84 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



TKO^ SERFDOM TO FREEDOM. 



Bt EDWARD BICKNELL. 



HOWEVER keen our interest in the problems arising out of the 

 recent Spanish war, and however earnest our study of the policy 

 to be pursued toward our new dependencies, "we should not forget 

 that the problems pressing for a solution before the war are still mth 

 us. The labor question, which then commanded so much of our 

 thought, is still unsettled, and is by no means dwarfed by the subjects 

 now upon every lip. Rather, as has been shown in an article in a 

 recent number of this magazine, this question really forms one of the 

 most important elements of the present situation, and should not be 

 lost sight of in shaping public policy. We are entering upon an un- 

 tilled field as far as our institutions are concerned, and we have the 

 opportunity to start on a higher level in treating the relations of 

 capital and labor in our new possessions, if we have the wisdom to 

 know how, and the courage to do as well as we know. 



It will help us in a consideration of the present status of the laborer 

 and of his future if we study his past, beginning, if not with Adam, at 

 least with the laborer's entrance into English history as a distinct 

 class. Any one at all familiar with Green's Short History of the 

 English People will see how much use I have made of that instructive 

 and fascinating work. And if I tell only an old story, it may still be 

 of value to many of us in recalling facts almost forgotten, and a help 

 to others whose vision into the past is limited. Brushing away the 

 cobwebs in the old attic of our father's house usually brings to light 

 treasures the recollection of which had slipped from our minds. 



The free laborer, the man who works for wages, for whom and 

 where he chooses, did not exist as a class until within about six hun- 

 dred years. In the early days the laborer was tied to the soil where 

 he was born, Such a thing as a laborer going about to seek work 

 where he would, or having much to say about his master or his w^ages, 

 was usually out of the question. 



At a very early day the towns or boroughs of England had pre- 

 serv^ed old rights, or regained them, which the rural part of England 

 had lost, and in general serfage could not exist there as it did in the 

 country round them. Trade and manufacture, such as they were in 

 that day, did not make the demand for labor which was made by the 

 agricultural pursuits of the country or in the castles of the nobility. 

 So we do not find in the towns of the eleventh or twelfth century the 

 large labor class we do to-day. In general we may fairly say that the 

 labor class began in the country. 



The manorial system had divided the rural part of England for 



