340 SMALL INDUSTRIES AND 



in a variety of petty industries, and we could 

 mention what has been done in the different 

 cantons for maintaining the small trades by 

 three different sets of measures : the extension 

 of co-operation ; a wide extension of technical 

 education in the schools and the introduction 

 of new branches of semi-artistic production in 

 different parts of the country ; and the supply 

 of cheap motive power in the houses by means of 

 a hydraulic or an electric transmission of power 

 borrowed from the waterfalls. A separate 

 book of the greatest interest and value could 

 be written on this subject, especially on the 

 impulse given to a number of petty trades, old 

 and new, by means of a cheap supply of motive 

 power. Such a book would also offer a great 

 interest in that it would show to what an ex- 

 tent that mingling together of agriculture with 

 industry, which I described in the first edition 

 of this book as " the factory amidst the fields," 

 has progressed of late in Switzerland. It strikes 

 at the present time even the casual traveller.* 



Belgium would offer an equal interest. Bel- 

 gium is certainly a country of centralised 

 industry, and a country in which the pro- 

 ductivity of the worker stands at a high level, 

 the average annual productivity of each in- 

 dustrial workman men, women, and children 



* See Appendix Y. 



