the same way in which a Parliamentaryelection is managed. At least one-third of the persons registered as 
belonging to an industry and a clear majority of the persons votingwould have to vote for the exclusion of that industry from the Act 
before it would be exempted. In all other cases the industry would 
come under the Act, and no person engaged in it would be allowed 
to be employed more than twelve hours in any one day or more 
than forty-eight hours in any one week. 

Objections. 

The special attraction of Trade Exemption is that weak trades. 
too disorganised or indifferent to claim the benefits of an optionallaw, would apparently, by their very weakness and inability to protest, 
come under the Act. But the secret of the favor shown to 


Option and Exemption schemes in Congress is probably that no 
~orker need oppose them, since he can always vote on the populars1de for Eight Hours with a private reservation in favor of the exemption 
of his own trade. The Trade Exemption Bill is really 
only the Universal Bill with an impracticable back-door provided for 
the escape of the organised trades who are opposed to it ; and as 
such it is open to all the objections against the Universal Bill except 
that based on such opposition. However, in any case, the Trade 
Exemption scheme is put out of the question when it comes to 
drafting a workable Act, by the complexity of the balloting machinery.
An industrial census would have to be taken, with particulars of the 
residence and occupation of each person. Trade and local registers 
would then have to be made up, the names being sorted out into 
trades, and the trades grouped into industries. The work of tracing 
removals would be constant. Without such a census and register at 
hand it is hard to see how a trade could readily exempt itself by 
ballot. It may be that this difficulty was foreseen and relied on to 
make the Trade Exemption Scheme work out in practice as a Universal 
Compulsory scheme. However this may be, the census and 
register are not at present likely to be accepted as practical; and the 
only alternative method for ascertaining the wishes of any trade is 
the Enquiry and Commission as proposed by the Trade Selection 
Scheme. There is, in fact, no real alternative to the Commission 
procedure. 

The limitation to trade unions of the right of taking action proposed 
by the Glasgow Trades Union Congress would lessen the difficulty 
of taking a ballot only in proportion to the smallness and 
unrepresentativeness of the Union. One of the most heavily sweated 
trades in the Kingdom is the upholstering, the great bulk of the work 
being done by men who are not qualified to join the Upholsterers'Union, which represents only a small section of comparatively highly 
skilled and well paid men. Yet under the Glasgow proposal that 
Union could deprive the whole trade of the benefit of the EightHours day by exempting it. Again, it has to be considered that in 
many trades there are several unions-for example, the CountyUnions of agricultural laborers and the different unions of railwaymen, 
which might take different views of the hours question. And 
there are bogus unions and genuine unions, between which a Ministry 
might find it awkward to choose. Generally speaking, the restriction 
of the right of voting on this subject to the" organised members" 
of trades would be an attempt to confer an enormous power on a 
body of men who, though they are the pick of their class, are, for 
that very reason, a small minority in all but a few trades, forming at 
the utmost estimate only some two millions out of the ten million 
adult workers in the country. And this power would be a very useful 
one ; for though it would be practically impossible to enforce anyreduction of the hours of labor at the desire of a union against the 
opposition of a non-union majority, it would be quite possible to 

u exempt" them from a reduction in that way. The policy is defended 
occasionally on the ground that it would drive the non



unioni ts into the union. Those who argue in this way forget that 
Trade Unious cannor afford to have members " driven " into their 
ranks without regard to the steadiness of their employment or the 
wages they earn. Trade Unions act largely as Insurance Societies ; 
and they are compelled, by regard for their own solvency, to demand 
qualifications from their members which large numbers of the trade 
do not possess and cannot attain. All that can be said is that new 
non-insuring unions might be formed for the purpose of taking advantage 
of the Act ; and this would be a great gain ; but it would at 
once confront the administrators of the Act with two unions, each 
claiming to exercise the powers conferred by it. 

