17D \J8Gp UC-NRtF lllliililiiiti"' B 3 111 727 MSlJl UTE sDlAN TRADE ENQUIRY REio^vTS ON JU'^E AND SILK -^ -;>' 1 LONV)=. tN ' ALB» ■ ^i. t\j A vv • GIFT OF HORACE W. CAIRPENTIER IMPERIAL INSTITUTE INDIAN TRADE ENQUIRY REPORTS ON JUTE AND SILK f IMPERIAL INSTITUTE REPORTS of the INDIAN TRADE ENQUIRY HIDES AND SKINS RICE OIL-SEEDS RESINS JUTE AND SILK TIMBERS AND PAPER MATERIALS DRUGS AND TANNING MATERIALS Etc. Etc. IMPERIAL INSTITUTE INDIAN TRADE ENQUIRY REPORTS ON JUTE AND SILK LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1921 All Rights Reserved IMPERIAL INSTITUTE Committee for India Sir Charles C, McLeod (Chairman). Sir Harvey Adamson, K.C.S.I. A. YusuF Ali, C.B.E. (late I.C.S.). Sir Charles H. Armstrong. Sir Ernest Cable. Sir Robert W. Carlyle, K.C.S.I., CLE. The Right Hon. Lord Carmichael, G.C.S.L, G.C.LE., K.C.M.G. D. T. Chadwick, Esq., LC.S. Sir John P. Hewett, G.C.S.L, K.B.E., CLE. L. J. Kershaw, Esq., C.S.L, CLE. Sir Marshall F, Reid, CLE. Sir James Dunlop Smith, K.C.S.I., K.C.V.O., CLE. Sir George H, Sutherland, A. J. Hedgeland, Esq. (Secretary). The Chairman of the Executive Council of the Imperial Institute (The Right Hon. Lord Islington, G.C.M.G., D.S.O.) and the Director (Professor Wyndham R. Dunstan, C.M.G., F.R.S.) arc ex-officio members of the Committee for India. INDIAN TRADE ENQUIRY Special Committee on Jute and other Fibres Sir Charles C McLeod (Chairman). Sir Charles II. Armstrong. George Bonar, Esq. Sir Robert W. Carlyle, K.C.S.I., CLE. Wyndham R. Dunstan, Esq., C.M.G., F.R.S. G. C Hodgson, Esq. J. A. Hutton, Esq. George Malcolm, Esq. Professor J. A, Todd. Sir Francis Youngiiusband, K.C.I.E. Dr. S. E. Chandler, Imperial Institute (Acting Secretary). &3. 48iiii>^i IMPERIAL INSTITUTE Advisory Committee on Silk Production Sir Frank Warner/ K.B.E. (Chairman). (Messrs. Warner & Sons.) Sir Henry Birchenough, K.C.M.G. Wyndham R. Dunstan, Esq., C.M.G., F.R.S. Frank J. Farrell, Esq., M.Sc. (Messrs. Grout & Co., Ltd.). William Frost, Esq.,i J.P. (Messrs, W. Frost & Sons, Ltd.). Professor H. Maxwell Lefroy, M.A. (Imperial College of Science and Technology). J. SuGDEN Smith, Esq.^ (Messrs. John Hind & Co., Ltd.). Richard Snow, Esq.^ (Messrs. Windley & Co.). A. John Solly, Esq.,^ J.P. (Messrs. Reade & Co., Ltd.). H. SoLMAN, Esq. (Messrs. John Heathcoat & Co.). William Stokes, Esq. (Messrs. Lewis Balfour & Co.). William Watson, Esq.^ (Messrs. Lister & Co., Ltd.). Dr. S. E, Chandler, Imperial Institute (Secretary). 1 Nominated by the Silk Association of Great Britain and Ireland, Incorporated. VI PREFATORY NOTE In August 1 916 the Secretary of State for India invited the Imperial Institute Committee for India to conduct an enquiry into the possibiUtics of further commercial usage in the United Kingdom of the principal Indian raw materials. It was also proposed that the enquiry should include the possibihty of the usage of these materials in other parts of the Empire. The invitation was accepted by the Committee for India, and a number of Special Committees were formed to deal with the principal groups of materials selected for inclusion in the Indian Trade Enquiry. The groundwork for the consideration of the various Committees has been supplied from the information as to the raw materials concerned, which has been systematic- ally collected at the Imperial Institute, chiefly in the Scientific and Technical Department and in the Technical Information Bureau. The Committees have also had at their disposal the numerous reports made by the Scientific and Technical Department of the Institute during recent years on the composition and commercial uses and value of Indian raw materials, and have also utilised the collections of raw materials of India derived partly from Technical Depart- ments in India and partly from commercial sources which are included in the Indian Section of the Public Galleries and in the Reference Sample Rooms of the Institute. It has now been decided by the Secretary of State that, subject to certain reservations, the reports of these various Committees which have been forwarded by the India Office to the Government of India shall be published. The reservations referred to are that, at the request of the Government of India, paragraphs in certain of the vii viii PREFATORY NOTE reports as presented should be omitted, such paragraphs being indicated by asterisks, and that it should be stated that the reports represent the personal opinions of the members of the Committees, and that the Secretary of State is in no way committed to accept these opinions. C. C. McLeod, Chairman , Committee for India. November 191 9. PAGB CONTENTS REPORT ON JUTE REPORT ON JUTE (wiTH THREE APPENDICES) . I REPORTS ON SILK I. REPORT ON INDIAN SILK (wiTH APPENDIX) . . 