Another difficulty of more direct importance with regard to the proposed councils is already arising. The relative powers and position of the shop stewards chosen by the men in each works and of the unions representing industry as a whole in any district have to be settled. There are also overlapping unions competing for influence and support, and sometimes doing so by making excessive demands. The events of the next few months may lead either to an accentuation or to a partial solution of these questions which are perhaps the most serious at present affecting industrial peace. It is better not to anticipate. Prophecy might be falsified too soon and too palpably, and the position, which changes from week to week, is too critical for anyone to discuss unless he has full and exact knowledge of the facts and clear understanding of the way in which undercurrents are setting. CHAPTER XI LONG HOURS _Our life is turned_ _Out of her course wherever man is made_ _An offering, or a sacrifice, a tool_ _Or implement, a passive thing employed_ _As a brute mean, without acknowledgment_ _Of common right or interest in the end._ --WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. There is no doubt that among the causes of unrest one of the most serious, probably much more so than either employers or workmen are generally conscious of, is the long hours of work. Those who have had to hear questions arising out of labour disputes have noticed the state of tension produced by the weariness and strain of too prolonged and continuous work. Even in the domestic circle an overworked man is often found less amiable and more ready to find fault. A harassed manager and a deputation of jaded workmen may be really very good fellows and yet find that some comparatively small question raises strong feeling and mutual recrimination, and then leads to rash action resulting in open strife, strikes, and lock-outs, and the judicial proceedings which may be necessary in consequence of them. "A Skilled Labourer," writing in the _Quarterly Review_, mentions as the first of the four principal grievances of workmen--"the hours are too long." Long hours have been accepted on both sides partly because during the War the call of the country for increased output, especially of munitions, was so urgent, and partly because it was thought that higher profits would thereby be obtained, and certainly higher wages earned. It seems, however, well established that longer hours do not necessarily mean increased output. There is a limit to the time during which a man can do even routine work effectively. If men were to be regarded only as machines for turning out work of a certain class, very long hours would be bad business. Where the work involves special skill and thought the evil results of long hours, even measured simply by the gross amount done, are still more serious. Everyone who has had to do with young students and still more