308 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



We are at present bent, not upon repeopling the country only, but 

 also upon repeopling it successfully, making the people newly- 

 settling comfortable and prosperous. To this end rural industries, 

 made to combine with the cultivation of the soil, so as to fill up idle 

 hours or to occupy superfluous hands, may be expected to prove a 

 material help. It cannot be denied that in our country there is 

 fair scope for them. Our present tale of rural industries practised 

 is, as has been shown, a short one. There is much more that we 

 could make our people supply. There is skill, there is ability to 

 work, there is an artistic taste and originality, among us to no 

 small extent. British needles might work far more largely at that 

 well-paying, highly-prized United Kingdom speciality, " Irish lace." 

 They might vie more energetically with Russian, French and Belgian 

 in turning out that embroidery which we covet so much and which, 

 when well made, pays so well. British hands might make those 

 baskets and that wickerwork which we now buy from the Belgian 

 vanniers. British hands might also make those toys which we have 

 been for a long time in the habit of taking from Germany. The 

 moment for such development appears propitious. For German 

 goods of this kind have fallen off in quality. Critics in the very 

 country that they come from complain that German toy makers 

 are being left without sufficient instruction. Indeed, there is 

 plenty for our people to do. However, if such opportunity is to be 

 turned to action, more will be found to be necessary than that well- 

 intended teaching in our more or less philanthropic technical 

 schools upon which we rely at present. Organisation is needed — 

 organised common effort. There must be people who know our 

 markets and realise what classes of goods will find purchasers, to 

 select the industries to be practised — taking into account also the 

 disposition of those for whom they are thinking. For unwilling 

 hounds, as the Latin proverb has it, make but poor hunting. We 

 want people accustomed to business to teach the workers — recruits 

 now coming into the industry — how to work, how to organise and how 

 to carry on their work. Look at the amount of well-made rubbish 

 that comes to us from the Indian market, simply because the makers 

 there do not' know what to manufacture for the British market. 

 There is so much labour in it that is thrown away. We are not 

 much better off among ourselves ; and we want men with a similar 

 endowment to act by us as " Pat the Cop " displayed in acting 

 for the people of Templecrone, and make appropriate arrange- 

 ments for the sale of what is manufactured. Ireland has, indeed, 

 more than one lesson to teach us — especially in co-operation. 



