The
great hardship in the case of the Peruvian was, that he could not
better his condition. His labors were for others, rather than
for himself. However industrious, he could not add a rood to his
own possessions, nor advance himself one hair's breadth in the
social scale. The great and universal motive to honest industry,
that of bettering one's lot, was lost upon him. The great law of
human progress was not for him. As he was born, so he was to
die. Even his time he could not properly call his own. Without
money, with little property of any kind, he paid his taxes in
labor. *38 No wonder that the government should have dealt with
sloth as a crime. It was a crime against the state, and to be
wasteful of time was, in a manner, to rob the exchequer. The
Peruvian, laboring all his life for others, might be compared to
the convict in a treadmill, going the same dull round of
incessant toil, with the consciousness, that, however profitable
the results to the state, they were nothing to him.
[Footnote 37: Garcilasso. Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 15.]
[Footnote 38: "Solo el trabajo de las personas era el tributo que
se dava, porque ellos no poseian otra cosa." Ondegardo, Rel.
Prim., Ms.]
But this is the dark side of the picture. If no man could become
rich in Peru, no man could become poor. No spendthrift could
waste his substance in riotous luxury. No adventurous schemer
could impoverish his family by the spirit of speculation.
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