CHAPTER V

THE EVOLUTION OF LABOR IN THE WEST

A general survey of present economic conditions in China and Japan and India reveals the fact that Asia is in the beginning of a great industrial revolution, and presents a situation strikingly similar to that in England a century and more ago. We see the same long hours, low wages, bad housing, inhuman conditions and terrific poverty in the industrial cities of the East that prevailed in the West before the reforms of the last century. Can these conditions be radically improved? Can Asia be saved from the mistakes of the West, or must the workers toil through the same long period of exploitation and misery?

In passing from Asia to western Europe one enters not only a different continent but another century. To understand the change we shall briefly review the evolution of labor in the West. A survey of the past in its broad general outlines reveals such an unmistakable movement of progress that it should fill us with hope for the future of industry in Orient and Occident alike. A true reading of history includes not merely the brilliant achievements of a few exceptional individuals, but the mighty upward struggle of the dumb masses to freedom. The story of the rise of labor must be traced slowly up from slavery, serfdom and poverty, through the medieval feudal system and the agrarian and industrial revolutions, to the achievement of political liberty and the gradual growth of industrial democracy, that have won for labor its present position in the West.

If we trace man's economic evolution through the hunting, pastoral, agricultural, handicraft and industrial stages, we often find that the story of organized manual labor begins in slavery, a condition as old as human history. The great pyramid in Egypt built some five thousand years ago stands as the earliest remaining monument erected by slave labor. Slavery is based upon the desire "to use the bodily powers of another person as a means of ministering to one's own ease or pleasure." This desire to exploit labor for selfish purposes has persisted from the days of slavery down to the present. Finding slavery as an established institution, Aristotle and the Greeks developed a philosophy to justify it. The Romans gave it foundation in the legal fiction of a supposed agreement between the victor and the vanquished, in which the latter accepted the mercy of perpetual slavery in lieu of the life he had forfeited in battle. This was the beginning of that long unbroken series of interested explanations and comfortable philosophies to justify "man's inhumanity to man," and salve the conscience of the privileged few for the wrongs of the enslaved many.

Under Roman law the slave became more and more a chattel or thing, divested alike of rights and duties. Basing the status of the slave upon the theory of capture in battle, the absolute right of life and death was supposed to remain with the master. The very inhumanity of the system was justified as relatively merciful. The majority were usually kindly treated just as animals are today, but it was not by legal right but merely by the mercy of the master. The slave was "his property" and he could do as he liked with him regardless of the welfare of the individual worker or society. The master owned the worker. Property was

1 Gilbert Stone, "A History of Labour," p. 25. We are especially indebted in this chapter to this volume, to Webb's History of Trade Unionism, Hammond's "The Town Labourer," and "The Village Labourer."

supreme, not persons. The slave could legally be sold or given away, bequeathed as any other thing, treated kindly or cruelly at the pleasure of his owner. The fact that prevailingly so many were kindly treated did not justify a system which gave to one man, by virtue of a theory of unlimited personal property, such enormous power over the lives of others. The slave could become a persona or human being only by a legal act of emancipation. He was even excluded from the worship of the Roman deities other than the god of slaves. If a slave was suspected of crime, his evidence was obtained by torture and if he informed against his master, even as late as the time of Constantine, he was crucified without trial. Nero confirmed the custom that if a slave killed his master all the slaves in the house were to be put to death.

The slave could not legally marry. His wife and children were not his before the law. Slaves had no power of individual or collective bargaining, no control over their own circumstances or destinies. They were at the mercy of another. Yet this was the system justified for eighteen centuries by philosophers, historians, theologians and churchmen, blinded by their own interests, alike upon grounds of Scripture and of reason, and as late as 1923 there is a movement to abolish the system in the mandated territories of Africa.

Gradually the almost unlimited rights of the masters were circumscribed and those of the slaves increased. They began to develop the ancient collegia, or friendly societies of slaves, providing them free burial and certain other privileges. These in certain respects forecast the medieval social guilds, and modern labor organizations. Under the influence of Christianity the condition of the slave was gradually improved by a growing body of humane legislation, until slavery was finally abolished.

Slavery gradually gave place to serfdom which lasted almost until modern times. Feudalism had developed in England by the ninth century. By a convenient theory all the land was supposed to be the personal property of the King by divine right. In return for grants of land his tenants or subjects pledged their loyalty and service. The lords of the manors in turn divided their holdings among smaller tenants, whether free men or serfs. Under this system the serf had rights which the slave never had. He was protected against all men except his lord. Like the slave he was usually kindly treated but he could be sold, given away or have his personal property seized by his master. The law gave no protection to the honor of female serfs against their lord. The serf remained in dense and unbroken ignorance. He often had no motive for work save that of fear. He was not his own but was wholly dependent upon the will of another. The lord usually looked upon "the unfree child as so much livestock." He controlled equally property and persons, the land and the serfs upon it. Serfs could be protected, however, from maiming or death just as animals are now. Even as late as the tenth century man was still a cheap commodity. The price of a linen shirt was equal to that of a slave, and a fine piece of armour more than ten serfs, or fifty cattle. At this time the majority of the long handicapped class of manual workers were either slaves or selfs.

But gradually a change took place. It was found that unfree labor whether of the slave or serf was not efficient or profitable. From the twelfth century the serfs became a dying class. With the awakening of a new conscience in England there gradually came a growing conviction against serfdom, as previously there had been against slavery. The twelfth century marked the dawn of a new era. With the rise of the free towns of Europe the relation

of lord and serf gradually gave way to that of master and worker.

The growth of a strong central government gave protection and safety to the manual worker who had so long been helplessly dependent upon his owner or master. The Crusades helped to break the hardened crust of dead custom. They brought in new ideas and new learning which finally led to the Renaissance with its awakening and emancipation of the human mind. Thus began a movement lasting from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, marked by the rise of a middle class, the development of craft and industry, the growth of the free cities as trading communities, and the beginning of the emancipation of the masses. We shall study the movement chiefly in England as the home of political liberty and later the source of the industrial revolution.

The center of social life now gradually shifted from the manor of the feudal lord to the free town of trade, and of primitive industry. Three centuries record the patient efforts of the common people in the development of free municipalities, in the widening of the circle of royal protection and justice, to raise the status of the masses from serfdom to freedom. With the growth of freedom came the increase both of population and prosperity. With liberty man began to enter upon his long-withheld birthright.

Under the guild system apprentices were bound for periods usually from eight to twelve years, receiving food and clothing and a fixed sum at the end of the term. They worked from sunrise to sunset. Wages in the fourteenth century were from four to eight cents a day, while food cost four cents a day for a worker. The Justices established maximum wages to protect the consumer but not minimum wages to protect the producer. By the sixteenth