in books or sport; but the majority have neither inclination nor energy for any active pursuits. The remedy for this trouble lies in the drastic shortening of the working day for all men who are engaged in the mechanical process of production. With the increasing application of science to industry, under conditions of production for use, it is impossible to say how short the necessary working day may become. And if it became the rule, as it probably should, that no member of society should be exempt from a share in the work of maintaining its natural life and so take his part in mechanical production, there is no reason why the indispensable mechanical toil expected of the individual should not be reduced to a very low point indeed. Footnote 19: The present wholly inadequate remuneration of the agricultural labourer does not come under discussion here, as the argument assumes that the principle of the national minimum is accepted. This assumption is the more reasonable in view of the fact that in England a minimum wage for agricultural labourers has been fixed and is to operate for five years. If in addition men are trained from childhood to take the view that this toil is a necessary social task, and therefore, intrinsically noble and honourable, the whole atmosphere in which it is discharged would be organically changed. To-day, the prevailing note of speed and competition reduces the place and sense of comradeship to very narrow limits. The general attitude of antagonism between capital and labour infects the air, and not only makes co-operation between the administrative and productive functions impossible, but introduces a subtle poison of disintegration into the mutual relations of the operatives. The only comradeship which appears to exist is that which is created by the need under present conditions of safeguarding class interests. When men of all classes have been brought up to regard a certain amount of mechanical toil as an honourable obligation to the society to which they belong, they will naturally accept their share in the common task and bring themselves to it in a spirit of comradeship. VII But it is useless to suppose that we have done all that is needed when we have thus relieved the irksomeness of the day’s work. Indeed, we have (if we leave it at that) only created a great peril—the peril of deterioration which always attends unused or ill-used leisure. “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do;” and the antidote to idleness lies in providing things to do that unoccupied hands will turn to do with readiness. Yet it were fatal to regard this as a problem of utilising spare time. We have indeed a greater and worthier task on hand; and the drastic shortening of the statutory working day provides us with our opportunity.