serve to illustrate my meaning. That it connotes the fact of a man’s
bearing a personal part in this or that work is clear on the face of
it. That no other person also bears a part, is sometimes implied by the
context, but it is not necessarily contained in the word itself. To put
it differently, he does his own work, not necessarily all his own work.
I note two points in connexion with it that seem to me important. First,
it is so often used as descriptive of rustic labour that it seems to have
carried with it associations of farm-life: most of the other uses are
almost metaphorical, some distinctly so. Secondly, I have never found it
applied to the case of a slave. Why? I think, because it conveyed the
further notion of working not only yourself but for yourself. If in some
passages it is not quite certain that an owner (rather than a tenant) is
referred to, surely this extension of meaning is not such as to cause
surprise. It is not enough to suggest serious doubt that the common and
full sense of the word was that a man did work with his own hands on his
own account on his own land. This was the character to which immemorial
tradition pointed; and, whenever tenancy under landlords began, the
word fitted the working tenant-farmer well enough. The Romans had the
tradition in the most definite form, though Latin furnished no equivalent
word. Their literature, moralizing by examples and unapt for theory, used
it as material for centuries. But neither in the Greek world nor in Italy
can I detect any reason for believing that the peasant farmer, idealized
by later ages, is rightly to be conceived as a person unwilling to employ
slave labour—if and when he could get it. The tradition, in which rustic
slaves appear from very early times, seems to me far more credible than
late legends of a primitive golden age in which there were no slaves at
all. That a man, to be enslaved, must first have been free, is a piece
of speculation with which I am not here concerned.
Tradition then, looking back to times when landowner and citizen were
normally but different sides of the same character, both terms alike
implying the duty of fighting for the state, idealized and glorified this
character with great but pardonable exaggeration of virtues probably
not merely fictitious. The peasant citizen and producer was its hero.
As the devolution of bodily labour upon slaves or hirelings became more
common with the increase of commerce and urban life, and the solid
worth of a patriot peasantry became more evident in the hour of its
decay, men turned with regret to the past. And the contrast of the real
present with an idealized past naturally found a significant difference
in the greater or less willingness of men to work with their own hands,
particularly on the land. But it was the labour of free citizens, each
bearing an active part in the common responsibilities of the state and
enjoying its common protection, that was glorified, not labour as in
itself meritorious or healthy. The wholesomeness of rustic toil was not
ignored, but to urge it as a motive for bodily exertion was a notion
developed by town-bred thinkers. That it coloured later tradition is not
wonderful: its recognition is most clearly expressed in the admission
of superior ‘corporal soundness’ in the sparely-fed and hard-worked
slave or wage-earner. But labour as labour was never, so far as I can
learn, dignified and respected in Greco-Roman civilization. Poverty, not
choice, might compel a man to do all his own work; but, if he could and
did employ hired or slave labour also, then he was an ἀυτουργός none
the less. This I hold to be an underlying fact that Roman tradition in
particular is calculated to obscure. It was voluntary labour, performed
in a citizen’s own interest and therefore a service to the state, that
received sentimental esteem.
The power of military influences in ancient states is often cited as
a sufficient explanation of the social fact that non-military bodily
labour was generally regarded with more or less contempt. The army being
the state in arms, the inferiority of those who did not form part of it
though able-bodied was manifest to all. This is true as far as it goes,
but there was something more behind. Why does not the same phenomenon
appear in modern states with conscript armies, such as France or Italy
or above all Switzerland? I think the true answer is only to be found by
noting a difference between ancient and modern views as to the nature
and limits of voluntary action. It is only of states in which membership
is fairly to be called citizenship that I am speaking; and as usual
it is Greek conditions and Greek words that supply distinct evidence.
Not that the Roman conditions were materially different, but they were
perhaps less clearly conceived, and the record is less authentic and
clear. Now, beyond the loyal obedience due from citizen to state, any
sort of constraint determining the action of one free man by the will
of others was feared and resented to a degree of which we cannot easily
form an adequate notion. In the gradual emancipation of the commons from
the dominion of privileged nobles, the long struggle gave a passionate
intensity to the natural appetite for freedom. And the essence of
freedom was the power of self-disposal. This power was liable to be lost
permanently by sale into slavery, but also from time to time by the
effect of temporary engagements. The most obvious instance of the latter
condition was the bondage created by unpaid debt. Hence the persistent
and eventually successful fight to make it illegal to take a borrower’s
person as security for his debt. But, suppose the debt cancelled by the
seizure of his goods, the man was left a pauper. His only resource was
to work for wages, and this placed him for the time of his engagement at
the full disposal[1803] of his employer. If he was not a master’s slave
for good and all, he would be passing from master to master, ever freshly
reminded of the fact that his daily necessities subjected him to the will
of others, nullifying his freeman’s power of self-disposal. If he worked
side by side with slaves, there was a further grievance. For the slave,
in whom his owner had sunk capital, had to be kept fed and housed to
retard his depreciation: the free labourer depended[1804] on his wage,
liable to fail. The situation, thus crudely stated, was intolerable.
