LABOTTR
720
LABOUR
ries, and considerable opportunities of emancipation.
In fact, labour seems to have been less disdained in
Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries than in any
other country at that time, except Judea, and it was
certainly held in higher esteem than in Rome. A
great deal is said concerning the organizations that ex-
isted among the Greek artisans, but they do not
apjJear to have exercised much influence over the con-
ditions of employment. Many of these associations
which are reckoned as labour unions were chiefly re-
ligious and convivial. While the labourers of Athens
who were citizens participated to some extent in the
affairs of government, they do not seem to have ot>
tainctl any legislation for the benefit of labour.
In the early centuries of the Roman Republic its commerce and industry were of very little importance. Agriculture was almost the only occupation, and per- haps the majority of the cultivators were freeholders, or at least free tenants. By the beginning of the fourth centurv", however, there were so many large es- tates tilled by slave labour that the Licinian law for- bade any citizen to hold more than 500 jugera of land, or to employ slaves out of due proportion to the num- ber of his free workers. The tendency to large estates, cultivation by slaves, and the impoverishment of the freemen continued, however, until the period of the latifundia, when, as Pliny informs us, all the land of Italy was in the hands of a few persons, and the free tillers of the sod had almost entirely disappeared. Most of the latter had gone into the city to swell the number of idlers who were supported at the public ex- pense. Soon after the Roman wars of conquest the commerce of the country assumed large proportions, but the greater part of the lal)our was performed by slaves. In the last days of the republic there were more slaves than freemen in most of the towns of Italy. Concerning their treatment at the hands of their mas- ters, Mommsen declares: " It is verj' possible that, com- pared with the sufferings of the Roman slaves, the sum of all Negro sufferings is but a drop" (History of Rome, III, 30S). From the earliest historical period of Rome there existed, indeed, several associations of free craftsmen, called collegia, which later on were ex- tended to most of the countries that were under the Roman dominion. A few years before the birth of Christ, these organizations became recognized and reg- ulated by the law of the empire. Nevertheless, they comprised but an insignificant proportion of the work- ing population. And their economic condition was probably not much superior to that of the enslaved labourers. It could not be otherwise, since they were everywhere in competition with the latter, whose labour under a pohcy of reckless and inhuman exploita- tion was evidently cheaper than that of freemen. Such, in fact, was the lot of the free labourers in every country where slave labour predominated. As to labour legislation, there is no evidence that any meas- ure for the benefit of the working classes was ever enacted in ancient Rome, except the Licinian law men- tioned above. The proposition is generally true that the man who got his living by the sweat of his brow was held in more or less contempt by the nations of antiquity, and that legislation on their behalf was rarely if ever thought of by the ruling classes. The one conspicuous exception is furnished by the Hebrews.
As soon as the Christian teaching on the essential dignity and equahty of men, and the nobility and obligation of labour began to take hold of the Roman mind, the condition of the toiler began to change for the l)etter. The number of (he slaves decreased l)oth absolutely and relatively to the nvmiber of freemen. In the second and third centuries the slaves obtained certain legal rights, such as a i)artial recognition of their marriages and domestic relations, .and redress in the courts for injuries suffered from the master. A considerable proportion of them were gradually trans-
formed into serfs, that is, instead of being obliged to
expend all their labour for the benefit of the master,
they were enabled to work a part of the time on their
own account on land which they rented from him. In-
stead of being suljject to sale, they were merely bound
to the son. In a sense they could, indeed, be sold with
the land upon w-hich they worked. From the time of
Alexander Severus freemen and freedmen seem to
have predominated in url^an industrj', although they
were not free in the modern sense of that term. They
were members of associations which thej' were forbid-
den by law to abandon, and they were not allowed to
leave their occupations. The State took this measure
on the theory that these labourers were engaged in an
industrial function which was necessarj' for the wel-
fare of society. It was, therefore, the duty of the law
to provide that this function should lie properly dis-
charged. Although this particular restriction of the
freedom of labour seems very unreasonable to the
modern mind, the fact is that some form of minute reg-
ulation of industry has been the rule rather than the
exception in Christian times. In the latter days of the
empire the slave labourers were chiefly domestic ser-
vants, the employees of the large landholders, and the
workers in the imperial mines and manufactures. At
the beginning of the fourth century the emperor Dio-
cletian issued an edict fixing the wages of artisans.
According to the computations of Levasseur, the rates
of remuneration prescribed in this edict were about the
same as those that prevailed in France at the end of
the eighteenth century, and a little more than half as
high as the wages in that country at the end of the
nineteenth century. It was not, however, the pur-
pose of this rescript to benefit the labourer. The rates
of wages laid down were maximim^i rates, and the ob-
ject was to prevent the price of labour as well as of
goods from rising above the point which the emperor
regarded as sufficient.
Despite the teaching and influence of Christianity, the laws and institutions, the ruling classes and public opinion, the intellectual classes, and, indeed, the bulk of the people were still pagan. A few years later, Con- stantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire, but he did not thereby make the people Chris- tian. The majority were stUl dominated by selfish- ness, dislike and contempt for labour, and by the desire to exploit their fellows, especially through usuri- ous practices. The language employed by Ambrose, Augustine, Basil, Chrysostom, and Jerome against the rich of their time, is at once a proof that the powerful classes were not imbued with the Christian spirit, that the labouring classes were suffering great hardships, and that the Christian teachers were the truest friends of the poor and the toilers. The doctrine laid down by these Fathers, sometimes in very radical terms, that the earth was intended by God for all the children of men, and that the surplus goods of the rich belonged of right to the needy, has been the most fruitful princi- ple of hun:an rights, and the most effective protection for labour that ever fell from the lips of men. It is, in fact, although not always so recognized, the historical and ethical basis of the now universally- accepted con- viction among Christian peoples that the labourer has a right to a living wage, and that the owner of prop- erty may not do all that he likes with his own. Dur- ing this period (the fourth century), likewise, large numbers of men and women who found it impossible to live a life of Christian perfection in the still semi- pagan society of the time, founded monasteries and convents, and there ga\e to the world its first effective lesson in the dignit\- and necessity of work. These foundations gradually became centres of industry and peace, and hiter on developed into those medieval towns in which labour became for the first time fully self-respecting and free.
By the time of the barbarian invasions in the sixth century, the majority of rural slaves had become either
