TREND TOWARD SHORTER WORKING HOURS 13

facturing industry in July, 1929, were 1249, above the level
of July, 1914, while average hourly earnings were 135%
above the same level. Since in the same interval the cost
of living for the industrial wage earners increased only
61.6% over the 1914 level, it is clear that there has been a
substantial increase in the standard of living of industrial
wage earners. If it be objected that these years were exceptional
 and were influenced overwhelmingly by the extraordinary
 conditions which were the outgrowth of the war,
reference may be made once more to the earlier inquiry cited
in a preceding paragraph. According to its findings, there
was between 1890 and 1906 an increase of 24% in hourly
wages and an advance of 17% in full-time weekly earnings.
Various political and social organizations, as well as labor
bodies, are constantly advocating progressive reductions in
working hours. The maximum that they view at present
with any tolerance is the 48-hour week, and in some trades
they have made the 44-hour and even the 40-hour week the
immediate goal. Success in one state or in one industry
serves only to stimulate greater effort towards further reduction
 there and elsewhere. Economic, business or technical
conditions that may have a considerable bearing upon the
practicability of reductions in working schedules are usually
dismissed without serious consideration. Suggestions that
too frequent and stringent regulation handicaps desirable
business growth and natural expansion, and even forces some
establishments to move from states with such regulative legislation
 and prevents others from settling there, are met with
the rejoinder that a state is better off without industries that
zan not observe humane standards for their workers.
On the other hand, many view the progressive reduction
in working hours with disfavor. They resent the interference
 of labor and other outside organizations in matters of
plant administration and are generally opposed to legislative
regulation of internal industrial operation. They maintain
“hat hours of work should be a matter of free individual contract
 between employer and employee.
Between these two views is that of the great majority of
persons who approve the principle of shorter hours of work
when its application is feasible and justified in the light of