ABSTRACT
after wages, workpeople show greatest interest in hours of work, and demands for satisfactory hours are increasingly insistent as wage standards improve. People must work to live, and until basic needs are met hours of work are subsidiary. Long hours are closely linked with low standards of living, and both are related to poor natural resources and inefficient methods of production, while rich resources and efficient production permit increased leisure. Regulation of hours of work is, however, simpler than that of wages, and once a major change in normal hours has been made they remain stable over longer periods than wages, as they are much less influenced by changes in the prosperity of industry and in the value of money. Thus, whereas wage rates are often changed at yearly intervals, normal hours tend to remain stable for a decade or even a generation.
