456 The modern labour-question 



The use of the terms Medieval and Modern as labels 1 for ancient 

 civilization in two clearly marked stages has, I repeat, just enough 

 truth in it to be dangerous. As a rhetorical flourish it may pass. But 

 it conveys by suggestion much that cannot be accepted. No doubt it 

 is not meant to imply that what we call the Middle Ages is to be 

 ignored. But it inevitably tends to stifle a belief in historical continuity, 

 a faith in which is the soul of historical inquiry as generally understood 

 in the present day. That modern labour-conditions shew a powerful 

 reaction against medieval, is obvious : that medieval conditions have 

 not influenced the modes of this reaction, is to me incredible. I do not 

 believe that the modern free wage-earning system could have grown 

 out of the ancient slave-labour system, had there been no such inter- 

 vening period as the ' Middle Ages.' That the aims of the capitalist 

 ancient and modern are the same, is a mere truism: but is not the 

 same true of the medieval capitalist also ? 



That the wage-earning handworker often finds his freedom of self- 

 disposal limited in practice, though his position is very far removed 

 from slavery, I have pointed out above. Also, that modern facilities 

 for movement have helped materially to assert and enlarge his freedom. 

 From this point of view the discovery of the New World was the 

 turning-point of European history. But in course of time capitalistic 

 phenomena appeared there also, and on a larger scale. And now, 

 almost the whole world over, the handworker is striving, not only for 

 higher wages but for more complete self-disposal. This necessitates 

 some control of the industries in which he works. Individual effort 

 being vain, he forms unions to guard his interests. The unions, acting 

 by strike-pressure, come into conflict with governments representing 

 the state. The next step is to employ political pressure by gaining 

 and using votes under representative systems, so as to remodel legisla- 

 tion and administration in a sense favourable to the handworker. This 

 movement, now well under way in the most civilized countries, is not 

 perhaps socialistic in principle, and we do not yet know how far it is 

 likely to take that turn. In order to fight exploitation, the handworker 

 has to surrender a good deal of his individual freedom : whether he 

 will be content to surrender a good deal more, the coming age will see. 

 This much at least is clear, the handworking wage-earners are no 

 longer, as in the ancient world, a class of no account. That they have 

 wrung so many great concessions from unwilling capitalists seems to 

 me a proof that their freedom, even under medieval 2 restrictions, had 



1 Since writing this section I have found in Prof Bury's Idea of Progress pp 269-70 a 

 passage which seems to justify the objection here raised, though it occurs in a different 

 connexion. 



2 It is perhaps hardly necessary to refer to the great economic disturbance caused by the 

 Black Death in fourteenth century England. 



