SMALL INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES. 167 



the latter and try to bring- mankind back to isolated 

 home-spinning and home-weaving in every peasant 

 house. 



One fact dominates all the investigations which have 

 been made into the conditions of the small industries. 

 We find it in Germany, as well as in France or in 

 Russia. In an immense number of trades it is not the 

 superiority of the technical organisation of the trade 

 in a factory nor the economies realised on the prime- 

 motor which militate against the small industry in favour 

 of the factories, but the more advantageous conditions 

 for selling the produce and for buying the raw produce 

 which are at the disposal of big concerns. Wherever 

 this difficulty has been overcome, either by means of 

 association or in consequence of a market being secured 

 for the sale of the produce, it has always been found 

 first, that the conditions of the workers or artisans im- 

 mediately improved ; and next, that a rapid progress 

 was realised in the technical aspects of the respective 

 industries : new processes were introduced to improve the 

 produce or to increase the rapidity of its fabrication ; 

 new machine-tools were invented, or new motors were 

 resorted to, or the trade was reorganised so as to diminish 

 the costs of production. On the contrary, wherever the 

 helpless, isolated artisans and workers continue to re- 

 main at the mercy of the wholesale buyers, who always 

 since Adam Smith's time " openly or tacitly " agree 

 to act as one man to bring down the prices almost to 

 a starvation level and such is the case for the immense 

 number of the small and village industries their con- 

 dition is so bad that only the longing of the workers 

 after a certain relative independence, and their know- 

 ledge of what awaits them in the factory, prevent them 

 from joining the ranks of the factory hands. Knowing 

 that in most cases the advent of the factory would mean 

 no work at all for most men, and the taking of the 

 children and girls to the factory, they do the utmost to 

 prevent it from appearing at all in the village. 



