SCOTTISH HOME INDUSTRLES.* Tam is a book with little attempt
at literary style, and yet with a certain force that impresses itself on the reader, more than is the case with many books of far greater pretensions. To begin with, it brings with it a vivid presentment of the steady passing on of time and a sense of the futility of attempting to put back the hands on the dial. It consists of a series of papers contributed by the heads of various branches of the Scottish Home Industries Association, prefaced by an interest- ing account of some of the older Scotch industries, by Provost Rose, of Inverness. Machinery with its whirling arms has seized one by one the old handicrafts that were once carried on in primitive fashion by Highlanders and Lowlanders. In the beginning of this century the farmers' and cottagers' wives and daughters turned spinning-wheels by the light of home-made lamps, or twirled distaffs as they herded sheep on the hills. The wool was dyed with home-made dyes, and woven on hand-looms by the village weaver, and made up into house- hold goods or clothing for husbands and sons by the women- kind. The cultivation of lint or flax, according to Provost Ross, was also a national industry that only died a natural death about forty years ago. The counties of Ross, Aberdeen, and
Forfar were centres of the linen trade, which was at the height of its prosperity a century ago, and spinning and pre- paring the linen yarn gave work to numberless women during the long winter nights. In a chapter devoted to " Laurence- kirk Hand-loom Weaving," we read that "the hand-loom
weaving of household linen in the village of Lanrencekirk, in Kincardineshire, is one of the real Scottish industries which is slowly passing away with the lives of the old weavers." It took seven years to make a really competent weaver ; the work was done mostly in the winter :—
" In the dark, low-roofed cottages where the weavers livea and worked, the only light was that from the quaint old cruzie ' lamp, filled with oil, and having for its wick a length of peeled rush. So capable were the weavers that many of them worked away in the dark, judging of the smoothness of the surface by touch of the hand. When anything serious happened, the guid- wife had to act as chandler, her business being to provide pieces of wood split fine—from Scotch fir for choice—and to use them as candles till the guidman got the damage repaired."
The linen woven on hand-looms is said to be superior to that made by machinery, but the wages that can be earned by
hand-loom weaving are so low that the younger generation will not learn the art, and the old looms remain "silent and inactive till they are broken up for firewood."
The report furnished by the Duchess of Sutherland, after a tour of inspection in Satherlandshire, as to the prospects of hand-loom weaving, is somewhat discouraging. The " impres- sion" and " conclusion " we should draw from it is that it has become, from force of circumstances, an artificial rather than a natural industry. The young men will not learn weaving any more than they will wear home-made clothes. the amount of cloth or tweed prodaced is not regular enough in its supply to suit the necessities of trade, nor will wholesale warehouses in London or other great towns pay abnormal prices for goods woven in unsuitable colours, and occasionally
faulty in texture. When we speak of " Home Industries " in the old sense of the words, we mean those handicrafts that
were naturally carried on at home, when all articles of clothing and household furniture were " home-made," because there was no other means of obtaining them. Nowadays, the term "Home Industries" has a different meaning. The revival of industries that in course of time have been absorbed by large factories, or superseded altogether by machinery, is somewhat of an artificial revival, and is of necessity the work of some philanthropic individuals
who stimulate and create a demand, the drawback being that when the mainspring is removed or breaks
down the entire work stops. Such benefactresses as Catherine,
• London : Scottish Home Industries Association.
