The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1877-04-14
Industries of Italy.

The only industry in which Italy can
be said to possess some advantages over
her neighbors is in silk-weaving, and in
this, / believe, some progress is being
made; but as a producer of textile fab
rics generally Italy does not figure
prominently. Her exports of silk, raw
and manufactured, averaged in value
about 15,000,000 in the years of 1870
to 1874, according to tables given by
Mr.. Herries. This was balanced to some
extent by imports of the average value
f5,5O0,OOO. Besides silk, Italy grows
a certain amount of cotton, but not
nearly enough to supply her own wants,
and although she has an export trade to
Austria i'm cotton tissues, it is more of a
transit trade, believe, than the result of
the competition of Italian spinners and
Weavers. Her industries are, indeed, all
except that of silk, which is ut pres
ent rather depressed small and of quite
local Importance. Italy is in moth
ing more provincial, in fact,
than in the isolated con-
dition of her cotton, linen, and
wooden manufactures. But, although
insignificant, they still increase in a
measure, and may well grow very much
bigger without interfering in the least
with the purchasing power of Italy in
other countries, or competing very seri-
Ously in foreign markets. With her i'm
mediate neighbOrs, Switzerland. Aus
tria, and France, it is in the nature of
things that her trade should grow larger,
and that where competition is possible
Italian products should in some direc-
tiOns beat ours; but there is as yet GER
tainly nothing alarming in the situation,
and we have no cause to be envious of
her prosperity. At present the total ex-
port and import trade of Italy is, as
have said, well under f10O, 900, 200, and
the bulk of the eXports-silk, oil, wine,
stones, and glass-are of kind which
do not come within our competing
range. As far as the direct trade of
Great Britain with Italy is concerned,
it is on the whole steady and profitable,
and amounts to about an eighth part of
her entire commerce; Italy buying from
us much more largely than we do from
her, although the discrepancy is less
now than it has been. The'consump-
ton of Indian and Egyptian raw cotton
IL
which are in great part still of a rather
primitive kind. Some progress has been
made i'm the establishment of small iron
works, and one work at Venice, belong
ing to an Englishman named Nevill, has
attained to some celebrity. Italy pos
sesses few iron mines, however, and, as
far as We know, has no rich contiguous
stores of iron and coal such as are es-
sential to country destined to lead in
almost any branch of skilled production.
We must. therefore, after making allow
ance for the signs of local activity which
are to be met with in the country, come
to the conclusion that Italy is not in a
position to become a great manufacture
ing center. Her people are by prefer
ence pastoral; and, as in France, al
though the tenure of the land is not the
same, large tracts of the soil are par
celed out among small holders, and the
attractions of the workshops are not
sufficient to draw a comparatively COM
Portable and by no means crowded popu-
lation from their fields.-Frazer's Mage
zine.