172 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



384,065 persons in 1880 (423,755 with the clerks, 

 travellers, supervisors and so on), nearly 100,000 work- 

 men (94,757) who are employed in the coal mines, we 

 find that out of the remaining 290,308 workers very 

 nearly one-half, i.e., 132,840 persons, work in workshops 

 in which less than fifty persons are employed, while 

 84,500 persons out of these last are employed in 25,959 

 workshops, which thus have an average of three workers 

 per workshop.* We may thus say that taking the 

 mines out of account more than one-fourth part of the 

 Belgian industrial workers (three-tenths) are employed 

 in small workshops which have, on the average, less thai) 

 three workers each, besides the master.! 



What is still more remarkable is, that the number 

 of small workshops, in which from one to three aids 

 only are employed by the master, attains the consider- 

 able figure of 2293 in the textile industries, notwith- 

 standing the high concentration of these industries, the 

 fact being, as was already mentioned on a preceding 

 page, that factories which used to employ 500 or 600 

 cloth weavers are silent, while cloth is being woven by 

 the clothiers in their houses. As to the machinery and 

 hardware trades, the small workshops in which the master 

 works with from two to four assistants or journeymen 

 are very numerous, to say nothing of the gun trade which 

 is a petty trade -par excellence (265 workshops with 

 less than three workers), and the furniture trade which 

 has lately taken a great development. A highly concen- 

 trated industry, and a high productivity, as well as a 

 considerable export trade (9 per head of population), 

 which all testify to a high industrial development of 



* Out of this number, 16,220 workshops occupy 58,545 workers. 

 Moreover, there are 5975 artisans. 



f When shall we have for the United Kingdom a census as complete 

 as we have it for France and Belgium? that is, a census in which the 

 employed and the employers will be counted separately, instead of throw- 

 ing into one heap the owner of the factory, the managers, the engineers 

 and the workers. 



