poses all competitively seeks use, that prices rise in proportion to the diminution in quantity. The practical operation would be this. Labor and product in Section A being diminished one half, and prices advanced only one seventh, there is a portion of capital thrown out of use which will be sent abroad for employment. And it will there be wanted; for the quantity of labor and product being the same as before in the rest of the world, and prices advanced one seventh, this addition to capital will be required. To illustrate this, suppose that, before the reduction, the quantity of product, as also of labor, in Section A is represented by the number 700, the product and also the labor of the other three fourths of the world will then be represented by 2100, and these figures will also represent the proportion of capital required in each for paying labor and exchanging its products. Now when the labor is reduced one half in Section A, its product will stand at 350, and, being advanced one seventh in price, its value will be 400, which will also represent the amount of capital required for the reduced business, leaving a surplus of 300, which is just what will be needed by the advance of one seventh in the price of the 2100 labor and product in the rest of the world. Hence, as the supply of this portion of capital and the demand and use for it remain the same, its price will not be changed; and, the same rate of interest being paid, its owners receive the same aggregate amount as before the diminution in labor and product. But they, too, have to pay the increased cost of products, and hence, with their incomes, can procure only seven eighths the amount of products as before.

It appears, then, that while the laborer in Section A can obtain only one half the former amount of product for his labor, the capitalist can obtain seven eighths. Now people do not often lessen their expenditures in a greater ratio than their means are diminished; and in Section A, while the laborers can, at the supposed advance in price, buy only one half, the capitalists can buy seven eighths the former amount of product. But the whole product in this Section has been reduced one half; and hence the capitalist will either trench upon the laborer's share by overbidding him in price, or a portion of the supply before produced at home must be brought

from abroad at increased cost. By this last process the price of the whole home product will be advanced to the cost of importing articles of the same kind, so that in either of the cases above mentioned prices are increased, and the products which. the laborer in Section A can buy with his wages for half time will be reduced to less than half quantity. The ability of the capitalist in Section A to buy is reduced in the same proportion below seven eighths as that of the laborer is below one half. As the product in the other three fourths of the world remains the same, while the ability of the capitalists to buy is there also reduced one eighth, there will be a surplus just sufficient to supply the three eighths which the capitalists in Section A are able to buy over their proportion of the home product, but nothing to make up the deficiency of one half to the laborers, even if they had the means of buying. But in this moving of products there is increased labor, adding to cost and diminishing supply.

But besides the free capital used to pay labor and exchange products, there is in Section A other capital in the form of utensils, machinery, forges, mills, railroads, &c., which, though now used only half time, will still all be required. As, by the export of the surplus movable capital, the price of capital remains. the same, these fixed investments will command the same rent per annum as before, and the owners of them, receiving the same income, will add to the class who can afford to buy seven eighths the quantity of product. Take, for example, the case of the owner of a cotton or woollen mill and its machinery. If he could run it only five hours per day instead of ten, and paid the same price per hour for the same quantity of labor per hour, he would lose the use of his capital - his mill- half the time. Under these circumstances, there would be no new mills or machinery built till the profits to the owner from running five hours per day became equal to the profits of running for ten hours abroad, or to that obtained when running ten hours here. To effect this, the labor for five hours must be enough less per hour to make up the interest on the capital for the unemployed time, i. e. the five-hour laborers must work at half the price per day of the ten-hour laborers, with a further deduction from their aggregate wages of one half the interest on the fixed

capital required for the business. By lessening the time of work, the laborers are placed in the position of one who pays full interest for money which he uses only half the time.

Further to illustrate this, suppose 1,000 laborers, working

ten hours in a mill, produce or add to the value of the material used per day

$1,200

$1,000

200

$1,200

This gives to each laborer 100 cents per day, or 10 cents per hour. Then, if the laborers reduce the time and product one half by working only five hours, the added. value will be only $600 per day, of which the capital will still take $ 200, leaving only $400 for the laborers, which will give to each of them only 40 cents per day, or 8 cents per hour for the five hours, in place of 10 cents per hour for ten hours; or if prices are affected by the diminution of labor, the laborer will still get only four tenths the quantity of product for half-time work, and this again reduced by the competition for those products with a portion of the community whose means of purchasing are not diminished in the same ratio. In the case of the free capital, the community in Section A, after the reduction of one half in labor and product, pay the same rate per cent on four sevenths the amount, while they continue to pay an undiminished rate on the whole amount of fixed capital.

