ABSTRACT
MORAL SENTIMENT TOWARDS SLAVEs.-In the Nara period the slave system was the mainstay of the social structure, as has already been explained in the chapter on " The Period of Slave System of Economics." The slave system existed everywhere in ancient times, and was not a remarkable thing at all. But in point of moral sentiment Japan was far behind other nations. For instance, in ancient Rome the number of slaves increased as Rome conquered foreign countries. Because they sided with Hannibal, the Volchians were enslaved. One hundred and fifty thousand Epirotes were sold as slaves by Paullus and 7,000 Carthaginians by Scipio. These are a few examples. The slave trade was most prosperous about 200 B.C., but these slaves did not receive such cruel treatment as some of the negro slaves in America in modern times. They were stewards, actors, or gladiators, and as such were kept for the amusement of the powerful. The position of some of them was to be envied, in comparison with the slaves of the Monarchical age of Japanese history. But deprived of their natural liberty, they were not content with their lot, and in 73 B.C. came the slave war under Spartacus, which shows that the Roman slaves were more spirited than the slaves in Japan. Later, about 50 B.C., Cresar issued a proclamation that one-third of the cultivators of farms and gardens should be free citizens, thus desiring to check the increase of slaves and their abuse. The cruelties perpetrated on slaves were not decreased by it, and it was not until about A.D. 200 that the right to punish slaves was taken away from the citizens of Rome, and was delegated to the police officials, in order to prevent the owners of slaves from treating them with extraordinary cruelty. Should any slave-owner perpetrate unbearable cruelty upon the slaves, the latter could either be released or transferred to a more lenient owner. In those days, should a slave show especial loyalty to his owner, or if he had done something for which the owner wanted to do him a special favour, it was often the case that a slave was given his freedom. Again, some owners often released their slaves to satisfy their own vanity, to be praised for such acts of kindness. In China there were many slaves in Tsin and West Han. But Emperor Kuang Wu of East Han, about 30 B.C. or 40 B.C., often proclaimed laws for
the emancipation of slaves, although such laws were not often regarded. It is an undeniable fact that it was realized then that slavery was a bad system. On the contrary, in Japan the slave system was publicly recognized in the Nara period, and was continued even until the so-called enlightened periods of Enki and Tenroki, about A.D. 950. No Government order was issued regulating the slave system. To prohibit the abandoning of old slaves by the roadside was the only thing done. In that respect the statesmen and scholars of Japan were lacking in mental vision, and Japan was at least from 400 to 500 years behind China and Europe in point of moral sentiment.
