reformers, will most materially depress, if not entirely extinguish the silk and lace manufactures; and taking all these and similar considerations into account, the annual working time in factories is sure to be brought down to only six days per individual.

The benefits arising from this small fraction of time spent in factory labour will allow plenty of time for the initiation in, and apprenticeship to, the various manipulations connected with this kind of work; and should the shortness of this period cause any inconvenience in the travelling to and coming from the place where the factories are situated, a term of several years can be worked in one short period; for as the annual labour-contribution of each individual is only six days, his indebtedness in that respect to society for seven years could be discharged by forty-two days' or six weeks' continuous labour. He would then be liberated for other pursuits.

The shortness of the period of factory work, being only six days for the whole adult population, will also be a means for restoring women to their natural sphere of domestic work, and to the fulfilment of their duties as mothers and nurses of their children; for if the men agree to work twelve days instead of six, the women can be entirely withdrawn from the factory. If this withdrawal of all women from even six days of factory labour is highly advisable, how much more does not the present state of society require a radical change in order to obviate the extensive employment of women in continuous factory work, for a period of 300 days in every year? That the present state of things is very objectionable is even admitted by the factory inspectors, for they say in their report for 1872:- Including every kind of workshop, the number of female workers may be reasonably estimated at a total of 1,080,000 females employed from home, and therefore from what ought to be the best influences of the human mind."

A second class of factory labour, and one eminently suited for equal distribution among the people, comprises all those manufactures in which scientific arrangements on a large scale reduce the labour of the individual employed to the simplest kind, very often consisting of nothing else but removing, carrying, and depositing materials. In this kind of labour there are at present employed the following number of persons:

Calculated at 300 working-days per year for each individual employed, the amount of work done in these branches of industy is 30,300,000 working-days annually. This number will, however, experience a great reduction by the economy in the consumption of gas, which will certainly reduce the 8000 men now employed to 2000; and the almost total suppression of the manufacture of intoxicating drinks will at once extinguish both the 20,000 brewers, and 10,000 malsters. These two items alone will reduce 100,000 to 64,000 persons employed, with only 19,200,000 working days, which if divided among 12,000,000 of those capable to work, will only add not quite two days to their yearly labour.

The third class of factory labour, including all those occupations required by the minute subdivision of manufacturing processes, is especially to be met with in the manufacture of cutlery, tools, steel pens, buttons, guns, brass ware, etc., and may be estimated as employing at least 60,000 persons.

Although the suppression of luxury may to a small extent effect a reduction of these manufactures, it will, however, be greatly counterbalanced by the increased activity in the production of tools; for in the future social state every man being skilled in a variety of trades, he will consequently need various sets of tools.

If the total labour of this class amounts to 18,000,000 working-days it will annually allot in equal shares one and a half working-days per individual.

The next class of labour also easily admits of an equal distribution amongst the male portion of the community.

T

CHAPTER XXXI.-CARRYING AND LOCOMOTION.

10 this class belong the persons employed in the following occupations:

The reduction that will be effected in these employments will be very great, and will arise from the total suppression of the wholesale and retail trade, and from the introduction of another and more economical system of distributing produce, in which only the tenth part of the present number of porters, messengers, errand boys, warehousemen, packers, carriers, carters, seamen, lightermen, railway servants, road labourers, street sweepers, omnibus drivers, and coachmen will be required to do all the necessary work.

Very few cab and fly men will be wanted, for every individual of the great bulk of the people will have plenty of time to walk on foot to his work, and to return from it in the same fashion. With the exception of the conveyance of patients and doctors in cases of sudden illness or accidents, there will be a total cessation of the occupation of cab and flymen.

The railway service will also require a much smaller number of servants, owing to the diminution of the goods traffic; but will, on the other hand, probably want some more servants for the increased passenger locomotion arising from the frequent dislocation of the whole population, in order to convey all persons to their alternate occupations in factories and national workshops, and on the land. Still, this passenger locomotion

will even then, when embracing the whole nation, remain inferior in mileage and numbers to the present senseless railway travelling, used either for the purposes of trade and commerce, or for the gratification of pleasure-seekers.

A reduction to the tenth part of the carrying work now performed will reduce the present number of 174,600,000 working-days to 17,460,000, or, in round numbers, to 17,000,000 working-days, which, if divided among 12,000,000 workers, will be but one and a half day per individual.

CHAPTER XXXII.-MINING LABOUR, AND OTHER HEAVY

THIS

WORK.

THIS kind of labour is likewise to be classed amongst the series of those fit for equal distribution, not only because there does not exist any real difficulty in learning the work of the pitman, but because it is heavy, uncomfortable, and dangerous work.

The number of persons engaged in mines and other similar heavy work are the following:

This grand total multiplied by 300 working-days for each individual gives 246,000,000 working-days, to which nearly the half falls to the lot of the pitman. This enormous burden of labour will, however, in the future social state, be at once

lessened by one half of its ponderous weight, which now crushes about 1,000 persons annually; for no time will be lost, and no obstacles encountered, in the introduction and universal application of the coal-cutting apparatus,-an ingenious machine of recent invention, which is already at work in several collieries, but whose great success has not yet made any perceptible impression on the apathy, prejudice, or ignorance of the present coal-owners. This machine is said to cut, in eight hours' time, 350 feet of coal, yielding from seventy to seventy-five tons in weight-a production that represents the work of forty men for the same period. Three or at most four men are required to tend the machine, and its general adoption would, according to a calculation in the Times of Jan. 6th, 1873, render it possible to dispense with the labour of 300,000 of the 360,000 men now employed in the coal-mines of the country.*

The labour in the coal-mines, although so enormously reduced by machinery, will, in the future social state, be further lessened by the great decrease in the consumption of coal on account of the diminution of all manufactures, by the large reduction in the consumption of gas, and by the great saving of fuel in the Associated Homes.

One-tenth of the above number of 246,000,000 working-days will probably suffice for this class of work; and if 24,000,000 working-days are shared by 7,000,000 males (for females never ought nor never will have to participate in this heavy kind of work), it will only allot a fraction more than three days per annum to each man of the 7,000,000 of the adult male population.

Some of the coal-cutting machines now working at West Ardsly have been in constant use three or four years, and by their employment the equivalent of a man's power exerted for the whole day in cutting coal can be obtained at a cost in fuel of only 34d. The daily work done by one of these machines is about equal to the day's work of twelve average men, and the persons employed to work the machine are one man, one youth, and one boy.