CHAPTER X: THE REGULATION OF LABOUR.

§ 768. Regulation, as a form of government, implies actual or potential coercion—either such actual coercion as is used by the slave-driver over the Negro, or such potential coercion as is used by the farmer over his labourer, who knows that idleness will bring dismissal and the penalty which Nature inflicts on the penniless. Under their most general aspects, therefore, all kinds of regulation are akin; however much they may differ in respect to the regulating agency, in respect to the mode of regulation, and in respect to the kind of evil which disregard of the regulation entails.

An underlying coercion being thus in all cases implied, we may naturally look for a primitive connexion between industrial regulation and the kinds of regulation we distinguish as political and ecclesiastical. From the law of Evolution we shall infer that at first these several kinds of regulation were parts of one kind, and that as the political and ecclesiastical have gradually differentiated from one another in the course of social progress, so the industrial has at the same time differentiated from both.

There is a further corollary. While differences necessarily arise between these several forms of regulation, there must simultaneously arise differences between the earlier characters of all three and the later characters of all three. For human nature determines them all, and any general change produced in men by social progress, will show itself by modifying Edition: current; Page: [413] at once the qualities of the political, the ecclesiastical, and the industrial governments. Increase or decrease in the coerciveness of one of these kinds of rule, will be accompanied by increase or decrease in the coerciveness of the other kinds of rule.

These general conceptions must now be substantiated by facts; and we must then carry them with us while contemplating the various phenomena of industrial regulation, dealt with in succeeding chapters.

§ 769. Evidence that the political and industrial controls have originally the same centre, and therefore the same quality, is yielded by those rude societies in which the ruler is the sole trader. Of the Barotse, Serpa Pinto writes:—“Throughout the country, trade is carried on exclusively with the king, who makes a monopoly of it.” Among the Khonds “the head man of each village usually acts as chief merchant, buying and bartering whenever he can profitably do so.” Of the Mundrucus Bates says that those who trade with them “have first to distribute their wares . . . . amongst the minor chiefs, and then wait three or four months for repayment in produce.” And in Ellis’s time, trade in many harbours of the Sandwich Islands was almost wholly monopolized by the king and chiefs. So was it, too, in ancient Yucatan. Cortes says, concerning Apospolon, lord of Aculan—“He is the richest of the traders of this country.” Whether or not himself a producer or trader, the primitive ruler commonly directs industrial activities. As observed by Angas, the New Zealand chiefs superintended agricultural and building operations. In East Africa “neither sowing nor harvest can take place without the chief’s permission, and the issue of his order is regulated by his own interests.” In ancient San Salvador “it was the office of the cazique to order the plantings.” Among the Murams of Munipore “formerly no one was allowed to plant his rice until the great chief allowed it or had finished Edition: current; Page: [414] his planting.” From other places we learn that besides controlling production the ruling men also control exchange. On the coast of Madagascar, writes Drury, the kings [chiefs] settle what are to be the terms of trade with foreigners. Speaking of Iddah in Africa, Laird and Oldfield say, “the natives could not enter into any traffic with us unless they had first the royal consent.” So was it with the Patagonians.

A noteworthy fact should be added. Among some slightly civilized peoples, the industrial government shows signs of divergence from the political. Burton tells us that there is a commercial chief in Whydah; there are industrial chiefs in Fiji; and among the Sakarran Dyaks there is a trading chief in addition to the ordinary chief.

Histories of ancient peoples agree in these respects with accounts of existing peoples. Lists of functionaries show that in Egypt during the Rameses period, the kings carried on extensive industries. “In Phœnicia,” says Movers—

We are shown, too, by I Chron., xxvii, 26-31, that through overseers King David was a large grower of various crops, while he did not neglect pastoral farming; and Solomon, who by the agency of keepers was a wine grower, also carried on an extensive trade by land and sea (I Kings, x).

