ABSTRACT
J. R. Harris provides in a recent number of the Journal of European Economic History of the attempts of a group of Birmingham workers and managers under Michael Alcock to introduce some Birmingham trades into France. It think should also make a distinction here, too often neglected in the literature, between a regional industry which merely forms the by-employment of a population still largely engaged in agriculture, and one which has become the main employment of an important part of the inhabitants. It tends to confirm the thesis that no full understanding of the economic development of Europe is possible without close attention to the geographical, and in particular the regional context. Proto-industry, as treated in the debate, was largely limited to three types of industry: textiles, small iron and steel articles, and some composite articles, like clocks, watches or dolls. Regional differences in credit and interest rates have survived into the modern epoch.