In practice it was met, first by devotion to handicrafts as a means of
livelihood in which the winning of custom by skill relieved the worker
from direct dependence on a single master; but also by allotments of land
in annexed territory, and sometimes (as at Athens) by multiplication of
paid state-employments.
Of ordinary artisans, as distinct from artists, it may be said that
their position varied according as their special trades were more or
less esteemed by contemporary sentiment. The successful could and did
employ[1805] helpers, usually slaves. In urban populations they were an
important element, particularly in those where military considerations
were not predominant. The accumulation of capital, and the introduction
of industries on a larger scale in factory-workshops with staffs of
slaves, may have affected some trades to their disadvantage, but on the
whole the small-scale craftsmen seem generally[1806] to have held their
ground. Unskilled labour on the other hand was generally despised. It
was as a matter of course chiefly performed by slaves. If a citizen
was compelled by want to hire out his bodily strength, this was not
voluntary: complete submission to another’s will, even for a short
time, made the relation on his part virtually servile. Accordingly
philosophers, when they came to discuss such topics, came to the
conclusion that the need of such unskilled labour proved slavery to be
‘according to nature,’ a necessary appliance of human society. When the
Stoic defined a slave as a lifelong hireling, he gave sharp expression
to what had long been felt as a true analogy. For, if the slave was a
lifelong hireling, the hireling must be a temporary slave. Romans could
borrow the thought, but with them practice had preceded theory.
In making comparisons between wage-earning ancient and modern we come
upon a difficulty which it is hardly possible to set aside or overcome.
A slave could be hired from his owner, just as a freeman could be hired
from himself. The difference between the two cases would be clearly
marked[1807] in the modern world, and language would leave no room for
misunderstanding. But many passages in ancient writers leave it quite
uncertain whether the hirelings referred to are free or slave. The
point is an important one, particularly to inquirers who attempt to
estimate the relative economic efficiency of free and slave labour. For
the immediate interest of the freeman is to get a maximum of wage for
a minimum of work: the ultimate interest of the hired slave was often
to improve his own prospect of manumission. The custom was to allow
the slave to retain a small portion of his wage. Now this stimulus to
exertion was manifestly to the interest of the employer, who may even
have made it a part of his bargain with the owner. The slave, alive to
the chance of laying up a little store for the eventual purchase of his
freedom, was induced to work well in order to be kept employed on these
terms. The owner drew a steady income from his capital sunk in slaves,
and the system was thus convenient to all parties. We may add that, by
causing a slave to take thought for his own future, this plan encouraged
him to take reasonable care of his own health, and so far retarded his
progressive deterioration as an investment; while his owner stood to
recover the slave’s hoarded wage-portion in the form of redemption-money
on manumission of his worn-out slave. There is reason to think that
slave labour under these conditions was often more efficient than free.
Unhappily we have no direct discussion of the question from ancient
observers, who did not take this point of view, though well aware of the
influence of prospective manumission in producing contentment.
But how far was this comparatively genial arrangement applicable to the
ruder forms of unskilled labour? Take for instance mining. Freemen would
have none of it, and the inhuman practices of exploiters were notorious.
