Pro THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—The disappointment expressed by "E. C. T.," in to-day's Spectator, would certainly not be " unreasonable " if it were well founded ; but I am happy to say that the Society your correspondent refers to considers the promotion of small" village industries" as of essential importance, both for the immediate benefit of those for whom he (or she) pleads, and for the general success of the whole scheme which it is endeavouring to carry out. If "E. C. T." will favour us with his name and address, we will at once forward our prospectus and other papers, whereby he will see that in them we give a list of above twenty such industries which, we believe, can be profitably carried on in village homes, not in general as furnishing a livelihood for a large family, or the whole livelihood of even a small one, but as most valuable for supplementing the general income, filling up spare hours, and giving profitable occupation to younger members of the family, or affording employment when the usual bread-earning labour, whether on the land or indoors, cannot be carried on owing to weather, seasons, or want of work.
If our plans are destined to succeed, the office now kindly performed by "E. C. T." for his poor neighbours would have to be entrusted to a regular factor or agent, who should act on behalf of the various industries carried on in the village, and who, by the help of a central depot in London, or any neigh- bouring town (on the plan of the establishment of the Wholesale Co-operative Society in Hooper Square, E.), would secure the best market in his power for the various goods forwarded to him from one or more of the industrial villages, and workers at village industries, in question. The same agency might perhaps be employed with good effect in promoting the valuable work being done by Mrs. Ernest Hart, and the useful Society for which she and other public-spirited friends of these local industries are working. And if the "Home Arts and Industries Association," which owes so much of its beneficent life, I believe, to Mr. Walter Besant, as well as the excellent Wood- carving School, under Miss Rowe, at Kensington, should see their way, as I think they might, to extend their action in the direction of industrial production in villages for the market, mutually useful relations might be established through the same machinery.
Will you further allow me to observe, in reference to an article entitled "Small Farms," in the same number of your journal, that while we most thoroughly concur in the view you take of the admirable objects proposed by the Small Farm and Labourers' Land Association, we are anxious that the immense importance of accompanying sales of land with certain pre- cautions, covenants, and provisions should never be forgotten ? Unless there are stringent covenants against sub-letting, sub- dividing, overcrowding, multiplication of dwellings, creation of nuisances, neglect to cultivate, &c., and unless there is due pro- vision made for rational recreation and amusement, indoors and out-of-doors, also for some corporate life and local self-govern- ment, among the holders of these small farms and allotment
grounds, all the old evils will ere long come over again, and no permanent good will be done. But if these covenants and pro- visions are secured, and if home industries are encouraged, and village workshops or factories on wise plans established, we should have the main elements of an Industrial village secured wherever the Small Farms and Labourers' Land Company carries out its much-needed operations.—I am, Sir, &c.,
HENRY SULLY.
Office of the Society for Promoting Industrial Villages, 12 Southampton Street, Strand, W.C., July 4th.
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