5.]
Partly concurring and partly at variance with Mill's views were those which
Edmund Ruffin of Virginia published in a well reasoned essay of 1857, _The
Political Economy of Slavery_. "Slave labor in each individual case and for
each small measure of time," he said, "is more slow and inefficient than
the labor of a free man." On the other hand it is more continuous, for
hirelings are disposed to work fewer hours per day and fewer days per year,
except when wages are so low as to require constant exertion in the
gaining of a bare livelihood. Furthermore, the consolidation of domestic
establishments, which slavery promotes, permits not only an economy in the
purchase of supplies but also a great saving by the specialization of labor
in cooking, washing, nursing, and the care of children, thereby releasing
a large proportion of the women from household routine and rendering them
available for work in the field. An increasing density of population,
however, would depress the returns of industry to the point where slaves
would merely earn their keep, and free laborers would of necessity lengthen
their hours. Finally a still greater glut of labor might come, and indeed
had occurred in various countries of Europe, carrying wages so low that
only the sturdiest free laborers could support themselves and all the
weaker ones must enter a partial pauperism.
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