[Footnote 8:  See Vol.  I, pp. 227, 439, 466, 467, 504-507; and above, ch. 14, sec. 8.]

[Footnote 9:  See Vol.  I, pp. 217, 222-223, 352, 356.]

[Footnote 10:  See above, sec 12.]

[Footnote 11:  We are expressing here the general opinion, not pronouncing a final justification of competition as a rule of conduct.  On this something will be said later, in ch. 31.]

CHAPTER 21

PUBLIC REGULATION OF HOURS AND WAGES

Sec. 1.  Spread of the shorter working day.  Sec. 2.  The shorter day and the lump of labor notion.  Sec. 3.  Fewer hours and greater efficiency.  Sec. 4.  Child-labor.  Sec. 5.  Child-labor legislation.  Sec. 6.  Limitation of the working day for women.  Sec. 7.  Limitation of the working day for men.  Sec. 8.  Broader aspects of tins legislation.  Sec. 9.  Plan of the minimum wage.  Sec. 10.  Some problems of the minimum wage.  Sec. 11.  Mediation and voluntary arbitration.  Sec. 12.  Compulsory arbitration.  Sec. 13.  Organized labor’s attitude, toward labor legislation.  Sec. 14.  Organized labor’s opposition to compulsory arbitration.  Sec. 15.  The public and labor legislation.  Sec.16.  The public and compulsory arbitration.

Sec. 1. #Spread of the shorter working day.# Since about 1880 a shorter working day has been one of the prime objects of organized labor in America.  Notable progress was early made in some trades, reducing hours from 11 to 10, or from 10 to 9, and in a few cases from 9 to 8.  In the building trades in the cities, especially, the eight-hour day has come to be well nigh the rule.  In 1912 it was estimated[1] that 1,847,000 wage earners were working in the United States on the eight-hour basis; of these 475,000 were public employees.  A large proportion of the remainder were women and children whose hours were limited by law, or were men working in the same establishments with them.  Since that date the eight-hour day has been more widely adopted both through private action in many establishments and by legislation.  The year 1915 witnessed an especially rapid spread of the eight-hour day.

Sec. 2. #The shorter day and the lump of labor notion.# The shorter working day is advocated by most workers in the belief that it will result not in less pay per day, but in even greater pay than the longer day, even if the output should be decreased.  This view is connected with the lump of labor notion.[2] It assumes that men will work no faster in a shorter day, and that there is so much work to be done regardless of the rate of wages; and concludes that the shorter day will reduce the amount of labor for sale and cause wages to rise.  To the extent, however, that laborers, as consumers, mutually buy each other’s labor, evidently this loss due to curtailing production must fall upon the laborers as a class.  The workers nearly always call for the same daily pay for a shorter