Yet hired slaves were freely employed. Owners knew that their slaves
were likely to waste rapidly under the methods in use, and at Athens a
common stipulation was that on the expiry of a contract the gang hired
should be returned in equal number, the employer making good the losses
certain to occur in their ranks. Here we have the mere human chattel,
hopeless and helpless, never likely to receive anything but his keep, as
an engine receives its fuel and oil, but differing in this, that he was
liable to cruel punishment. Such labourers could not work for a freedom
that they had no prospect of living to enjoy. And how about the case of
agriculture? That freemen did work for wages on farms we know, but we
hear very little of them, and that little almost entirely as helpers at
certain seasons. So far as I have been able to learn, free wage-labour
did not really compete with slave labour in agriculture: moreover the
hired man might be a hired slave, while migratory harvesters, probably
freemen, appear at least in some cases as gangs hired for the job under
a ganger of their own, responsible to the employer for their conduct and
efficiency. Most significant is the almost complete absence of evidence
that rustic slaves had any prospect of manumission. In former chapters
I have commented on this fact and noted the few faint indications of
such an arrangement. At all events the crude plantation-system, while it
lasted, was a work-to-death system, though worn-out survivors may have
had a better lot than miners, if allowed to exist as old retainers on
the estate. But cultivation by slave labour for the purpose of raising
an income for the landlord was, even in its later improved organization,
a system implying brutal callousness, if not downright cruelty. Slave
stewards and overseers, at the mercy of the master themselves, were
naturally less concerned to spare the common hands than to escape the
master’s wrath. When writers on agriculture urge that on all grounds it
is wise to keep punishments down to a minimum, the point of their advice
is surely a censure of contemporary practice.
Now in modern times, humanitarian considerations being assumed, the
prevailing point of view has been more and more a strictly economic and
industrial one. It has been assumed that the freedom of an individual
consists first and foremost in the freedom to dispose of his own labour
on the best available terms. And this freedom rests on freedom to move
from place to place in search of the best labour-market from time
to time. But the movement and the bargaining have been regarded as
strictly voluntary, as in a certain sense they are. The power to migrate
or emigrate with the view of ‘bettering himself’ is conferred on the
wage-earner by modern facilities for travel, and new countries readily
absorb additional labour. But experience has shewn that free bargaining
for wages is not seldom illusory, since the man of capital can bide
his time, while the poor man cannot. Still, when every allowance has
been made on this score, it is true that the modern labourer, through
freedom of movement, has far more power of self-disposal than the
wage-earner of the Greco-Roman world. That his position is strengthened
and assured by the possession of political power, is not without ancient
analogies: but a difference in degree if not in kind is created by the
wide extension of the franchise in modern states, and its complete
separation in principle from the ownership of land. That is, the basis
of citizenship is domicile: for citizen parentage is not required, but
easily supplemented[1808] by legal nationalization. Moreover, religion is
no longer a necessary family inheritance, but the choice of individuals
who can generally gratify their preferential sentiments in surroundings
other than their birthplace. Compare this position with the narrow
franchises of antiquity and their ineffectiveness on any large scale,
their normally hereditary character, the local and domestic limitation
of religious ties, the restricted facilities for travel, not to mention
its ever-present perils. Remember that to reside in another state as an
alien did not, in default of special treaty or act of legislative grace,
give the resident any claim to civic rights in his place of residence,
while misfortune might at any time reduce him to slavery in a foreign
land. Surely under such conditions the limits of purely voluntary action
were narrow indeed. The lure of the wage and the fear of unemployment are
often a severe form of pressure, but they are, as fetters on freedom, a
mere nothing in comparison with this.
Considerations such as those set forth in the preceding paragraphs shew
that in treating of ancient agriculture and farm-labour we are apparently
faced by a curious paradox. Cultivation of land (including the keeping
of live stock) is an honourable pursuit. That good health, sustenance,
even comfort and profit, are its natural attendants, is not doubted.
But the position of the labouring hands is painful and mean, so much so
that a common punishment for urban house-slaves was to send them to work
on a farm. The rustic slave’s lot differed for the better from that of
the mine-slave in the healthier nature of the occupation, but in little
else. And this degradation inevitably reacted on the estimate of rustic
wage-earners, whenever employed. There may have been less repugnance
to work side by side with slaves than has been felt in modern times,
when a marked colour-line implied the disgrace of a ‘white’ man doing
‘niggers’ work.’ But it is not to be doubted that in agriculture as in
other occupations the presence of slavery did degrade labour, at all
events so soon as agriculture put on anything of an industrial character.
