4 
Significance of the Small Industries. 361 
cord imported from without can find no root, and discon- 
tentment from within can never arise. 
The condition of things in this and other countries is, 
however, far from being favourable to the small industries. 
Large manufacturers can secure not merely the most 
perfect machinery, but need pay hardly the seventh part of 
what independent workmen or small employers have to 
expend for power supply. 
The employment of machinery is made as difficult as pos- 
sible, and sometimes is entirely out of the question, in large 
towns, by the troublesome regulations, mostly required by 
the public safety, which are imposed upon prime movers. 
The one essential condition for the flourishing of the 
small industries, however, is their situation in the midst of 
crowded centres of population; so that the municipal re- 
strictions are especially injurious to the independent work- 
man and small employer; for the large mills and factories 
may be situated any where in the vicinity beyond the city 
limit, where a prosperous small industry could not exist. 
The result of all this is that all the great technical ad- 
vances pass over the heads of these workers, since the first 
requisite for their application is the possession of mechan- 
ical energy. They consequently fall hopelessly behind in 
the industrial race, in which they are so heavily handi- 
capped ; and finally cease to exist as a class of any national 
importance. 
The great principle of the division of labour, so closely 
identified with mills and manufactories, which carries with 
its adoption the advantages, as enunciated by Adam Smith 
and Babbage, of (1) increased dexterity of the labourer and 
his employment on that work at which he is most skilful ; 
(2) time saved by the workman not passing from one em- 
ployment to another, and (3) suitable machinery more 
likely to be invented by the concentration of the workman’s 
mind on one process; will be advanced by many as a sufii- 
cient reason why larze factories must inevitably form the 
chief part of an economical industrial system. 
