er than Lincoln who
warned us that we cannot serve both God and Mammon. It is this
underlying conflict of ideals in the organization of our existing
economic system which is the real cause of the 'Labour unrest' of which
we have heard so much in recent years.

With this warning in our minds as to the imperfections of our modern
industrial organization, let us briefly survey the record of the forms
of economic association which preceded it.

The earliest form of industrial grouping is, of course, the family; and
the family, as we all know, still retains its primitive character in
some occupations as a convenient form of productive association. This is
particularly the case in agriculture in communities where peasant
holdings prevail. But the family is so much more than an industrial
group that it hardly falls to us to consider it further here.

Outside the family proper, industrial work among primitive peoples is
often carried on by slaves. It was a step forward in human progress when
primitive man found that it was more advantageous to capture his enemies
than to kill or eat them; and it was a still greater step forward when
he found that there was more to be got out of slaves by kind treatment
than by compulsion. This is not the place in which to go into the vexed
questions connected with various forms of slavery. Suffice it to say
that it is a profound mistake to dismiss the whole system in one
undiscriminating condemnation. Slavery involves the denial of freedom,
and as such it can never be good. But other systems besides slavery
implicitly involve the denial of freedom. Some of the finest artistic
work in the world has been done by slaves--and by slaves not working
under compulsion but in the company of free men and on terms of
industrial equality with them. This should serve to remind us that, in
judging of systems of industry, we must look behind the letter of the
law to the spirit of the times and of social institutions. Slavery at
its best merges insensibly into wage-labour at its lower end. Many of
the skilled slaves of ancient Greece and Rome are hardly distinguishable
in status from a modern workman bound by an unusually long and strict
indenture and paid for his work not only in money but partly in truck.
In order to stimulate their productive capacity it was found necessary
in Greece and Rome to allow skilled slaves to earn and retain
money--although in the eye of the law they were not entitled to do so;