238 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK 
maintain living standards and wages, so the theoretical fallacy 
did not trouble them. 
The eight-hour theorists, however, did not fail to provide 
a bridge whereby their followers could pass over into the prom- 
ised land of enhanced production so dear to the economist, as an 
examination of the three official eight-hour pamphlets published 
by the Federation in 1889, and still kept in circulation, will show. 
Lemuel Danryid’s History and Philosophy of the Eight-Hour 
Movement, number three in the series, discusses at some length 
the supposed overproduction of the European countries and the 
United States, and then goes on: 
The crying evil in each country is not want of productive power, 
but the lack of consumptive ability.! 
The question then is how to increase consumption, and thus furnish 
not only increased production, but a happier and more contented 
people.? 
Therefore we may conclude that a science of economics would see 
in the lessening of the hours of labor increased consumption, a vaster 
display of productive activity, a higher intellectual and moral devel- 
opment of the toiler, a wider demand for the more artistic products 
of our factories, an immense stimulus afforded to inventive genius, a 
more thorough organization of industrial functions and an almost 
fabulous increase of national prosperity and wealth no longer based 
on individual misery and want, and all proceeding pari passu with 
higher wages.® 
The lessening of the hours of labor means less idle hands, more 
persons profitably employed, and, hence, augmented consumption of 
labor products. By increasing the number of employed an increased 
demand will augment supply, overproduction checked, the home 
market enlarged, and with every added demand for labor wages rise. 
Danyrid’s argument ties together the doctrines of consumption 
and production in a way that makes Henry Ford's five-day idea 
look like a belated imitation. The shortening of hours, no longer 
just an immediate remedy for unemployment, has become a magic 
wand that will permanently and progressively increase produc- 
tion through increasing consumption and demand, will raise 
wages, and will usher in enduring prosperity. The economist 1s 
interested to discover here the source of the increased wages which 
are to follow the introduction of the shorter day. 
1 Ibid. p. 4. 
2 1bid., p. 4. 
3 Ibid., p. 10. 
' Ibid, p. 13.