BOOKS AND AUTHORITIES. (REVISED 1905) On the subject of provision for the unemployed, the following books, etc., among many others, may be consulted. (a) General Books. ALDEN, PERCY.-The Unemployed: a National Question. King; 1905. Is. net. HIGGS, MARY.-How to deal with the Unemployed. Brown, Langham & Co.; 1904. 25. HOBSON, J. A.-The Problem of the Unemployed. Methuen; 2nd ed.; 1905. 2/6. MACKENZIE, F. A.-Famishing London: a Study of the Unemployed and Unemployable. Hodder; 1903. IS. (6) Pamphlets. PATON, J. B., D.D.-The Unemployable and the Unemployed. James Clark & Co., 13 Fleet-street, E.C.; 1904. 3d. HIGGS, MARY.-The Tramp Ward. Reprinted from the Contemporary Review. John Heywood; 1904. 2d. HARDIE, J. KEIR, M.P.-The Unemployed Problem, with some suggestions for solving it. I.L.P., 10 Red Lion-court, E.C. Id. Leeds and the Unemployed. Leeds Fabian Society, 18 Park-lane; 1904. (c) Experiments. ANON.-An Account of several Workhouses for Employing and Maintaining the Poor. Second edition (enlarged). 1732; o.p. EDEN, Sir F. M.-State of the Poor. 2nd vol.; 1797; o.p. RAWLINSON, Sir R.-Public Works in Lancashire for the Relief of the Unemployed during the Cotton Famine. King; 1898. Is. WARNER, A. G.-Some Experiments on Behalf of the Unemployed. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oct. 1890. (d) General History. ASHLEY, W. J.-English Economic History and Theory. Vol. I., part ii., chapter 5, Relief of the Poor. Longmans; 1893. (e) Parliamentary Papers. Report on Agencies and Methods of Dealing with the Unemployed, by Llewellyn Smith (preface by Mr. Giffen). Labor Department of the Board of Trade; Nov. 1893; o.p. A most valuable report. Report of Board of Trade on Agencies and Methods of Dealing with the Unemployed Report on Relief of Unemployed (in Scotland) during Winter of 1893-4. 7}d. Reports. Relief of Distress due to Want of Employment. Report of Special Committee of the Charity Organization Society. C. O. S., 19 Buckingham-st., Strand. 1905; Is. Mansion House Committee on the Unemployed. 1903-4. Report of Executive Committee. Abstract of ditto, 4 pp. leaflet. Both supplied by the Secretary, Mansion House, London. (No price stated.) Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich. Report of Conference. Of the Clerk, Town Hall, Woolwich. (No price stated.) London County Council. Lack of Employment in London. Minutes of Conference, Feb. 1903. No. 662. King; 6d. Secretary, at the Fabian Office, 3 Clement's Inn, London, W.C. FABIANISM and the EMPIRE: A Manifesto. 4d. post free. FABIAN ESSAYS IN SOCIALISM. (35th Thousand.) Paper cover, 1/-; plain cloth, 2/-, post free from the Secretary. FABIAN TRACTS and LEAFLETS. Tracts, each 16 to 52 pp., price 1d., or 9d. per dos., unless otherwise stated. Leaflets, 4 pp. each, price 1d. for six copies, 1s. per 100, or 8/6 per 1000. The Set of 88, 35.; post free 3/5. Bound in Buckram, 4/6; post free for 55. I.-General Socialism in its various aspects. TRACTS.-121. Public Service versus Private Expenditure. By Sir OLIVER LODGE. 113. Communism. By WM. MORRIS. 107. Socialism for Millionaires. By BERNARD SHAW. 78. Socialism and the Teaching of Christ. By Dr. JOHN CLIFFORD. 87. The same in Welsh. 42. Christian Socialism. By Rev. S. D. HEADLAM, 75. Labor in the Longest Reign. By SIDNEY WEBB. 72. The Moral Aspects of Socialism. By SIDNEY BALL. 69. Difficulties of Individualism. By SIDNEY WEBB. 51. Socialism: True and False. By S. WEBB. 45. The Impossibilities of Anarchism. By BERNARD SHAW (price 2d.). 15. English Progress towards Social Democracy. By S. WEBB. 7. Capital and Land (6th edn. revised 1904). 5. Facts for Socialists (10th edn., revised 1906). LEAFLETS-13. What Socialism Is. 1. Why are the Many Poor? 38. The same in Welsh. II.-Applications of Socialism to Particular Problems. TRACTS.-128. The Case for a Legal Minimum Wage. 126. The Abolition of Poor Law Guardians. 122. Municipal Milk and Public Health. By Dr. F. LAWSON DODD. 120. "After Bread, Education." 125. Municipalization by Provinces. 119. Public Control of Electrical Power and Transit. 123. The Revival of Agriculture. 118. The Secret of Rural Depopulation. 115. State Aid to Agriculture: an Example. 112. Life in the Laundry. 110. Problems of Indian Poverty. 98. State Railways for Ireland. 124. State Control of Trusts. 86. Municipal Drink Traffic. 85. Liquor Licensing at Home and Abroad. 84. Economics of Direct Employment. 83. State Arbitration and the Living Wage. 73. Case for State Pensions in Old Age. 67. Women and the Factory Acts. 50. Sweating: its Cause and Remedy. 48. Eight Hours by Law. 23. Case for an Eight Hours Bill. 47. The Unemployed. By JOHN BURNS, M.P. LEAFLETS.-89. Old Age Pensions at Work. 19. What the Farm Laborer Wants. 104. How Trade Unions benefit Workmen. III.-Local Government Powers: How to use them. TRACTS.-117. The London Education Act, 1903: how to make the best of it. 114. The Education Act, 1902. III. Reform of Reformatories and Industrial Schools. By H. T. HOLMES. 