we would let them,' and he was speaking not only of old colonies
trained in slavery, and raised upon the products of it, but likewise
of new colonies started by freemen, and which ought, one would
think, to wish to contain freemen only. But Wakefield knew what he
was saying; he was a careful observer of rough societies, and he had
watched the minds of men in them. He had seen that LEISURE is the
great need of early societies, and slaves only can give men leisure.
All freemen in new countries must be pretty equal; every one has
labour, and every one has land; capital, at least in agricultural
countries (for pastoral countries are very different), is of little
use; it cannot hire labour; the labourers go and work for
themselves. There is a story often told of a great English
capitalist who went out to Australia with a shipload of labourers
and a carriage; his plan was that the labourers should build a house
for him, and that he would keep his carriage, just as in England.
But (so the story goes) he had to try to live in his carriage, for
his labourers left him, and went away to work for themselves. In
such countries there can be few gentlemen and no ladies. Refinement
is only possible when leisure is possible; and slavery first makes
it possible. It creates a set of persons born to work that others
may not work, and not to think in order that others may think. The
sort of originality which slavery gives is of the first practical
advantage in early communities; and the repose it gives is a great
artistic advantage when they come to be described in history. The
patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could not have had the steady
calm which marks them, if they had themselves been teased and
hurried about their flocks and herds. Refinement of feeling and
repose of appearance have indeed no market value in the early
bidding of nations; they do not tend to secure themselves a long
future or any future. But originality in war does, and slave-owning