The really ‘respectable’ person was the man who directed the operations,
the γεωργός, _agricola_, or _colonus_ (in the original sense): he was
the man who worked the land and made it yield crops, whether he took
part in the actual digging and ploughing or not. The larger the scale,
the more he confined himself to direction, necessarily; but he was the
producer, a pillar of public economy, none the less. He had provided
the labour, bought or hired; in effect, the labour was his own. With
the toiling yeoman farmer of tradition he had this in common, that both
worked for themselves, not for another. And this position, attractive
in all societies, was marked out with peculiar distinctness through the
institution of slavery underlying the social fabric. Exploitation of
man by man, the first beginnings of which elude our search and are only
ascertained by inference, suggests some sort of superiority in the upper
party. At all events the master, the man who has the upper hand, gets the
credit of achievement, and in agriculture as elsewhere the subordinate
operative is inevitably forgotten. It is from this point of view that
we must regard the fine Roman legends of sturdy farmer-citizens, the
fathers of the Republic. They are idylls conveying truth, dressed up by
the imagination of a later age: and have their place in the region where
history and poetry meet and blend. We must not gather from them that
slavery was exceptional or a fact of no importance. Tradition habitually
ignores what is normal and therefore assumed. The fairer inference is
that, as I have already remarked, slavery was in those early days still a
family institution, not an industrial system.
Some help towards the understanding of the different position of manual
labour in ancient times as compared with modern may be got by considering
Abolitionism. That a slave is a man, and as such not to be wholly
ignored in respect of the claims of common humanity; that slave-labour
is listless and ineffective, giving poor returns in proportion to the
strength employed; these conclusions, moral and economic, were reached by
the thinkers of the ancient world while their civilization was in full
bloom. Why then do we find no movement corresponding to the Abolitionism
of modern times? Two things were obviously necessary for such a movement;
the motive to inspire it, and the force to give effect to it. Let men
once be convinced that slavery is both wrong and unprofitable, and let
them have the power to insist on putting an end to it, Abolitionism in
some form or other is the necessary result.
Now in speaking of ancient conditions we must never lose sight of the
fact that in its origin slavery was a favour. By the undissembled rule
of force the conquered only retained his life through the mercy of the
conqueror. By a contract tacit or expressed he was pledged for life
to the service and profit of his master. And the master could, if his
interest pointed that way, make over his rights to a third party. Hence
the growth of a slave-market, and the relation of master and slave no
longer was normally that of individual conqueror and conquered. But the
original notion was by no means extinct, and it continued to colour the
current view of slavery as ‘natural,’ a thing of course, an unquestioned
social fact. Nor was there anything in the condition of the slave to
arouse a feeling of horror, so long as patriarchal rule prevailed. If the
Head of the family possessed absolute power over the slave, his power
over members of the family in general was in kind the same. The bondman,
a humble dependant rather than a mere chattel, was in a sense also a
member of the family and under the protection of the household gods. What
was there for an observer, let him be ever so kind-hearted, to object
to? Accordingly, as the state developed, it too kept slaves of its own,
employing them in mean functions for which it was needful to have a staff
always at hand. In short, the institution was taken for granted, and
growing intercourse with foreigners only served to reveal its universal
prevalence.
How came it then that in course of time humanitarian scruples arose,
and questioners were found to argue that the system was ‘unnatural’ and
wrong? The answer must be sought in the application of an originally
domestic institution to industrial ends. Once the stage was reached at
which the products of labour were habitually put on the market, and the
producer got his living by their regular sale, it was soon discovered
that to produce and deal on a larger scale was more economical, and
therefore more profitable, than on a smaller one. In the handicrafts this
was so obvious that slave assistants were commonly kept by tradesmen:
it was important to be sure of having the necessary help when wanted.
The same was the case in the professions based on special training:
the surgeon, the architect, the surveyor, the banker, employed slave
subordinates, and had often been slaves themselves. In all these
departments, not to mention domestic service, the position of the slave
was affected by two important considerations. First, he was one of a
few, and under immediate observation, so that escape from servitude
was practically impossible. Secondly, there was a reasonable chance of
earning manumission by long faithful service. But there were occupations
in which it was far more difficult to reconcile the interests of the
slave with those of the master. Such were the exploitation of mines
and quarries, in which labour was simply applied in the form of brute
force under direction. The direction, usually entrusted to slave or
freedman overseers, was generally unsympathetic, sometimes cruel; for the
overseer’s first thought was to please his master, even if he could only
do so by working the slaves to death. The extension of agriculture as a
means of profit rather than subsistence created conditions of the same
kind in this occupation. It was here that the monstrous abuses incidental
to slavery were most strikingly displayed. For, while quarries and mines
were only worked in a few localities, the plan of working great landed
estates by the labour of slave-gangs was applicable to vast areas of the
best soil. And in Africa Sicily and Italy we find it so applied for the
profit of the nobles and capitalists of a conquering race.