42 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NOTTINGHAM AND DISTRICT 



In the second place the variety of industry contributes to the main- 

 tenance of a more or less even keel in passing through the fluctuating 

 economic weather. The mixture of final goods production with primary 

 productions keeps the district from the most violent movements up and 

 down. The recent depression, for instance, has hit Nottingham as it 

 has hit the country, but on the whole Nottingham has probably through- 

 out been on the brighter side of average conditions; her unemployment 

 figures seem to confirm this. Some of her industries and some of the 

 districts within her area have been severely struck, but the fact that in 

 many cases the members of famihes have been in industries not so de- 

 pressed has saved the individual domestic situation, and the variety of 

 fortune has saved the area. 



There is one rather interesting feature of the balancing of Nottingham's 

 industries which shows itself in the distribution of female labour. The 

 percentage of women in domestic and personal service is only just over 

 half of the national percentage so occupied. The textile, clothing, dis- 

 tribution and clerical demands for this kind of labour are heavy and the 

 Nottingham girls apparently prefer the factory, shop and office to domestic 

 service. The heavy male absorbing industry of mining dovetails with 

 these industries which absorb large numbers of females but, compared 

 with the national distribution of occupations, Nottingham seems to be 

 deficient in available females. It may be that the relative deficiency in 

 heavy metals, demanding males almost exclusively, is a connected circum- 

 stance. To some extent there is an immigration of young women from 

 the more distant coalfields of North Notts, and the agricultural districts 

 of the east. 



Nottingham's markets are far flung. She has a very large home market 

 for her products but most of her industries have considerable overseas 

 markets too. Her textiles, machinery, telephones, chemicals, and coal 

 go abroad, to Europe, America (North and South), and the Empire. 

 The district is, therefore, like the country as a whole, very concerned 

 about the development of international trade and exchange facilities. 



Some of her products are ' fashion ' goods. This is to be expected when 

 she is so heavily engaged in textiles and dress. The importance of fashion 

 in the lace trade is, however, probably somewhat exaggerated in the minds 

 of those who are not acquainted with the trade. ' Lace ' is not simply 

 lace: it is a group of products and they have different markets. Plain 

 net is a ' bread and butter ' commodity with a large overseas (tropical) 

 market. Curtains are furnishings and they have not shrunk in demand 

 to an extent anything like that of lace, the real lace. Lace is a dress 

 material and, since 1914 or thereabouts, the demand has fallen enormous- 

 ly. In the spacious days, it is said, a woman would wear something 

 approaching 100 yards of lace edgings, flounces and insertions on her 

 person at once, but to-day it isn't done ! The lace trade has felt this great 

 change in dress requirements but the change from pre-war dress to modern 

 dress is not really fashion. Nevertheless the lace trade does suffer periodic 

 variations; it used to be said in the industry that ' the lace trade followed 

 the iron trade '. 



