EFFECT  OF  SHORTER  WORKING-DAY  105
saving  was  dependent  upon  an  increase  of  consumption.
It  is  in  a  country  where  new-felt  needs  are  constantly
clamouring  for  satisfaction,  where  men  spend  freely,  as
in  the  United  States,  that  the  growth  of  valid  forms  of
capital  is  largest.
§  6.  Effect  of  a  Shorter  Working-day  upon
Consumption.  Cases  where  Output  is
Maintained.
The  pressure  towards  a  shorter  working-day  must  likewise ­
  be  held  to  conduce,  both  in  its  direct  and  in  its
indirect  influence,  to  the  same  end,  the  elevation  of  the
general  standard  of  consumption.  It  is  true  this  may
not  hold  of  all  trades  and  all  circumstances.  The  plea
for  an  Eight  Hours  Day  on  the  ground  that  it  will
absorb  the  unemployed  does  not  admit  of  general  acceptance. ­
  In  many  occupations,  as  Mr.  Rae  and  others
have  shown,  the  shorter  working-day  will  simply  mean
an  increased  compression  of  labour,  the  same  output
being  produced  in  an  eight  hours  day  as  previously  in
a  nine  or  ten  hours  day.  In  all  cases  where,  either  by
this  intensification  of  labour  or  by  improved  machinery
and  method,  the  shorter  day  is  as  productive  as  the
longer  day  was  formerly,  there  will  be  no  absorption  of
“the  unemployed”  and  no  direct  effect  upon  the  aggregate ­
  volume  of  employment.  This  would  probably  be
the  result  of  shortening  the  hours  of  labour  in  some  of
the  mining  and  metal  industries,  in  those  branches  of
textile  and  other  manufactures  where  machinery  is  not
yet  perfected  or  speeded  to  full  pitch,  and  in  the  bulk
of  the  distributive  trades.  In  these  it  is  likely  that  a
shorter  day  would  be  made  as  productive  as  a  longer  day.