VILLAGE INDUSTRIES 305 



wages. The other is through dealers, who purchase the goods for what 

 they can get them for, for resale as their own business. The latter 

 arrangement is obviously dependent upon a double play of supply 

 and demand, in the first place between the dealer and the producer, 

 and in the second between the dealer and the general market, 

 which latter manifestly will govern the former. In certain cases, 

 as for instance in the toy industry of Bavaria and Saxony, it is 

 found to bring about considerable convenience by reason of a 

 certain competition among buying dealers, of whom a large number, 

 disseminated throughout the country, keep prices up a little by 

 bidding against one another. Certainly the presence of so many 

 dealers facilitates the disposal of the goods, but as well as competition 

 there is sometimes also combination for keeping prices down. 



Neither of the two arrangements referred to is really satisfactory 

 to the workers at rural industries as ensuring a sale, securing to 

 them the best price obtainable for their wares, and at the same 

 time assuring to them industrial liberty. The employer may 

 ' sweat," and the dealer is likely to beat down. So we are led 

 back to the recommendation which the Hungarian Commission of 

 Inquiry on the subject has recorded in the words of M. de Szury, 

 its chairman. There is, so it would seem, no really satisfactory 

 remedy for what is amiss except making the workers their own 

 dealers by means of co-operation. They cannot fight the employers 

 by combination, and they cannot overcome the dealers except by 

 competition ; but they can co-operate. However, the co-operation 

 resorted to wants to take rather a different shape from that with 

 which we have become familiar. Co-operative buying of raw 

 material is all very good in itself, and so is co-operative credit for 

 raising the requisite funds. However, we are now out to sell our 

 goods. On this point Mr. Gallagher, of Templecrone, has given us a 

 good lead — which, indeed, has a lesson for the whole country. We 

 are wont in the disposal of our manufactures to wait for the moun- 

 tain to come to Mahomed, our customers to us, and to expect them 

 to take what we offer. In this way the country has, as consular 

 reports have warned us over and over again, lost much trade to 

 our rival Germany, which has proceeded on opposite lines alto- 

 gether, going to seek for its customers, studying their tastes and 

 making things in every respect convenient to them. We want 

 to do the same thing by co-operation for our rural industries. 



Up to now we have tried to get rid of our small industry wares 

 by setting up a store here and there to display them. Such stores, 

 however, are visited only by a very limited number of confirmed 



R.R. x 



