V (3)

A table on page 128 shows the relative importance of the various classes comprising the industrial population, per 10,000 heads of the active population. The proportion in the following industries is:—

These establishments, therefore, representing the admittedly greater industries in France, only include one fifth of the wage-earners, and their relative importance has diminished from 1896 to 1901, because there has been a decrease in the textile industries. But, if we eliminate these, we find the figures to be 784 for 1896, as against 869 for 1901, so that the number employed in these greater industries has only increased by 85 per 10,000, or less than 1 per cent., counting in the total of industries for less than one tenth, viz., 7.84 per cent.

This relative importance has a fictitious as well as a positive side, fictitious because the development of some of these industries, having been called forth by protection, is artificial; and positive, because not only have wants in general continued to develop, but because the metallurgical industry has received a considerable impetus by the Gilchrist method of treating ores, and the rubber industry by the development of the motor trade; and undertakings of these classes require large establishments and a numerous staff.