DEBATE OF JAN. 11, 1888.Subject: Resolved, that the agitation for an eight-hour working day promotes the best interest of the laboring classes.

Brief for the Affirmative.J. A. Bailey and E. L. Blossom.

Best single reference; Gunton's Wealth and Progress, pp. 240-65.

I. More leisure for workingmen is very desirable. In it lies their main hope of progress in: (a) Health. (b) Intelligence. (c) Good citizenship. Gunton' pp. 240-51, 373-7. Congr. Globe, 2nd session, 40th Congr., p. 3425.

II. An eight-hour system would lessen the number of unemployed, and diminish social dangers. Report of N. J. Bureau of Statistics for 1886, p. 228. Gunton, supra:

III. In a few years an eight-hour working day will be sufficient to supply the needs of the people, because of: (a) improvements in machinery, and (b) greater efficiency of workmen. Atkinson's Margin of Profits, p. 24. Report of N. J. Bureau of Statistics, 1886, pp. 228-35, 238-44. Schoenhof's Industrial Situation, pp. 127-9.

IV. The agitation is the beginning of effort for a worthy and feasible end, and therefore must promote the best interests of the laboring classes. Strikes are a necessary evil. McNeil's Labor Movement, p. 478.

V. The eight-hour agitation is peculiarly valuable for economic education of the laboring classes.

Brief for the Negative.F. D. Peale and B. W. Palmer.

Best single reference, E. Atkinson in Bradstreet's, April 24, 1886.

I. Practical Economic Objections. (a) History of the Agitation. Bradstreet's selected numbers. (b) Effects, by strikes, in loss of wages, and in loss of capital and wealth. Bradstreet's, Ibid. (c) General failure of the agitation. Bradstreet's, January 8 and February 12, 1887. (d) Proof that agitation is premature. Bradstreet's, May 15, 1886.

II. Theoretic economic objections. (a) The eight-hour day can only be beneficial when the condition of industry is more advanced than at present. (b) It may become so hereafter. If so, the eight-hour day will come of itself, obedient to economic laws, and the present agitation will have been premature. (c) It may never become so. In this case the eight-hour day would be economically harmful, and the present agitation will have been worse than useless.

III. Political and educational objections. (a) The use of violence to obtain ends instills false and dangerous ideas in the minds of the lower classes. (b) Organizations of laborers give ignorant men power which they abuse. Nation, vol. 42, pp. 315,338.

NOTE.- The number of Bradstreet's referred to in this brief are in the Political Economy Library in U. 14.