THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 3 



national workshops having each of them its own speci- 

 ality. We were taught, for instance, that Hungary 

 and Russia are predestined by nature to grow corn 

 in order to feed the manufacturing countries ; that 

 Britain had to provide the world-market with cottons, 

 iron goods and coal; Belgium with woollen cloth; and 

 so on. Nay, within each nation, each region had to 

 have its own speciality. So it has been for some time 

 since ; so it ought to remain. Fortunes have been 

 made in this way, and will continue to be made in the 

 same way. It being proclaimed that the wealth of 

 nations is measured by the amount of profits made 

 by the few, and that the largest profits are made by 

 means of a specialisation of labour, the question was 

 not conceived to exist as to whether human beings 

 would always submit to such a specialisation ; whether 

 nations could be specialised like isolated workmen. 

 The theory was good for to-day why should we care 

 for to-morrow ? To-morrow might bring its own 

 theory ! 



And so it did. The narrow conception of life which 

 consisted in thinking that profits are the only leading 

 motive of human society ; and the stubborn view which 

 supposes that what has existed yesterday would last 

 for ever, proved in disaccordance with the tendencies 

 of human life ; and life took another direction. Nobody 

 will deny the high pitch of production which may be 

 attained by specialisation. But, precisely in proportion 

 as the work required from the individual in modern 

 production becomes simpler and easier to be learned, 

 and, therefore, also more monotonous and wearisome 

 the requirements of the individual for varying his work, 

 for exercising all his capacities, become more and more 

 prominent Humanity perceives that there is no advan- 

 tage for the community in riveting a human being for 

 all his life to a given spot, in a workshop or a mine ; 

 no gain in depriving him of such work as would bring 



