The specialization and detailed division of labour of the temple community, and especially the grouping of all kinds of labourers under foremen responsible for deliveries and receipt of rations, offered many opportunities for oppression. But too much can be made of the weaknesses of the system. To speak of the “surplus” of food which must be produced in order to maintain officials as well as merchants and craftsmen, and to imply that the officials must have been a parasitic class which kept the farmers in subjection,[107] leaves out of account several circumstances, of which the most important is the climate of the country. Wherever there is power there is, inevitably, abuse of power. But the rich soil of Mesopotamia, if well watered, produces food in abundance without excessive or continuous toil. Labour in the fields was largely seasonal. At seed time and harvest time every able-bodied person was no doubt on the land, as was the case in medieval England. But the farmers were not a separate class or caste. Every citizen, whether priest, merchant, or craftsman, was a practical farmer who worked his allotment to support himself and his dependents. Once the seed was sown and the harvest gathered, plenty of time remained in which special skills could be developed, taught, and exploited. There are interesting analogies in villages of our own time, where often enough a farmer or a labourer is a specialist in some branch of craftsmanship. In Europe this condition is rapidly disappearing and was never regularized; but we may quote two modern African instances which will make it easier for us to imagine how practical husbandry and the exercise of crafts and home industry can go together. The modern instances differ, of course, in important details but are instructive nevertheless. It is said about the Nuer: There are no specialized and hereditary trades though certain persons may acquire a local reputation for skill in making such things as pipes, collars for bulls, canoes or ivory bracelets. These people are not craftsmen by trade, and their activities centre round their cattle, like every other Nuer. Their services are normally accepted by others as part of the integral system of mutual aid which is the basis of every Nuer community, and they are repaid by assistance in pastoral or agricultural activities or by reciprocal gifts.[108] For another instance, with a rather peculiar character: In West Africa the Pangwe do not make a business of carving and weaving; all such work is done on the side, in the intervals of fishing and farming. But in so far as a man does carve he is the narrowest of experts. He will manufacture tools but will leave bows to his neighbour, and a spoon carver would never attempt a ladle.[109]