SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 133 



losses sustained by the owners of the factories when 

 they cannot run their mills all the year round. But it 

 illustrates the obstacles which the transformation has 

 to comply with. As to the silk trade, it continues to 

 spread over Europe in its rural industry shape; while 

 hundreds of new petty trades appear every year, and 

 when they find nobody to carry them on in the villages 

 as is the case in this country they shelter themselves 

 in the suburbs of the great cities, as we have lately 

 learned from the inquiry into the " sweating system ". 



Now, the advantages offered by a large factory in 

 comparison with hand work are self-evident as regards 

 the economy of labour, and especially the facilities 

 both for sale and for having the raw produce at a lower 

 price. How can we then explain the persistence of the 

 petty trades ? Many causes, however, most of which 

 cannot be valued in shillings and pence, are at work in 

 favour of the petty trades, and these causes will be best 

 seen from the following illustrations. I must say, how- 

 ever, that even a brief sketch of the countless industries 

 which are carried on on a small scale in this country, 

 and on the Continent, would be far beyond the scope of 

 this chapter. When I began to study the subject some 

 fifteen years ago, I never guessed, from the little atten- 

 tion devoted to it by the orthodox economists, what a 

 wide, complex, important, and interesting organisation 

 would appear at the end of a closer inquiry. So I see 

 myself compelled to give here only a few typical illus- 

 trations, and to indicate the chief lines only of the 

 subject 



Petty Trades in Great Britain. 



As far as I know, there are in this country no statistics 

 as to the exact numbers of workers engaged in the 

 domestic trades, the rural industries, and the petty 

 trades. The whole subject has never received the 



