190 THE DIVISION OF LABOUR 



village — namely, agriculture — was provided by the 

 cultivators themselves, whether proprietors or tenants 

 of the land they tilled ; the subsidiary industries had 

 each one representative, who was supported by a joint 

 contribution from all the cultivators, and below these 

 two classes was a third, composed of the village 

 drudges, who performed the basest menial offices 

 of the village, and who received in return certain 

 inferior perquisites and privileges ; they were, in fact, 

 common serfs or slaves whom the village supported 

 jointly. These persons were always of the lowest 

 caste, and therefore their economic degradation had 

 in the eyes of the rural population a quasi-religious 

 sanction. But in modern times causes have been at 

 work which have given this class greater indepen- 

 dence. In the first place, being of low caste, these 

 men are willing to turn their hands to any task, and 

 have readily availed themselves of the chances of 

 employment opened upon public works and in the 

 towns, and have thus freed themselves from absolute 

 dependence upon their village masters. In the second 

 place, the class of casual labourers is constantly being 

 reinforced from the ranks of the cultivators. A culti- 

 vator who is compelled, either by the pressure of debt, 

 the failure of his crops, or ejectment from his holding, 

 to give up cultivation on his own account, must per- 

 force betake himself to field labour to make his liveli- 

 hood, and thus he joins the ranks of those who depend 

 upon daily wages. With the growth of population 

 and the rise of rents there is springing up in almost 

 every village a landless class, and as these persons 

 know no other industry than agriculture, they become 

 field labourers, working for wages. 



The occasion for their services is found either where 

 the farmer, for social or caste reasons, does not work 

 himself in the fields, but only superintends, or where 

 his holding is too large to be worked by the unaided 

 labour of himself or his family. As a rule, the man 



