PREFACE. vii 



In this domain I am enabled to add to the present 

 edition the interesting results of a work about the 

 small industries in the United Kingdom that I made 

 in 1900. Such a work was only possible when the 

 British Factory Inspectors had published (in 1898, in 

 virtue of the Factories Act of 1895) their first reports, 

 from which I could determine the hitherto unknown 

 numerical relations between the great and the small 

 industries in the United Kingdom. 



Until then no figures whatever as regards the dis- 

 tribution of operatives in the large and small factories 

 and workshops of Great Britain were available ; so 

 that when economists spoke of the " unavoidable " 

 death of the small industries they merely expressed 

 hypotheses based upon a limited number of observa- 

 tions, which were chiefly made upon part of the textile 

 industry and metallurgy. Only after Mr. Whitelegge 

 had published the first figures from which reliable 

 conclusions could be drawn was it possible to see 

 how little such wide-reaching conclusions were con- 

 firmed by realities. In this country, as everywhere, 

 the small industries continue to exist, and new ones 

 continue to appear as a necessary growth, in many 

 important branches of national production, by the 

 side of the very great factories and huge centralised 

 works. So I add to the chapter on small industries 

 a summary of the work that I had published in the 

 Nineteenth Century upon this subject. 



As regards France, the most interesting observations 

 made by M. Ardouin Dumazet during his many years' 

 travels all over the country give me the possibility 

 of showing the remarkable development of rural 

 industries, and the advantages which were taken 

 from them for recent developments in agriculture 

 and horticulture. Besides, the publication of the 



