VILLAGE INDUSTRIES 297 



available and sand is plentiful. It is idle in a branch of industry 

 in which the margin of possible reward is necessarily narrow to 

 rely upon materials that have to be brought up from afar. The 

 only exception to this rule appears to be the cutting and polishing 

 of agate successfully carried on in the Idar valley in Germany, 

 after the local agate beds have been fully exhausted and the material 

 has to be imported from far Brazil. In this case it is the peculiar 

 knack, the trantran acquired by the workmen by long practice, 

 which secures to them something like a monopoly. The gradual 

 extinction of the straw plaiting trade in this country is, at any rate, 

 in part to be accounted for under this head by the substantial rise in 

 the value of straw which has taken place in our markets — though 

 it is not quite easy to see why we should not in this matter have 

 done as the Swiss and the Tuscans do, that is, maintain our market 

 by producing an article of special quality. 



In comparison with what is being done on the Continent, from 

 Japan westward to the Pyrenees, to fill up the measure of a living 

 return to the tillers of small parcels of land — and incidentally to lay 

 the foundation for more pretentious industries to rise upon such 

 basis — what we see done in our own country makes only rather a 

 poor show. There used, as observed, to be plenty. That was 

 before steam and electricity were harnessed to the job, and machinery 

 planed the way for large production. From want of energy and 

 power of resistance cottage industries have, however, yielded ground 

 beyond what that cause required. The market for the products of 

 small industries is still there. But we appear resigned to its being 

 supplied by foreigners. Thus foreign vanniers, in Belgium and 

 elsewhere, send us baskets and other wickerwork. The German toy- 

 makers supply us with toys which might easily be improved upon. 

 It is Bohemian glass blowers who supply our Indian and African 

 fellow subjects with their prized glass bangles — called in Bohemia 

 by their English name, because their sale is confined to British 

 possessions. It is foreign lacemakers — Belgian, French, Italian — 

 who send us their lace, a considerable quantity of which is " Irish " 

 lace, a peculiar variety, crocheted and made — on the ground of its 

 recognised utility — everywhere except in Belgium, which has a 

 sufficient variety of specialities of its own. The industry of lace- 

 making prospers abroad. We on our side have only a little pillow 

 lacemaking left as a hand industry. And that little is steadily 

 yielding ground to the less artistic machine making. Straw plaiting, 

 as observed, is going, because Chinese and Japanese are undercutting 

 us with their own cheap wages. If we could only decide upon 



