CALICO-PRINTING 



671 



of the supply was of fine goods. We find specimens of good taste on the lowest material, 

 printed at the lowest possible price for export, showing a taste superior to that in use 

 for our best work twenty years ago, employing greater talent in design, greater skill 

 in engraving the cost of production cheap, because repaid by the quantity produced. 

 This diffiision of art and of a better taste cannot be otherwise than beneficial, even to 

 the higher class of productions, as preparing a taste and demand for them in countries 

 where high price would never have given prints any admission. The improvement 

 of the lower cannot militate against that of the higher, either in the moral, intellec- 

 tual, or artistic world. The productions of the highest class of French goods ot 

 to-day, whether furniture or dresses, are superior in taste and execution to those ot 

 any former period. The productions of the first-class printers of Great Britain 

 maintain an equal advance, and are superior in taste and execution, in every respect, 

 to those of former years. Great competition and rapidity of production are not imme- 

 diately beneficial to high finish and execution in art; but this tendency to quickness 

 of production, rather than perfection, rectifies itself; and machinery, which perhaps 

 at first does not give the polish that excessive labour formerly supplied, ultimately 

 exceeds it by its cheaper and more regular application. It is remarkable how taste 

 or novelty in that class of demand, which would strike the casual observer as the one 

 fitted for its greatest development, is limited in quantity. The limit or commencing 

 point, in which taste or novelty enters freely into the composition of a print, is for the 

 supply of the working and middle classes of society. They require it quiet, modest, 

 and useful ; and any deviation, for the sake of novelty, which calls in the aid of the 

 brighter and less permanent colour, quickly checks itself. The sober careful classes 

 of society cling to an inoffensive taste, which will not look obsolete and extravagant 

 after the lapse of such a time as would render a garment comparatively tasteless and 

 unfashionable in a higher class. This trade is, to the printers, most extensive and 

 valuable, and has its necessary and practical bearing on his taste ; and hence it is in 

 this branch of the business the English printer is most decidedly superior to his 

 "French competitors.' 



The returns given in the ' Annual Statement of the Trade of the United King- 

 dom' for our Export of Piece Goods Printed in 1872 is as follows: 



Carried forward . 825,680,121 17,306,932 