33 II. THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD ! SUMMARY OF GENERAL INFORMATION PREPARED AT THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE . . . . 6q IX > « 1 REPORTS ON JUTE AND SILK REPORT ON JUTE The Special Committee on Jute and other Fibres was appointed by the Committee for India of the Imperial Institute to investigate, in connection with the Indian Trade Enquiry, the possibiUty of an increased usage of Indian jute in this country after the war ; and to consider what steps should be taken to secure in fullest measure to the British Empire the advantages accruing from the monopoly in the production of raw jute. The Committee has held several meetings. At a conference held at Dundee, at which J. E, Cox, Esq. (Messrs. Cox Bros., Ltd.), L. C. Macintyre, Esq. (Messrs. J. & A. D. Grimond, Ltd.), and F. D. S. Sandeman, Esq. (Messrs. F. S. Sandeman & Sons, Ltd.) were present, opinions were taken in regard to special matters upon which information was desired by the Committee. A summary of the evidence is appended. The Committee desire to express their best thanks to these gentleman for the valuable assistance they have rendered to the Committee in their enquiry. Indian Jute : General Statement The Committee are of opinion that the facts in regard to the monopoly enjoyed by the Empire through the production of jute in India ; the apparent impossibihty of the extensive production of the fibre at competitive prices in other countries ; and the failure hitherto to dis- cover suitable artificial substitutes at satisfactory prices, are so well known that it is unnecessary for them to traverse this ground in detail. They recognise, however, that the perfection of a simple chemical and mechanical method of 2 REPORT ON JUTE removing the fibre from the stem might eHminate much of ' the difficult}^ hitherto experienced in establishing jute cultivation as a commercial undertaking in countries other than India, and note with interest that the possibility of improvements in the extraction of the fibre is to be kept in view in India. The commercial production of jute is confined to India, the areas concerned being Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, Assam, Cooch-Bihar and Nepal. The fibre is obtained from the inner bark of the stems of Corchorus capsularis and C. olitorius, annual plants belonging to the natural order Tiliacece. The former is the more important species, and in the northern and eastern districts of Bengal is almost exclusively grown ; while the latter, which is grown on land not subject to inundation, is extensively cultivated in the Hooghli and twenty-four Parganas districts and in Western Bengal. The crop is raised on small holdings by the Indian ryot, ' from whom it is purchased by the marwari dealers and large European firms, the latter being the more important. Attempts made by Europeans to cultivate jute on a large scale have not so far proved successful. Over 60 per cent, of the total crop is consumed in the Indian jute mills, the remainder being exported chiefly to the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, France, Austria, Italy and Spain. Other con- tinental countries take less important quantities. The fibre is used chiefly in the manufacture of coarse textiles (gunny bags, hessians, scrims, etc.) ; as backing for linoleum ; for carpets, rugs and matting ; thread, twine and cordage ; and in admixture with other fibre for a large variety of fabrics. Jute " butts " and waste jute are employed to a small extent in the manufacture of certain classes of paper. In general, the cheaper classes of goods are manufactured in India ; while Dundee, in virtue of the skilled labour available, has specialised in the finer quahties of fabrics, in addition to producing some lower grades. Acreage and Production. — The area under the- crop and the production of fibre for the years 191 1 to 191 7 are officially returned as follows : REPORT ON JUTE Year. 1911 I912 I913 1914 1915 1916 1917 Area. Production Acres. Tons. 3,106,400 1,470,500 2,970.500 1.757.500 2,911,000 1,588,000 3.358,700 1,865,000 2,375,900 1,312,000 2,702,700 1.483,000 2.729,700 1.579.000 Details of area and production by provinces for 1911-17 are given in Appendix A, Tables I and II. The relative importance of jute as compared with the three chief crops of India will be seen from the following figures. The position of jute in regard to the market value of produce per acre is of special interest, even when allowance is made for intermediate charges and middle- men's profits, which are probably higher for jute than for the other crops in question. Table showing Market Value of Produce per Acre for Rice, Wheat. Cotton and Jute in India (Average figures for ten years, 1904-13 inclusive) Yield Wholesale Market value Crop. Area. Yield. per price per of produce acre. luuuud. per acre. Acres. Maxinds. Rice • 569.895,465 24,025,303 tons "•5 Rs. 4-75 Rs. 54-62 = ;^3 I2S. loi. Wheat . 