he latter are unduly long. But it is not so
clearly recognised that such questions cannot be determined without
reference to the question of intensity of labour. Yet it is evident
that an eight-hours day of more compressed labour might be of a more
exhausting character than a ten-hours day of less intense labour and
disqualify a worker from receiving the benefits of the opportunities
of education open to him more than the longer hours of less intense
labour. The advantage of the addition of two hours of leisure might be
outweighed by the diminished value attached to each leisure hour. In
other words, the excess of intense work might be worse in its effects
than the excess of more extended work. This possibility is often
overlooked in the arguments of those who support the movement towards
a shorter working-day by maintaining that each unit of labour-time
will be more productive. When the argument concerns itself merely with
alleging the influence of higher wages, without shorter hours, upon
the efficiency of labour, this neglect of the consideration of intense
labour has a more urgent importance. It may be gravely doubted whether
the benefit of the higher wages of the Massachusetts weavers is not
overbalanced by the increased effort of tending so large a number of
looms for hours which are longer than the English factory day. The
exhausting character of such labour is likely to leave its mark in
diminishing the real utility or satisfaction of the nominally higher
standard of living which the high wages render possible. Where the
increased productivity of labour is largely due to the improved
machinery or methods of production which are stimulated by high wages
without a corresponding intensification of the labour itself, the gain
to labour is clear. But the possibility that short hours and high
wages may stimulate an injurious compression of the output of
productive effort is one which must not be overlooked in considering
the influence of new industrial methods upon labour.

Sec. 8. Duration of labour, intensity of labour, and wages, in their
mutual relations, must be studied together in any attempt to estimate
the tendencies of capitalist production. Nor can we expect their
relations to be the same in any two industries. Where labour is
thinly extended over an inordinately long working-day, as in the
Indian mills, it is probable that such improvements of organisation as
might shorten the hours to those of an ordinary