Miners The Eight Hours Movement Classic Reprint PDF Download

Excerpt from The Mining Institute of Scotland, Vol. 12: Transactions, 1890-91 Workmen have to be paid equally the same whether the work performed by them be useful or otherwise. If, therefore, owing to small roadways or any other cause, an extra amount of physical labour is required in order to produce a certain output which, with roomy roads, could be produced with less labour, it is at the expense of the owner, and not of the workmen, that this extra labour has to be performed. There are many who wonder what will be the ultimate result of the agitation going on at present to get an Act of Parliament passed restricting the employment of underground workmen to eight hours per day from bank to bank. For my part, I cannot see that there is any need for Government interference in the matter. I could understand that, where the physical or moral well-being of any class of workers has suffered from long hours Of labour, legislation should be called for; but it remains to be proved that miners, as a class, suffer in this respect. I venture to affirm that, for every miner who can be brought forward as having in recent years suffered physically or morally through long working hours, other fifty could be pointed out as having become physical and moral wrecks through strong drink, and yet we hear of no movement originating among such to remove from their midst that which has been proved to be the greatest curse, not only to miners, but to all classes of the community. On the average, the miner does not at present work more than eight hours per day, and it is quite long enough, but to compel him by Act of Parliament, and for no well-grounded reason, to refrain from ever being more than eight hours per day below ground is a very different matter, and would be as absurd as having an Act passed to compel him to work every day in order that the owners might not be the losers by the pits being idle. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.