If the trade is not in the hands of a single firm for a whole district, like a railway company, there arises the problem, how is the burden of cheap work for the poor to be distributed over the constituent firms? This was solved in Rome by the union, which was the sole body recognised in law. Each member of the union was assessed by his union, on the basis of both his capital and his trade returns, and he had to do so much of the cheap work in proportion. Hence the wealth of each firm determined the amount of their proletariat taxation. If they could withdraw temporarily part of the capital from the business, their assessment would be lighter. Hence to each person the aim was to work with the smallest amount of capital, and to remove from the business all spare capital, and invest it elsewhere. This naturally resulted in business being badly worked. The difficulty was met by the law that all capital once in the business could never be withdrawn; and all profits—and, later, all acquired wealth—must be kept in the business, so that the richer firms should do their full share of proletariat service. The results of these logical developments of unionism and help to the proletariat, were that many withdrew altogether from unions, retiring on a small competence rather than live under such a burden, and that there was a general decline of commerce and of industry. Property having thus become the gauge of responsibility in the union, the only way to prevent desertions was to declare that the property was attached to the union permanently, and whosoever acquired it did so under the implied covenant of supplying the share of union work out of it. The result of this law was that no one with capital would join a trade union, as their whole property became attached to the union; and poor persons were not desired on unions, as they could not take up a share of the proletariat service. This condition was met by the law forcibly enrolling capitalists in the unions, and demanding their personal service as well as the use of their capital. By 270 A.D. Aurelian had made unionism compulsory for life so as to prevent the able men from withdrawing, to better themselves by free work individually. He also gave a wine dole, and gave bread in place of corn, to save the wastrel the trouble of baking. In the fourth century every member, and all his sons, and all his property, belonged inalienably to the trades union. By 369 A.D. all property however acquired belonged to the union. Yet still men would leave all they had to get out of the hateful bondage, and so the unpopular trades—such as the moneyers in 380 A.D. and the bakers in 408—were recruited by requiring that everyone who married the daughter of a unionist must join his father-in-law's business. And thus "the Empire was an immense gaol where all worked not according to taste but by force," as Waltzing remarks in his great work _Corporations Professionnelles_, where the foregoing facts are stated.