the
hours to the pre-war standards, but calculated to yield highest return in output from the personnel available.
War experience would thus seem to have effectively killed the long-lived notion that output in industry varies directly with the number of hours worked. The argument in favour of the shorter working day was indeed formidably (and perhaps unexpectedly in certain quarters) strengthened by the scientific investigation of hours in relation to output, which was undertaken, by Great Britain and America in particular, in the height of the desperate struggle to produce adequate supplies of munitions of war. The results of the British investigations, published in the various re- ports of the Health of Munition Workers Committee (appointed by the Ministry of Munitions in Sept. 1915) and of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, were of the highest scientific value, and these, corroborated by the evidence of American, French and German experience, and themselves cor- roborating much of the argument of certain investigators whose work had been done before the war, undoubtedly were an impor- tant factor in determining the attitude of mind which is reflected in the above quoted " principle " enshrined in the Treaty of Peace.
War experience did, in point of fact, supply the scientific basis which the general propaganda, carried on for so long by the organizations of workers in all industrial countries in favour of the reduction of hours, had lacked. Such scientific data as existed had been provided or interpreted for the most part by writers on so-called " scientific management " who were concerned prima- rily with questions of output. Governmental investigations had to consider output in relation to the labour available, and were led inevitably to considerations of the health of workers and even of their satisfaction or dissatisfaction. In other words, whilst pre- vious investigations were, rightly or wrongly, suspected by work- ers generally to be directed by motives which, if not hostile, tended at least to a certain neglect of the workers' side of the case, the war investigations were much more widely accepted as being a fair attempt at an adequate study of the question of hours in relation not only to output but also to the effect on the worker.
It need only be added here that the general result of those investigations was that a reduction of hours was not incompat- ible with an increase in output, arising from the improved health of the worker and his increased capacity for effort during the shorter hours worked.
The war, however, was responsible for another and perhaps even more effective factor in the eventual restriction of hours. The repercussions of the successive Russian revolutions were everywhere felt and everywhere dreaded. It became a common- place of polemic on the subject of improved conditions of labour that such improved conditions (including the reduction of the hours of labour) were the alternative to Bolshevism. Thus scientific experience, fear of revolutionary movements and the normal liberalism of the nations successful in the war were united in support of a general reduction in the hours of labour at the moment of relief and optimism which succeeded, in the later months of 1918, the long and oppressive years of warfare.
The results of this combination are to be found in the rapid ex- tension of legal restrictions upon the hours of labour which took place in many of the belligerent countries immediately upon (or even before) the Armistice of Nov. 1918, and in the inclusion in the treaties of peace of the " Labour Part " (Part XIII. in the Treaty of Versailles) which creates machinery for international legislation upon labour conditions, and which recognizes the 8-hour day as an end to be pursued by international action.
In the middle of 1921 signs were indeed not lacking that a characteristic of the next few years might be a reaction in this connexion. Hopes of rapid recovery to the economic position of pre-war days had been disappointed, and there was a manifest tendency to place part of the blame for this upon the reduced hours of labour. It can only be noted here that this reaction seemed likely to result in a check to the movement for a further reduction in hours of labour.
NATIONAL MEASURES
National legislation for the limitation of the hours of labour has taken various forms. In some cases, e.g. France, Spain,
Portugal, acts or decrees have prescribed a general limitation for all workers, or for all workers in large groups of occupations such as " industry," or " commerce," whilst the detailed appli- cation has been left to be elaborated by administrative decrees or orders. Usually these decrees are issued after consultation with the organized workers and employers concerned, and they appear to result in a considerable elasticity in the application of the law. In other cases (e.g. Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Belgium) the act itself is made to apply to a detailed list of industries, and the exceptions are usually indicated. Again, as in the case of Great Britain (Coal Mines Act) a special Act may regulate the hours worked in a particular industry.
Another group of legislative measures deals with the hours of labour of specified classes of workers, women and children and men, engaged in hazardous occupations. In Great Britain the Factory Acts have attempted to regulate the hours of women and children, who were regarded as being less favourably situated for " free bargaining " than men, but it was not until 1908 that legal restrictions were placed upon the working hours of the latter, and then only in the case of a single industry, coal-mining, which was of a peculiarly difficult and laborious nature.
A third type of legislation secures the aim of limiting hours of labour by indirect means. In the Commonwealth of Australia, for example, and in its constituent states, the Arbitration Laws provide for the settlement of disputes in labour matters (includ- ing disputes about the hours of labour) by a process of arbitration and the legal enforcement of arbitration awards. Again, in the case of Germany and some other countries, collective agreements arrived at voluntarily between employers and workers' organiza- tions may under certain conditions be given the force of law.
There remains to be noted the huge mass of collective agree- ment upon hours of labour which, though not always possessing the force of law, does in fact regulate hours very successfully in many countries. This is notably the method adopted for most industries in Great Britain, but the practice is common even in countries where legislative limits are enforced. In these cases the collective agreement is usually an advance, from the workers' point of view, upon the provisions of the existing legislation.
The analysis, given later, of the position in 1921 in the more important industrial countries of the world will illustrate these methods of limitation.
(a) Exceptions of a General Nature. All national legislation on the subject of hours provides for exceptions of a general nature, affecting the whole field of application of the legislation, as well as for exceptions in particular cases.
To provide for the former class of exceptions, which may be classified as those arising from national necessity, clauses are usually inserted which give the administration power to suspend or relax temporarily the regulations normally in force. In the case of the draft International Convention (see later) it is provided that " the operation of the provisions of this Convention may be suspended in any country by the Government in the event of war or other emergency endangering the national safety " (Article 14). From national legislation the following may be cited: " Extension of the working hours shall be permitted in cases of urgent public necessity, mobilization, fire, flood, landslips, explosion, grave disas- ter, in all cases of force majeure . ._ . " (Portugal; Decree of May 7 1919, limiting the hours of work in commercial and industrial establishments).
" His Majesty may, in the event of war, or of imminent national danger, or great emergency ... by order in Council suspend the operation of this Act to such extent and for such period as may be named in the Order either as respects all coal mines or any class of coal mines" (Great Britain: Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1908).
(V) Exceptions in Particular Cases. Experience of the working of national legislation has proved that a priori arguments against the possibility of a universal application of the 8-hour day or even of a uniform day of greater length were largely justified, and much elasticity has been conceded in the administration of hours of labour acts. Both national and international legislation has been obliged to provide for certain exceptions in particular cases, which may be classified as those which arise (l) from considerations of the worker himself or herself, (2) from the size of the industrial under- taking, (3) from the nature of the work, (4) from the situation of the country concerned with regard to climatic conditions, character of population, or other factor rendering it abnormal from an indus- trial point of view, and (5) from exceptional circumstances.
(i) In the first class may be placed those exceptions which are
