266 THE AYLESTONE ALLOTMENTS 



week though even they have been better off than those 

 out of work altogether. 



Conditions such as these are bad enough, but they 

 are not without hope, for depressed trade may be 

 followed by a revival. Far worse is the position of 

 the man who is thought ' too old ' for factory life, and 

 has no chance of returning thereto. What is he to 

 do, then ? To what use can he put the energy he 

 still possesses in order to maintain himself and those 

 dependent upon him ? 



Under the former system of handicrafts a man learnt 

 a trade, and if his employer dispensed with his services 

 he not only still knew that trade, but could often set 

 up in business in a small way on his own account. 

 With the advent of the factory system and its minute 

 subdivision of labour the handicrafts are dying out, 

 and the worker learns a * trade ' no longer. All he 

 learns is to perform one or more of a long series of 

 mechanical operations, until he becomes almost a part 

 of the machinery itself, indispensable as a link in a 

 chain, but of no greater utility (from an industrial 

 standpoint) than a single link of such chain when 

 standing alone. 



These considerations presented themselves with 

 special force to my mind when I visited at Leicester 

 one of those huge boot and shoe factories which are 

 the twentieth-century representatives of the individual 

 shoemakers of old. Here, in the suburb of Aylestone, 

 two and a half miles out from the centre of the town, 

 I found a factory which employs 1,200 persons, and 

 turns out every week from 25,000 to 55,000 pairs of 

 boots and shoes for distribution by the Co-operative 

 Wholesale Society to every part of the British Isles, 

 if not a good deal further. The secret of this immense 

 output is, of course, machinery. A complete pair of 



