fruit or fish and the making of condensed milk, women are actually allowed by the law to work for ninety-six days in the course of any twelve months for fourteen hours a day. The only objections that can be urged to putting factories in general upon the same footing as those in the textile trades are the arguments which were adduced against the principle of State regulation of the hours of labour. If the textile trades can be conducted without overtime--trades which are dominated by changes of fashion and season just as much as any other trades--is it not absurd on the face of it to allow printers, pork-pie makers, and a host of other manufacturers whose business is supposed to be affected by liability to sudden pressure of orders and by season demands to remain untouched by the Act? Granted that excessively long hours are necessary for certain periods in the case of operations that have to be conducted out of doors, or such operations as fish curing and the like, the way to meet the difficulty is not by over-taxing the strength of those employed, but by working double or, if necessary, treble shifts. It cannot be too strongly urged that these exceptions are entirely contrary to the spirit of factory legislation, which is based upon the doctrine that trade must adapt itself to what is necessary for the workers in regard to their health and requirements as human beings, and that it is entirely opposed to the theory that human beings must adapt their standard of health and leisure to the conveniences and exigencies of trade. Whether the maximum hours of labour fixed for the textile trades, _viz._, fifty-six per week, are not too many is another question. In the opinion of the operatives themselves forty-eight hours are long enough, and the textile trades are promoting a bill to give legislative force to their belief. It has been shewn in previous chapters that the intensity of work has greatly increased, and that the demands made upon the strength and endurance of the workers are probably more severe than was the case before the passing of the Acts. It must not be forgotten that a law which has been made by the national legislature in such a matter as this imposes a responsibility of the very gravest kind upon the nation. In other trades the hours of labour are now, generally speaking, shorter than those in the textile trades. London builders, taking the year round, do not work more than an average of forty-eight hours a week, engineers work fifty-two and a half, and so do boiler-makers and iron-founders. This is not the place for a detailed treatment of the demand for a shorter day, but the fact cannot be overlooked--a fact which was insisted upon in the fifth chapter--that as motive power and machinery replace manual work so the claim for longer periods of rest and leisure grows stronger. There is a danger lest society in its intense pre-occupation with the multiplication of commodities should take up a false position