According to your figures, the workman in the last hour but one
 produces his wages, and in the last hour your surplus-value or net profit.
 Now, since in equal periods he produces equal values, the produce of the
 last hour but one, must have the same value as that of the last hour. Further,
 it is only while he labours that he produces any value at all, and the
 amount of his labour is measured by his labour-time. This you say, amounts
 to 11½ hours a day. He employs one portion of these 11½ hours, in
 producing or replacing his wages, and the remaining portion in producing
 your net profit. Beyond this he does absolutely nothing. But since, on
 your assumption, his wages, and the surplus-value he yields, are of equal
 value, it is clear that he produces his wages in 5¾ hours, and your
 net profit in the other 5¾ hours. Again, since the value of the yarn
 produced in 2 hours, is equal to the sum of the values of his wages and
 of your net profit, the measure of the value of this yarn must be 11½
 working-hours, of which 5¾ hours measure the value of the yarn produced
 in the last hour but one, and 5¾, the value of the yarn produced in
 the last hour. We now come to a ticklish point; therefore, attention! The
 last working-hour but one is, like the first, an ordinary working-hour,
 neither more nor less. How then can the spinner produce in one hour, in
 the shape of yarn, a value that embodies 5¾ hours’ labour? The truth
 is that he performs no such miracle. The use-value produced by him in one
 hour, is a definite quantity of yarn. The value of this yarn is measured
 by 5¾ working-hours, of which 4¾ were, without any assistance
 from him, previously embodied in the means of production, in the cotton,
 the machinery, and so on; the remaining one hour alone is added by him.
 Therefore since his wages are produced in 5¾ hours, and the yarn produced
 in one hour also contains 5¾ hours’ work, there is no witchcraft in
 the result, that the value created by his 5¾ hours’ spinning, is equal
 to the value of the product spun in one hour. You are altogether on the
 wrong track, if you think that he loses a single moment of his working-day,
 in reproducing or replacing the values of the cotton, the machinery, and
 so on. On the contrary, it is because his labour converts the cotton and
 spindles into yarn, because he spins, that the values of the cotton and
 spindles go over to the yarn of their own accord. This result is owing
 to the quality of his labour, not to its quantity. It is true, he will
 in one hour transfer to the yarn more value, in the shape of cotton, than
 he will in half an hour; but that is only because in one hour he spins
 up more cotton than in half an hour. You see then, your assertion, that
 the workman produces, in the last hour but one, the value of his wages,
 and in the last hour your net profit, amounts to no more than this, that
 in the yarn produced by him in 2 working-hours, whether they are the 2
 first or the 2 last hours of the working-day, in that yarn, there are incorporated
 11½ working-hours, or just a whole day’s work, i.e., two hours
 of his own work and 9½ hours of other people’s. And my assertion that,
 in the first 5¾ hours, he produces his wages, and in the last 5¾
 hours your net profit, amounts only to this, that you pay him for the former,
 but not for the latter. In speaking of payment of labour, instead of payment
 of labour-power, I only talk your own slang. Now, gentlemen, if you compare
 the working-time you pay for, with that which you do not pay for, you will
 find that they are to one another, as half a day is to half a day; this
 gives a rate of 100%, and a very pretty percentage it is. Further, there
 is not the least doubt, that if you make your “hands” toil for 13 hours,
 instead of 11½, and, as may be expected from you, treat the work done
 in that extra one hour and a half, as pure surplus-labour, then the latter
 will be increased from 5¾ hours’ labour to 7¼ hours’ labour, and
 the rate of surplus-value from 100% to 126 2/23%. So that you are altogether
 too sanguine, in expecting that by such an addition of 1½ hours to the
 working-day, the rate will rise from 100% to 200% and more, in other words
 that it will be “more than doubled.” On the other hand — man’s heart is a
 wonderful thing, especially when carried in the purse — you take too 219pessimist
 a view, when you fear, that with a reduction of the hours of labour from
 11½ to 10, the whole of your net profit will go to the dogs. Not at
 all. All other conditions remaining the same, the surplus-labour will fall
 from 5¾ hours to 4¾ hours, a period that still gives a very profitable
 rate of surplus-value, namely 82 14/23%. But this dreadful “last hour,” 
 about which you have invented more stories than have the millenarians about
 the day of judgment, is “all bosh.” If it goes, it will cost neither you,
 your net profit, nor the boys and girls whom you employ, their “purity
 of mind.” [11] Whenever your “last hour” strikes in earnest, 220think
 of the Oxford Professor. And now, gentlemen, “farewell, and may we meet
 again in yonder better world, but not before.”