288 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



It is evident that in most textile industries 

 the power-loom supersedes the hand-loom, and 

 the factory takes, or has taken already, the place 

 of the cottage industry. Cottons, plain linen, 

 and machine-made lace are now produced at such 

 a low cost by machinery that hand-weaving 

 evidently becomes an anachronism for the 

 plainest descriptions of such goods. Conse- 

 quently, though there were in France, in the 

 year 1876, 328,300 hand-looms as against 121,340 

 power-looms, it may safely be taken that the 

 number of the former has been considerably 

 reduced within the next twenty years. How- 

 ever, the slowness with which this change is 

 being accomplished is one of the most striking 

 features of the present industrial organisation 

 of the textile trades of France. 



The causes of this power of resistance of hand- 

 loom-weaving become especially apparent when 

 one consults such works as Reybaud's Le Coton, 

 which was written in 1863, nearly half a century 

 ago that is, at a time when the cottage industries 

 were still fully alive. Though an ardent admirer 

 himself of the great industries, Reybaud faith- 

 fully noted the striking superiority of well-being 

 in the weavers' cottages as compared with the 

 misery of the factory hands in the cities. Al- 

 ready then, the cities of St. Quentin, Lille, 

 Roubaix and Amiens were great centres for 



