758 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Of these the least obvious may be mentioned as the first. Slavery, if it took away the freedom of the slave, it imposed upon the master the duty to maintain the slave in life and body. The slave was relieved of all responsibility in respect of his food, his clothes and his shelter. All this the master was bound to provide. This was of course no burden because the slave earned more than his keep. But a security for board and lodging is not always possible forevery freeman as all wage earners now know to their cost. Work is not always available even to those who are ready to toil but a workman cannot escape the rule according to which he gets no bread if he finds no work. This rule, no work no bread, the ebbs and tides of business, the booms and depression are vissicitudes through which all free wage earners have to go. But they do not affect the slave who is free from them. He gets his bread-perhaps the same bread, but bread-whether it is boom or whether it is depression. Untouchability is worse than slavery because it carries no such security as to livelihood as the latter does. No one is responsible for the feeding, housing and clothing of the untouchable. From this point of view untouchability is not only worse than slavery but is positively cruel as compared to slavery. In slavery the master has the obligation to find work for the slave. In a system of free labour workers have to compete with workers for obtaining work. In this scramble for work what chances has the untouchable for a fair deal ? To put it shortly in this competition with the scales always weighing against him by reason of his social stigma he is the last to be employed and the first to be fired. Untouchability is cruelty as compared to slavery because it throws upon the untouchables the responssibility for maintaining without any way of earning his living. From another aspect also untouchability is worse than slavery. The slave was property, and that gave the slave an advantage over a free man. Being valuable, the master out of sheer self interest, took great care of the health and well being of the slave. In Rome the slaves were never employed on marshy and malarial land. On such a land only freemen were employed. Cato advises Roman farmers never to employ slaves on marshy and malarial land. This seems stranger. But a little examination will show that this was quite natural. Slave was valuable property and as such a prudent man