§ 770. Speaking generally, the man who, among primitive peoples, becomes ruler, is at once a man of power and a man of sagacity: his sagacity being in large measure the cause of his supremacy. We may therefore infer that as his political rule, though chiefly guided by his own interests, is in part guided by the interests of his people, so his industrial rule, Edition: current; Page: [415] though having for its first end to enrich himself, has for its second end the prosperity of industry at large. It is a fair inference that on the average his greater knowledge expresses itself in orders which seem, and sometimes are, beneficial. Hence it happens that just as, after his death and deification, his commands respecting conduct in general are regarded as sacred, so, too, are his commands respecting the carrying on of industries: there results more or less ecclesiastical regulation of labour.

Beyond the institution of the Sabbath, and beyond the injunctions concerning slaves and hired servants, we have, in the Hebrew scriptures, detailed directions for the carrying on of industry. There are divine commands respecting ploughing and sowing and the breeding of animals. There are also directions respecting the building of houses and the making of clothes; even to the extent of prescribing fringes. Among the Greeks observances of times may be named as being based on divine commands. In Hesiod’s Works and Days it is said—“Mind well, too, and teach thy servants fittingly the days appointed of Jove; to wit, the 30th day of each month, the best both for inspecting work done, and distributing allotted sustenance.” And in pursuance of the same pious conformity there are directions for certain operations on certain days—on the sixth “for cutting kids and flocks of sheep, and for enclosing a fold for sheep;” on the eighth to “emasculate the boar and loud bellowing bull, and on the twelfth the toil-enduring mules;” and on the seventeenth it is appointed to “watch well, and cast upon the well-rounded thrashing-floor Demeter’s holy gift; and let the wood-cutter cut timber for chamber-furniture, &c.” Much of this religious regulation was incidental—was indirectly consequent on the injunctions concerning sacred seasons, and on the assemblings for worship. Everywhere joint celebrations of festivals have been opportunities for trading. At the present time it is thus in India, where a vast fair is held on the occasion of drawing the car of Juggernaut. So is it with the Edition: current; Page: [416] gatherings of pilgrim Mahommedans at Mecca, which result in extensive commercial intercourse. According to Alcock it is the same in Japan, where “festivals are high days for the temples, and they seem to take it in rotation to hold a sort of fair.” From ancient Greece and Rome like evidence has been handed down. Curtius describes how in early Greece—

At the same time, as a collateral result, banking was initiated under ecclesiastical auspices.

Nor did ecclesiastical regulation end here; for if not by injunction, still by usage, the seasons for certain agricultural operations were determined by the recurrence of religious observances. Parallel effects were produced in Rome. Fairs “were associated with the celebration of the festival at the federal temple on the Aventine,” says Mommsen, who adds:—

Beyond this incidental regulation of commercial intercourse, there was a more direct regulation. Work on festival days was interdicted. Mommsen writes:—

A more direct regulation was exercised. Says Mommsen:—

Like in spirit was the order against selling new wine until the priest had proclaimed the opening of the casks.

Among the Jews the driving out of the money-changers from the temple, presupposes an extreme instance of this influence of ecclesiastical usages over industrial usages: the original sacred use of the place having been obscured by the secular use it had initiated; for doubtless this secular use had arisen from the desire to get sacred witness to commercial transactions.

§ 771. That in later European societies industrial regulation was at first, and long continued to be, a part of political regulation, is a truth so familiar that it scarcely needs illustration. It may be well, however, to show how complete has been in past times their union.