It appears, then, that the laborers in Section A not only cannot get more products per hour for their diminished time of work, but that, inasmuch as they have to contribute more in proportion to the capital employed, they can actually get less per hour, or less than half wages for half time. It may still be surmised that, if Section A embraced an area to which no products of foreign competing labor could come, and from which the capital released by diminishing labor and product could not be removed, the laborers might then reduce their time of work without lessening their material comforts. The collective commercial world is such an area. Let us then suppose that the hours of labor are reduced one half the world It is obvious that, the whole product being reduced one half, some or all must consume less, and it becomes important

to ascertain how this privation will be divided. In this case the capital applicable to the payment of labor remaining the same, and all competitively seeking use, the aggregate amount paid for labor would be the same, and laborers would get the same price per day for the half time worked, or double the price per hour. This so far confirms the popular belief to which we have alluded, that diminished time will command the same amount of wages; but then the same reason that we have just given for the rise of wages applies to products; and with this universal double price of labor, double cost and double prices of all articles will be a necessary concomitant, so that the same amount of wages will buy only half the quantity of products, and the laborer still really gets only half pay for halftime work.

The amount of capital required for these changed conditions will be the same; and the ratio of supply and demand being unchanged, the capitalist will receive the same amount for its use; but with the same money income he also can buy only one half the quantity of products. In the transition state there may be some irregularity in rates and prices of capital, labor, and products, and especially if the change is sudden; but the results must finally be as above stated.

So far, then, the laborer seems to have gained by this extension of short time to the whole instead of a portion of the world, inasmuch as he has not now to compete in buying with a portion of the community whose means are reduced in a less proportion than his own.

Labor, however, still gets, at best, only one half for halftime work, and the effect of the universal diminution of supply may for a long time operate quite as much against him. as when that diminution was only local. Those having the means will not at once conform their consumption to the new conditions of supply, and capitalists will use more than their share, trenching upon their accumulation of money for the purpose of raising prices, so that the laborer has to take less than one half of his previous quantity. It may be said that this rise in the prices of products will cause wages to advance in the same proportion. Such would perhaps be its tendency; but then, as at least partially counteracting this ten

dency, we must observe that the money capital is used both to pay labor and to exchange its products, and that with this rise in prices more is required for the latter object, leaving a less fund applicable to the former.

There seems to be no reason to suppose that the effect upon the laborers' share which would arise from diminishing the products one half by withdrawing half the labor, would be different from what it is when this diminution is caused by drought or other natural cause; and it is by the laborer, and not by the capitalist, that such calamity is most severely felt. Thus we see how important it is to the relief sought by the workingmen, that the rich should be frugal in consuming, and not use their wealth as a power to appropriate to their own selfish purposes more than their share of labor and its products.

Another effect of this change would be, that many who before lived upon the income from capital, receiving now only half the product, would have to increase their means of support by labor, thus adding to the quantity of products, and so far counteracting the effect of diminished time of work generally. This would distribute labor more equally, and in this respect be just and beneficial.

It is the laborers, then, and not the capitalists, who are mainly interested in keeping the hours of labor at the point of greatest production, because it is they who suffer most from the diminished supply of the comforts of life which arises from diminished labor.

We have purposely considered the subject only in its economic aspect, and left out of view the influence of increased or diminished time of labor upon the happiness of a people. The question may well arise, whether, with the great increase of labor-saving appliances, less time might not now suffice for the supply of our bodily wants, leaving more to be devoted to other objects. Thus far the effect of the introduction of machines seems to have been to task the physical powers of man more severely than before their invention, or at least to have kept him more unremittingly employed in providing material subsistence and enjoyments than formerly. By their aid, a man can produce, and therefore obtain, so many more comforts in return for his labor, that the inducement overcomes the desire