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THE RURAL INDUSTRIES OF ENGLAND AND WALES.—II. By Helen E. FitzRandolph and M. Doric! Hay. (Oxford University Press. .5s.)—Women are doing a great deal at the moment on behalf of village crafts ; and the authors of this inquiry take a high place in the campaign. Their book is a survey (made on behalf of the Agricultural Economics Research Institute of Oxford) of the prospects of osier growing and basketry, and some rural factories. The volume is a model of industry, of the careful collection of facts in many widely scattered districts. The authors have done admirably what they set out to do ; but the second part of the book, and the most important, suffers a little from excessive conciseness, as the longer inquiry in basketry does not. One would not infer, for example, from the brief account of straw-plaiting, how very large an income was once earned in the villages ; nor is there a word of the chief cause of the industry's decay—the importation of cheaper plait from Japan. Where the authors do allow themselves a small generalization they are excellent. The handicap of the rural factory, due to compulsion to pay urban wages—against the wish of everyone concerned—is excellently emphasized. But all the material is valuable, and the more surveys of the kind the Research Institute can publish the better for rural England.
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