28,145,474 8,752,354 tons 8-4 Rs. 3-73 Rs. 31-33 = iz IS. gd. Cotton . 20,979,500 3.836,966 bales (685,173 tons) 0-88 Rs. 28-3 Rs. 25-04 = £1 13s. 4d. Jute 3,114,420 8,298,590 bales (1,481,891 tons) 12-9 Rs. 9-68 Rs. 128-79 = £S IIS. 8d. Export from India. — The distribution of the export of jute from India from 1911-12 to 19 16-17 is shown ia Table III. It will be observed that in recent years India has exported more jute to Germany than to any other country except the United Kingdom. To the amount quoted in this table must be added the quantity imported into Germany from other countries receiving jute from India, 4 REPORT ON JUTE the principal re-exporting country being the United Kingdom. Previous to the war about one-third of the total import into the United Kingdom was re-exported, chiefly to continental countries, and of this amount between 23,000 and 30,000 tons per annum were sent to Germany. According to German returns, the average total import of raw jute into Germany, including the amount received from the United Kingdom, for the three years previous to the war, amounted to 146,746 metric tons per annum (deducting re-exports), as against 218,962 tons retained in the United Kingdom for manufacturing purposes. Including the corresponding amount consumed by Austria-Hungary the average annual quantity of raw jute retained b}'' the principal enemy countries during the period in question was 203,937 metric tons per annum. The official German returns (so far as available) for the imports of jute into that country for 19 10-13 ^re shown in Table V, and the corresponding figures for Austria- Hungary in Table VI. Details of the British re-exports are given in Table VH. Imports of raw jute into the United Kingdom are given in Table IV. Consi|||ption oi Jute in different Countries. — India is by far the most important jute-consuming country. In the three years 1914-15 to 1916-17 the average proportion of jute retained in India was 64-6 per cent., as compared with 50-9 per cent, for the three years 1904-5 to 1906-7. Comparison over a period of years of the exports of jute from India to the principal consuming countries shows that the important advance made by several foreign countries has not been paralleled by the United Kingdom, where much smaller progress has been made. The figures for the periods 190 1-2 to 1903-4, as compared with 1911-12 to 191 3-14, are as follows: Exports of Raw Jute FROM India 1901-2 to 1903-4. 1911-12 to 1913-14. Percentage To Tons. Tons. + or - United Kingdom . 295,093 325,601 + IO-3 France . 81,176 75,775 - 6-7 Italy . 26,306 37,352 + 42-0 Spain 9,130 23,364 + 155-7 United States 103.558 113.987 -|- lO-I Germany • 130,515 169,739 + 30-0 Austria-Hungary 35.622 49,208 + 38-1 REPORT ON JUTE On account of re-exports, and imports from other countries, the percentage variations shown above do not indicate the position in regard to amounts of jute actually retained for manufacturing purposes in the countries mentioned. The following table compares the position in this respect for the periods 190 1-3 and 1911-13. Consumption of Raw Jute, 1901-3 and 1911-13 Country. United Kingdom France . Italy Spain United States Germany Austria-Hungary 1 Long ions. Period. 1901-3 1911-13 1901-3 1911-13 1901-3 1911-13 1901-3 igil-13 1901-3 1911-13 1901-3 1911-13 1901-3 1911-13 Average consumption. Metric tons. 216,9081 218,962 1 90,799 99,897 24,428 37.864 16,021 * 27.903 103,935^ 96,9771 116,483 s 146,746 44.551 57.191 Percentage, -for - + 0-9 -f lO-O + 55-0 + 74-1 — 6-6 + 25-9 + 28-3 1901 and 1902 only. 1 90 1 only. Jute Manufactures. — The distribution of the jute manu- factures of the principal countries has been estimated approximately as follows : Distribution of Jute Manufactures {Averages for 191 1, 1912, 1913) Country. Retained. Exported. Per cent. Per cent. India ..... 40 60 United Kingdom 52 48 France 83 17 Italy . 77 23 Russia 100 Belgium — — United States 100 Germany • 95-5 4-5 Austria-Hungary . 