Why not let each man settle his own hours?

The ordinary journalist or Member of Parliament says : "I don't consult anyone except my doctor as to my hours of labor. That is a matter which each man must settle for himself." You never hear that said by a working man belonging to any trade more highly organised than chimney-sweeping. When the carrier drove his own cart, and the weaver sat in his cottage at his own loom, they began and left off work at the hours that suited them, each man pleasing himself. Now the railway worker or the power-loom weaver knows that he must work the same hours as his mates.

The industrial revolution which became general in the United Kingdom during the eighteenth century, and is now rapidly becoming universal, has swept away this individual liberty in all the main occupations of industrial life. The worker, in most of the great manufacturing industries of advanced communities, must now begin and leave off work at the sound of the factory bell or steam "hooter," over the times of which he feels that he has as little individual control as over the sunrise. To fix by law the working hours of a journalist or a doctor would diminish his personal liberty of action; to hasten by Act of Parliament the welcome signal for the close of the factory day would increase the personal liberty of the operative. At present the latter has practically no control over his working hours. What he wants te a share in settling how long those hours shall be.