Its economic failure 157 



slaves brought in only a moderate return, while they were borrowing 

 at a higher rate of interest, were certainly not the richer for their landed 

 investments. To keep up a fictitious show of solid wealth for the 

 moment, they were marching to ruin. But the man who made his in- 

 come from landed estates suffice for his needs, can we say that he 

 was enriched thereby? Hardly, if he was missing the chance of more 

 remunerative investments by having his money locked up in land. He 

 made a sacrifice, in order to gratify a social pride which had in Roman 

 public life a certain political value. Under the Republic, this political 

 value might be realized in the form of provincial or military appoint- 

 ments, profitable through various species of blackmail. But the con- 

 nexion of such profits with ownership of great plantations is too remote 

 to concern us here. A smart country-place, where influential friends 

 could be luxuriously entertained, was politically more to the point. 

 Now if, as seems certain, the great plantations were not always (perhaps 

 very seldom were) a strictly economic success, though protected against 

 Transalpine competition 1 in wine and oil, can we discern any defects 

 in the system steadily operating to produce failure? 



xWhen we admit that slave-labour is wasteful, we mean that its ^ 

 output as compared with that of free labour is not proportionate to the 

 time spent. Having no hope of bettering his condition, the slave does 

 only just enough to escape punishment ; having no interest in the profits 

 of the work, he does it carelessly. If, as we know, the free worker paid 

 by time needs constant watching to keep him up to the mark, much 

 more is this true of the slave^ Hence a system of piece-work is disliked 

 by the free man and hardly applicable in practice to the case of the 

 slave. But we are not to forget that the slave, having been bought and 

 paid for, draws no money wage. The interest on his prime cost is on 

 the average probably much less than a free man's wage; but the 

 master cannot pay him off and be rid of him when the job is done. 

 The owned labourer is on his owner's hands so long as that owner owns 

 him. Against this we must set the very low standard of feeding^clothing 

 housing^etc allowed in the case of the slave. ^Nor must we ignore the 

 economic advantage of slavery as ensuring a permanent supply of 

 labour: for the free labourer was (and is) not always to be had when 

 wanted^ These were pretty certainly the considerations that underlay 

 the organization described by the Roman writers on res rustica\ a 

 regular staff of slaves for everyday work,supplemented by hired labour 

 at times of pressure or for special jobs. '{And the growing difficulty of 

 getting hired help probably furnished the motive for developing the 

 system^of coloni^By letting parcels of an estate to small tenants a 

 landlord could secure the presence of resident freemen in his neigh- 



1 Cic de republ ill 16. 



