All that Lady Selborne says is absolutely true. The differ-
ence between the slave, the man who cannot even command his own body and who is always at the disposal of his owner, and the freeman, however poor, is enormously great. No one who has ever seen a slave or noted his demeanour and the tone of his voice can doubt it. The power of choice which belongs even to the poorest freeman seta him on a different plane. To say that a man does not value this ultimate right of free choice in his actions because he is, like all of us, largely controlled by circumstances, and because also the exercise of freedom may be painful, is nonsense. Freedom of action is valued quite as much by the poor as by the rich. Extreme poverty deadens enemy. Therefore wages too low to give a man the essentials of life are always uneconomic', but it is nofhing to the deadening of energy caused by slavery. The true slave is utterly without hope, and therefore will only work when he is under the eye or the whip of his master. Therefore, slave labour, convict labour and forced labour produce little or nothing, as was found by the slave owners in America and is now found by the Soviet Government in Russia. The latest news shows, indeed, that Lenin has had to superimpose upon his State slavery in the factories a wage Incentive in order to get a product.
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