In those mediæval days when the local head, and afterwards the feudal lord, ruled over a territory from which supplies of all kinds had to be furnished, he controlled the processes of production for his own convenience, just as he controlled other things. Down to the serfs and slaves all were governed in their industrial activities as in their lives at large. Under the feudal régime in France, when, in addition to the rural labours pursued within each domain there grew up trades in towns, the governmental authority exercised in the one extended itself to the other. Whether the feudal superior was lay seigneur, archbishop, king, chapter, or monastery, power was exercised by him or it over industry as over other things; so that the right to exercise a trade, or Edition: current; Page: [418] the right to elect gild-officers, &c., had to be purchased from him or it. The system of licensing which now remains in a few cases was then universal. When, after centuries of struggle, feudal governments were subordinated by a central government, the head of the State assumed an equally absolute control of production, distribution, and exchange. How unlimited was the control, we see in the fact that, just as in despotically-governed Ancient Mexico, the “permission of the chiefs” was requisite before any one could commence a trade, unless by way of succession, so in monarchical France, there was established the doctrine that “the right to labour is a royal right which the prince may sell and subjects should buy.” Along with this there went the enforcing of countless industrial regulations by armies of officials; pushed to such extremes in France that before the Revolution the producing and distributing organizations were almost strangled.

Here too, as in France, the power to sell was not natural but conferred.

And again—

Legal dictation like in spirit to this was universally displayed. Restraints and directions of industrial activities by the king and his local deputies, carried out down even to Edition: current; Page: [419] small details, show how little separated was industrial rule from political rule.

§ 772. The ecclesiastical regulation of industry in modern societies, has been chiefly incidental, as it was in ancient societies. Sacrifice and worship have brought men together at appointed places and times, and trading has arisen as a concomitant. The names of fairs, habitually identical with the names of church-festivals, yield clear evidence. This origin of meetings for buying and selling in France, is well described by Bourquelot.

Challamel, when saying that in Paris the region immediately around the cathedral “was devoted to trade,” indicates the way in which not only periodic but permanent localization of trade was incidentally determined by ecclesiastical observances. But in France a direct as well as an indirect clerical influence was exercised.

The history of early England furnishes kindred evidence. Indeed the church had become a trading centre quite literally. In Mrs. Green’s elaborate digest of ancient municipal documents we read—

As suggested above, this use of the parish church for trading purposes, probably arose from the desire to obtain that security for a bargain which the sanctity of the place was supposed to give—a calling on God to witness; and as in markets, at one time, bargains were made in the presence of civil officers, so it may be that in some cases they were made in church in the presence of priests.

Of course to the indirect regulation of industry illustrated in these ways, has to be added the direct regulation by interdicts on labour at certain times—Sunday, holy-days, saints’ days. Though now most of these interdicts have become obsolete, and the remaining ones are by many disregarded, they were at one time largely operative in restraining production, distribution, and exchange.

§ 773. That the different kinds of control over men have differentiated, and that the control of industrial activity has gradually become independent of Church and State, is made sufficiently manifest by the foregoing evidence. But the fact already pointed out, and here to be afresh emphasized, is that there has simultaneously taken place a decrease in the coerciveness of all these kinds of rule. While early despotism has been (among the most civilized peoples at least) restricted by growth of popular power, and while the once rigorous government of the Church, enforced by excommunication and damnation, has almost died away, there has been a relaxing of control over industry; not only by the diminution of political and clerical dictation, but also by the diminution of dictation from authorities within the industrial organization itself. In past days artisans, manufacturers, traders, were subject not only to the peremptory orders of the general government, but also to the peremptory orders of their own Edition: current; Page: [421] ruling bodies—gilds and kindred combinations. The general character of early industrial government is well illustrated by Levaseur’s account of the commercial régime of the 14th century in France, as thus condensed.

It was in a kindred spirit that in England and elsewhere gilds regulated men’s businesses. In each town there grew up a trading aristocracy, which at the same time that it controlled the transactions of its own members controlled the lives of hand-workers, and everywhere put narrow limits to individual freedom. Some borough regulations will show this.

In a future chapter there will be occasion to illustrate at some length this kind of industrial government. Here it is sufficient to indicate the coerciveness of industrial rule which originally accompanied the coerciveness of political and ecclesiastical rule.

I repeat and emphasize this truth because, in the closing chapters of this volume, we must have it constantly in mind, if we are to understand the present forms of industrial organization and frame rational conceptions of the forms it is likely by and by to assume.