444 Ancient and Modern, a contrast 



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 1 by legal nationalization. 

 Moreover, religion is no longer a necessary family inheritance, but the 

 choice of individuals who can generally gratify their preferential senti- 

 ments 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 unemploy- 

 ment 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 occu- 

 pation, 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 



1 See Whitaker's Almanack, and the exposure of an impudent agency for the purpose in 

 the Times 15 Sept 1914. 