Countess of Dunmore, and Mrs. Beckett, have done much to revive and encourage band-weaving in the island of Harris ; but since Lady Dunmore's death in 1886 "her good work is
still continued, but not to the same extent The people are not making less cloth since they lost their bene- factress, but they sell it to less profit " (p. 70) ; and on the next page we read of the embroidery industry, also established many years ago by Lady Dunmore,—" For some years this industry has entirely ceased. There is no one now to trace out the delicate, intricate patterns, which used to be drawn entirely by one honoured hand." The chapter on "New Pitsligo Bobbin-Lace " confirms this impression. A kind of coarse bobbin-lace was made by old women in New Pitsligo some fifty years ago, and it occurred to the Episcopal minister who lived in that village to see whether it would be possible to improve the make of lace, and by degrees to teach the art to younger women. Teachers were engaged and various laces were made, Valenciennes especially being imitated with great success. In summer some fifty women work at bobbin-lace, and in the winter treble that number, but it remains to be seen whether the industry will survive when the original promoters of the scheme are no longer able to superintend it. " So long as Mr. and Mrs. Webster continue their extraordinary exertions' the lace industry will thrive in New Pitsligo" (p. 159) ; but it seems doubtful whether the trade of lace-making has really taken permanent root, and will continue to flourish under less favourable circumstances. But if hand-loom weaving, embroidery, and lace-making are " home industries " that re- quire artificial support to keep them alive, and must inevitably suffer from the competition of cheap machine-made goods, there is one long-established industry that seems really indigenous in the Highlands, and to have survived the introduction of machinery, and that is knitting. Lady Mackenzie, of Gair- loch, notes that "this industry is said to have been first taught in Aberdeenshire in 1651 by the wives of the officers of Cromwell's army," and Mrs. Grierson, that a particular kind of fancy knitting done in the Fair Isle is a legacy from the Spaniards who were shipwrecked there at the time of the Armada. Aberdeen stockings were exported in the eighteenth century, and now the Gairloch stockings are pronounced by connoisseurs to be the best in the market,—" Nothing can beat good Gairloch stockings ; " and, as Lady Mackenzie notes, knitting is "essentially a home industry. The wool used is commonly from sheep kept by the crofter ; the teasing, carding, spinning, and dyeing, are all done at home ; and the colours are generally obtained from natural dyes." Shetland knitted goods are proverbial for their fineness of texture and complicated patterns, and Mrs. Grierson gives an interesting notice of this national industry. She comments on fallacies that die hard, such as the myth that Shetlanders knit their fine goods with rough sticks and twigs, and assures us that the so-called " natural- coloured " wools really grow on the true Shetland sheep, whose short silky wool only comes to perfection on their native hillsides, and deteriorates in quality on richer pasture. She says i—" It is sometimes difficult to convince people that our moorad is not dyed, but that we really have little sheep of these pretty shades in cinnamon-brown and fawn; and that our sheep run about in coats of all shades, from dark grey to white." lloorad is said to be a Norse word meaning " moor-red " or the colour of moorland earth, and shala is another Norse word meaning "hoar-frost," the little shale, sheep looking as if it had been out in a light snow-shower. Mrs. Grierson pleads for fair prices for the fine lace-work knitting that has been a chief feature of the Shetland industry for the last fifty years ; the women are quick workers, but the intricate patterns and shadings used in such fine knitting must of neces- sity take time, and the fine yarn has to be very carefully prepared and spun before it is ready for knitting ; machine- made goods, though they may be cheaper, are not to be com- pared with the hand-made knitting, either in durability or fineness of texture. It seems to be taken for granted that small home industries cannot thrive in a really businesslike way without some outside assistance and fostering care, and this is what the Scotch Home Industries Associa- tion supplies ; but it seems surely better to encourage natural industries—that is to say, those that have taken root gradually, and have not died out by force of circum- stances—than to start lace-making and embroidery and wood-
carving classes, which will of necessity languish when the hand that supports them is withdrawn. Such classes are more useful as a means of recreation for youths or girls who are employed all day in purely mechanical work, than as a means of subsistence for older men and women. The markets are already overstocked with fancy articles of wood and brass and iron, and the finer kinds of embroideries rarely repay the time and eyesight lavished on them. The branches of the Association are doing good work in insisting that all hand- made goods must be up to trade standards and trade require- ments, and that prohibitive prices are useless, while they act as " middlemen " between the producer and buyer, being content with a small percentage for necessary expenses. The exhibi- tions that have been held in Scotland or in London at various times by the Association, have largely helped to draw public attention to Scottish industries. The Scotch are notoriously thrifty and hard-working, and while it is impossible to repro- duce a bygone state of things, it is at least possible to enable men and women who are willing to work to solve the problem of existence, and all honour is due to the promoters of the Association, whose laudable object, as we are told in the preface, is to "provide a market for, and to improve and develop, such Scottish Home Industries, Arts and Manufactures, as can be carried on by the people in their own homes."
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