284 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



ones appear every day, is merely to repeat a 

 hasty generalisation that was made in the earlier 

 part of the nineteenth century by those who 

 witnessed the absorption of hand-work by 

 machinery work in the cotton industry a 

 generalisation which, as we saw already, and 

 are going still better to see on the following 

 pages, finds no confirmation from the study of 

 industries, great and small, and is upset by the 

 censuses of the factories and workshops. Far 

 from showing a tendency to disappear, the small 

 industries show, on the contrary, a tendency to- 

 wards* making a further development, since the 

 municipal supply of electrical power such as 

 we have, for instance, in Manchester permits 

 the owner of a small factory to have a cheap 

 supply of motive power, exactly in the proportion 

 required at a given time, and to pay only for 

 what is really consumed. 



Petty Trades in France. 



Small industries are met with in France in a 

 very great variety, and they represent a most 

 important feature of national economy. It is 

 estimated, in fact, that while one-half of the 

 population of France live upon agriculture, and 

 one-third upon industry, this third part is equally 

 distributed between the great industry and the 



