45O Movements in land-management 



cultivated few, it could only win its way by accepting civilization 1 in 

 the main as it stood. Therefore it was compelled to accept slavery as 

 an institution, and to content itself with inculcating humanity on masters 

 and conscientious devotion to duty on slaves. If Abolitionism was to 

 spring from this seed, a long time had to be spent in waiting for the 

 harvest. 



Yet the establishment of the Empire did lead to effects that in 

 their turn served as contributory causes undermining the old slave- 

 system, particularly 2 in agriculture. In a more peaceful age fewer slaves 

 were brought to market, and this meant higher prices and put a pre- 

 mium on the economical employment of bought labour. To meet the 

 situation, agricultural policy was developed on two lines, each of which 

 was the improvement or extension of an existing practice. One was 

 the more scientific organization of the labour-stafF, so as to get better 

 results from an equal amount of labour. The other was a more frequent 

 resort to the plan of letting farms to tenants, whenever that arrange- 

 ment seemed favourable to the landlord's interest. Of these develop- 

 ments we have direct information from Columella, who still prefers the 

 former plan wherever feasible. But it was with the system of tenancies 

 on various conditions that the future really lay. I have endeavoured 

 above to sketch the process 3 by which tenants were gradually reduced 

 to a condition of dependency on their landlords, and the difficulty of 

 finding and keeping good tenants that was the other side of the move- 

 ment. A very significant detail is the fact that slaves were put 

 into farms 4 as tenants: that this was no unusual practice is clear from 

 the way in which the classical jurists refer to it as a matter of course. 

 And so things slowly moved on, with ups and downs, the tenants slave 

 or free becoming more and more bondsmen of the land, liable to task- 

 services and not free to move at will. Thus by usage, and eventually 

 by law, a system of serfdom was established, while personal slavery 

 declined. 



Looked at from an Abolitionist point of view, we are here dealing 

 with a sheer evasion of the slavery-question. But this was inevitable. 

 The imperial government, which alone had the power necessary for 

 attempting solutions of grave problems, was doomed to become more 



1 Prof Bury, Idea of Progress p 275, points out that Guizot noted that Christianity did 

 not in its early stages aim at any improvement of social conditions. 



2 The conclusions reached in this paragraph are in agreement with E Meyer Kl Schr 

 pp 151-2, 155, 205, 209. But he seems to put the decline of the slave-gang system rather 

 earlier than I venture to do. 



3 We must bear in mind that a tenant was naturally unwilling to work for a margin of 

 profit not to be retained by himself. Hence the tendency to find means of constraining him 

 to do so. 



4 coloni or quasi coloni, cf Dig XV 3 16, xxxm 8 23 3 , or xxxm 7 I2 3 , 18*, 2O 1 , and 

 numerous other references. 



