304 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



Aisne and in Haute Marne. In this last de- 

 partment, at Villaines, everyone is a basket- 

 maker, " and all the basket-makers belong to a 

 co-operative society," Ardouin Dumazet re- 

 marks.* " There are no employers ; all the 

 produce is brought once a fortnight to the co-op- 

 erative stores and there it is sold for the associa- 

 tion. About 150 families belong to it, and each 

 owns a house and some vineyards." At Fays- 

 Billot, also in Haute Marne, 1,500 basket-makers 

 belong to an association ; while at Thierache, 

 where several thousand men are engaged in the 

 same trade, no association has been formed, the 

 earnings being in consequence extremely low. 



Another very important centre of petty 

 trades is the French Jura, or the French part 

 of the Jura Mountains, where the watch trade 

 has attained, as known, a high development. 

 When I visited these villages between the 

 Swiss frontier and Besan9on in the year 1878, 

 I was struck by the high degree of relative 

 well-being which I could observe, even though 

 I was perfectly well acquainted with the Swiss 

 villages in the Val de Saint Imier. It is very 

 probable that the machine-made watches have 

 brought about a crisis in French watch-making 

 as they have in Switzerland. But it is known 

 * Ardouin Dumazet, vol. i., p. 213 et seg. 