109. Cottage Plans and Common Sense. By RAYMOND UNWIN. 103. Overcrowding in London and its Remedy. By W. C. STEADMAN, L.C.C. 101. The House Famine and How to Relieve it. 52 pp. 76. Houses for the People. 100. Metropolitan Borough Councils. 99. Local Government in Ireland. 82. Workmen's Compensation Act. 62. Parish and District Councils. 61. The London County Council. 54. The Humanizing of the Poor Law. By J. F. OAKESHOTT. LEAFLETS.-68. The Tenant's Sanitary Catechism. 71. Same for London. 63. Parish Council Cottages and how to get them. 58. Allotments and how to get them. FABIAN MUNICIPAL PROGRAM, FIRST SERIES (Nos. 32, 36, 37). Municipalization of the Gas Supply. The Scandal of London's Markets. A Labor Policy for Public Authorities. SECOND SERIES (Nos. 90 to 97). Municipalization of Milk Supply. Municipal Pawnshops. Municipal Slaughterhouses. Women as Councillors. Municipal Bakeries. Municipal Hospitals. Municipal Fire Insurance. Municipal Steamboats.Second Series in a red cover for 1d. (9d. per doz.); separate leaflets, 1/- per 100. IV.-Books. 29. What to Read on social and economic subjects. 6d. net. V.-General Politics and Fabian Policy. 127. Socialism and Labor Policy. 116. Fabianism and the Fiscal Question: an alternative policy. 108. Twentieth Century Politics. By SIDNEY WEBB. 70. Report on Fabian Policy. 41. The Fabian Society: its Early History. By BERNARD SHAW. VI.-Question Leaflets. Questions for Candidates: 20, Poor Law Guardians. 24, Parliament. 28, County Councils, Rural. 56, Parish Councils. 57, Rural District Councils. 102, Metropolitan Borough Councils. BOOK BOXES lent to Societies, Clubs, Trade Unions, for 6s. & year, or 2/6 a quarter Printed by G. Standring, 7 Finsbury St., London, E.C., and published by the Fabian Society, 3 Clement's Inn, Strand, London W.C. EIGHT HOURS BY LAW: A PRACTICAL SOLUTION. PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY THE FABIAN SOCIETY. PRICE ONE PENNY. LONDON: THE FABIAN SOCIETY, 3 CLEMENT'S INN, STRAND, W.C. PUBLISHED DECEMBER, 1893. THIRD REPRINT, JUNE, 1906. EIGHT HOURS BY LAW: A PRACTICAL SOLUTION. THE 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 they are to be carried out. The whole working class might be unanimous in favor of enforcing Eight Hours by law; and yet nothing could come of it until their determination were embodied in an Act of Parliament giving full particulars of how the enforcing was to be done. Some years ago the Fabian Society, seeing that this practical point must be faced, appointed a Committee to draw up a Bill. The result was what is now known as The Trade Option Bill, so-called 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. The 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 views 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. A subsequent Committee proposed a new scheme, called Trade Inquiry, which now stands as the best practical solution the Fabian Society is able to arrive at. Besides these three schemes, there is an uncompromising proposal to cut the Gordian knot by what is called a " Universal Bill," enacting, under stringent penalties, that after it becomes law no employer shall employ any person for hire more than forty-eight hours in one week. The country has thus before it four distinct methods of establishing an Eight Hour working day by law. They are :— I. Trade Option. 2. Trade Exemption. 4. The Universal Bill. A scheme of Trade and Local Option, which came up during the proceedings of the Labor Commission, 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 considerations 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 trades, waiting for a general law means hampering themselves with the cause of the mass of unskilled labor, and multiplying the resistance of their own employers by that of the whole capitalist and employing interest in the country. 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 therefore 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 our overworked railway servants, in whose favor every collision acts as an unanswerable and terrible argument. On the whole, the tendency among the best organised and most powerful sections of the working classes is to solve the question piecemeal, trade by trade. But these sections are also the least numerous and the least sweated; and they have gained their position only under the special protection of the State through Factory legislation. The piecemeal method which they favor would not help the mass of workers, who are comparatively unprotected by existing 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 11,000 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. But a general Bill raises another set of difficulties. It must apply alike to agricultural laborers and factory operatives, miners and members of "season trades," sailors and lawyers' clerks. Now |