304 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



which large hopes were built up, at Berlin. Such exhibitions — 

 which are, of course, a very different thing from the exhibitions 

 set up, as a rule as permanent institutions, in industrial districts, 

 for the instruction of industrialists — have unquestionably succeeded 

 in exciting interest — sometimes very vivid interest — but their 

 business results have proved small. What will be the result of 

 the permanent exhibition (for sale) organised at Calcutta, under the 

 generous auspices of Lady Carmichael, the wife of the late Governor 

 of Bengal, remains to be seen. 



Associations of " buyers " (Ligues societies d 'achat ; in German 

 Kauferbunde) have been formed here and there to force the sale 

 of small industry wares. One particularly promising one was that 

 in Switzerland, having " sections " distributed over central places, 

 Berne, Fribourg, Lausanne and Neuchatel. Such leagues have even 

 combined to a Conference Internationale, a sitting of which was held 

 at Geneva in 1908. However, although the papers and addresses 

 contributed at that sitting were found to be full of interest, home 

 industries have not greatly benefited by the discussion. 



Sometimes a little cute advertising, a trader's trick, will tell for a 

 single occasion — but for such only. When the " diabolo " game 

 came into fashion, the inventor, a Frenchman, induced a large number 

 of children in various places to learn the game and to play it demon- 

 stratively in open places, so as to be well seen. The result was such 

 that the makers in Vienna — carrying on this industry as a home 

 industry — during the popularity of the game found a ready and even 

 greedy market for their wares, so as to be required to send about 

 2,000 every week to Carlsbad alone. That was good business, of 

 course, but it told only in respect of " diabolo," with its brief life. 



The truth is that neither tricks nor philanthropy by themselves 

 will keep such industries going. No more ought they to. If the 

 industry in question is not wanted it had better not be carried on. 

 If it is to become an asset to the nation, a source of wealth and 

 production, it must be able to stand upon its own legs. And to be 

 able to stand upon its own legs, an industry, whether large or small, 

 must necessarily be able to command for its wares a free sale, justified 

 by the demand existing for the wares. 



There are only two ways in which in the case of small industries, 

 a sale has proved practicable on anything like a workable scale. 

 One of these is through employers, for whom home workers work 

 in their several domiciles, as a settled arrangement, the workers 

 looking to the one man for the taking of their workmanship off their 

 hands and paying them the value of their labour, therefore really their 



