Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 86

(b) Public Opinion

(b) Public Opinion.

Nor does public opinion suffice to bring about voluntary agreement to shorten the hours of labor. Agreements among shopkeepers to close early, even on one night a week only, are continually breaking down. Those who most relied on public opinion to bring about a shorter working day are now the most emphatic in their demand for more effective methods. The (London) Early Closing Association, once resolute in its faith in moral suasion, now heartily supports legislation. The Melbourne Early Closing Association has had a similar experience. The Secretary of this latter Association, who appeared to give evidence before the Royal Commission on the Hours of Labor in Victoria, "expressed himself as opposed to any innovation upon the tactics hitherto pursued, and more especially to legislative interference with what he termed 'the liberty of the subject/ Subsequently a poll of the members of the Association was taken as to the advisability or otherwise of regulating the hours of labor in shops by Act of Parliament, and resulted in 279 members voting for an Act of Parliament and only 48 against."

Thus, even in Australia, public opinion has been found inadequate to secure a shorter day for the weaker workers. In Victoria so complete had been the failure of over thirty years of voluntary agitation that the Eoyal Commissioners unanimously reported that they were "convinced of the absolute necessity for legislative action. ... In proposing any remedy for the relief of employés in shops, your Commissioners rely on the results of practical experience rather than on the theories of those political economists who hold that legislative interference is in violation of the law regulating supply page 7 and demand. Several witnesses consider that the pressure of educated public opinion will in time achieve all that is necessary; while others maintain that nothing more can be effected by moral suasion. Your Commissioners believe that moral force is devoid of the necessary potentiality to bring about the reform desired, and that an Act of Parliament alone can impart solidity and permanence to the Eight Hours Movement in connection with shops and similar establishments."*

If this is true in Victoria, how much more is it the case in England !

* Employees in-Shops Commission : Second Progress Report, p. 5.—Victorian Parliamentary Papers, 1883.