The flaw in the principle of the Trade Option Bill reappears in 
the Trade Exemption Scheme. They both claim for the persons en-
gaged in the different trades the sole right of determining the con-
ditions of labor in those trades, and deny to the community as a 
whole its right to a voice as the common employer. This question 
has already been dealt with and need not now be enlarged on . The 
community is morally bound not to sweat any section of its members ; 
but it must retain the power to protect, if necessary, all its con-
stituents against the possibly excessive claims of sections, each of 
which only understands its own interest. F ailure to recognise so 
vital a principle must condemn any scheme. 
(c) Trade and Local Option. 
The •' local trade option " method is that associated with the name 
of T om Mann. The following are its main features, as described by 
him in his evidence before the Labor Commission :-"(a) That an 
Act be pas eel fixing the maximu m working hours at eight hours per 
day, or eight and a half for fi ve day and fi ve and a half for the sixth 
(or made up in such oth r method as may be agreed upon), but not 
to exceed forty-eight hours a week ; overtime to be a punishable 
offence, both for employer and worker, except in ca e of special 
emergency, uch as' breakdowns,' &c., or in the case of agricultural 
laborer , when special provision would be made for harvest-time. 
(b) T hat the administration of thi Act shall be left with the county 
council, town council , local board or such other local authority as 
shall be clearly specified by the Act. (c) That it shall be left with 
the adult workers of either sex engaged in any trade or calling, to 
obtain the clearly-expressed opinion of those engaged in the trade as to 
whether or not they wish for the Act to be applied to them, and that 
in the event of three-fifth being in favor of the same, their request 
be sent to the local authority re ponsible for the administration of 
the Act, which being satisfied that the request i genuine shall im-
mediately notify the employers in the district that the provisions of 
the Act will be put in force at a date of three months from the time 
applic::ttion was made to them by the worker ." (Quf'Stt'rm 2738.)
U nder the term "trade" would be included all tho e occupations 
which are " mutually dependent on each other for the progress of 
the work," including the " un killed person who are essen tial to th<.; 
trade." Cases of emergency would be decided by a local council 

IS 


omposed of employers qnd workers, and, while generally referring 
to breakdowns, might be interpreted more widely "so as to include 
pressure of orders," and provide for slack and busy times. (Questz"ons 
2673-6.) 

The Unit of Area. 

The unit of area in which the Act would be applied would usually 
be the jurisdiction of a town council or of a county council. But 
sometimes it might be larger. " It should be left to those engaged in 
the industry to decide the unit of area for which application should 
be made for the provisions of the Act to be applied ; and the principle 
to guide them certainly would be to take into consideration which 
of the various towns where the trade was being conducted competed 
with them and would adversely affect them. Providing that in one 
town they applied the eight hours and in the other town they did 
not, and they came to the conclusion that they would be adversely 
affected, then they would wait until they converted their fellow-
workers in the other towns." (Questz(m 3408.) "Overtures should 
be made and a common agreement should be arrived at between the 
two or more towns." (Questz(m 2745.)

It thus appears that Mr. Mann expects that when the workers in 
any town thought that if they alone adopted the eight hours day 
they would suffer from the competition of other towns in the same 
industry, the competing towns would, after negotiation, voluntarilyform themselves into a district which would form a unit of area under 
the Act, and over which the Act would be applied if the necessary 
three-fifths majority were obtained. For example, in the engineering 
industry all the shipbuilding centres-the Tyne, Tees, Wear, 
Hartlepools, and Clyde-would form one district; the Eastern 
counties would form another for agricultural implements and machinery 
; and so on. The object-to do away with the undue competition 
of a long-hours town against a short-hours town-is an entirely 
praiseworthy one, but it would be defeated by the refusal of the backward 
town to enter the district. This would be at once fatal ; since 
the district is to be formed, not by outside compulsion, but by "common 
agreement." The whole department of industry would thus be 
placed at the mercy of the most backward town in it; and the operatives 
would be much worse off than under either the Trade Option 
or the Trade Exemption schemes; for in these latter cases the trade 
majority would be able to outvote any local majority. That this 
difficulty is not an imaginary one may be seen by the vehement 
opposition of the Miners' Federation to the exclusion of Northumberland 
and Durham from the operation of any Miners' Eight Hours 
Act by a local option clause. In nearly every trade there is at least 
one unorganised or recalcitrant district. 

If the workers in any town were prepared to adopt the eight 
hours day whilst other competing towns in the same district did not, 
then in many industries the manufacturers might find it more profitable 
to move their industries from the eight hours town than to invest 
in the new machinery and adopt the greater economies in production 


that district, and should then ascertain the opinion of the adult 
members of the trade in the district concerning the proposals. If the 
rules were adopted by a majority of the adult workers who voted, 
they would become law, and the local authorities would be bound to 
prosecute any employer or worker who transgressed them. .Anyalteration of the rules would have to be made in the same way.
Reduction of the hours below 48 per week would be forbidden. 
This scheme is essentially a modification of Tom Mann's; but it 
makes no provision for competitive areas or dependent trades. 
which would be necessary if wages were to be maintained without 
lowering profits or raising prices. We know 'that if the eight hours 
day in the printing industry were adopted in London alone, where 
the majority of the workers are probably in favor of it, it would simply 
accelerate the existing temlency of the masters to transfer their 
works to the country, where all the conditions of labor in that 
industry are much worse than in London. 

(d) Mr. Mather's Plan. 
The following plan is advocated by Mr. W. Mather, M.P. :-Anytrade union in a district, being in favor of reducing the hours of 
labor, should, after conference with the employers, pass a resolution 
embodying the proposed rules for the working day in that trade in