82-5 17-5 I . Export Duty. — The Committee, always assuming the adoption of a general policy of preference, regard as of primary importance the imposition of an Export r3uty. They desire to incorporate here the considered and unanimous opinion of the Jute Importers, Distributors, 6 REPORT ON JUTE Spinners and Manufacturers of the United Kingdom as embodied in the following document submitted jointly by the Dundee Chamber of Commerce and the London Jute Association to the Bengal Chamber of Commerce in October 1916. " Memorial Addressed to the Bengal Chamber of Commerce by the Dundee Chamber of Commerce AND THE London Jute Association " Jute Trade after the War " A strong feeling has existed in many quarters for years, that such an Empire monopoly as jute should be used for the better furtherance of the interests of the Empire. The war has sharpened opinion on this as on many other matters. The jute interests of the United Kingdom are unanimously of opinion that the time has come when full advantage should be taken of this unique situation, and they feel persuaded that opinion in India cannot be very different. " The fact that raw jute could be obtained by any country on equal terms with those on which the Indian and United Kingdom mills could purchase their supplies has induced the building of mills in foreign countries, and the putting on of import tariffs to keep out Indian and United Kingdom Jute manufactures. The true remedy for such a situation would seem, at first sight, to be the imposition of a tax on the raw material of an extent equal to that imposed by each foreign country on manufactured jute goods. But in practice that does not seem possible, nor does it now seem desirable. At this time of day to attempt to stamp out the manufacture of jute goods in these foreign countries, and to divert the trade to India and the United Kingdom, seems out of the question, nor could India ever be asked to have its free market for raw material interfered with in such a drastic way. But what can be done is not only to make these foreign countries who own jute mills contribute handsomely to the Empire's exchequer, but to ensure that while they will be enabled to carry on the industry so far as manufacturing for their own bona fide home trade requirements is concerned, they REPORT ON JUTE 7 will be confined to that, and be unable to export to neutral markets. The same process would remove the inducement which exists in free raw material to the building of mills in countries which have not yet begun jute manufacturing, and the expansion of the trade all are looking for in the future would thus directly benefit the Empire and the Empire's workers. The extent to which continental countries now manufacture jute goods for export does not seem to be fully appreciated. In this growing trade, largely bounty fed, lies a serious menace to the Empire's jute workers. Figures lately submitted by Dundee at the request of the Advisory Committee of the Board of Trade on the Textile Industries of the country prove the extent to which neutral markets are one by one being taken from us, and the Empire's jute being worked up by foreign labour, while the Empire's workers stand idly looking on. "A tax on raw jute would remove these anomalies, and the suggestion of the jute interests of the United Kingdom is that a tax of not less than ;^5 per ton be put on all raw jute leaving India, with a surtax of 25 per cent, in the event of shipments taking place in other than British bottoms, a rebate of the full amount of the tax to be made to consumers within the Empire, and no excise or counter- vailing duty to be paid by the Indian mills. ;^5 per ton is not a sum that would interfere in any way with the carrying on of the jute trade. No country is so situated in regard to soil, climate, water and labour, as to be ever able to compete with India in the raising of jute. The c.i.f. price of jute has fluctuated between £\2 and £^6 per ton in recent 3^ears in ordinary trade conditions, and during the period covered by these fluctuations in price, consumption has rapidly increased, and no successfully competing fibre has been found. " A duty of £i) per ton is in almost every case less than the minimum duty imposed on ordinary standard jute cloths entering foreign countries. The surtax is necessary because Austria and Italy granted preferential railway rates on jute passing into the interior, provided such jute was brought from India in Austrian or Italian vessels. German buyers generally stipulated that the raw material should be shipped in German vessels, and up 2 8 REPORT ON JUTE to the outbreak of war the Hansa Line held a monopoly in the direct shipments to Hamburg and Bremen, jute shipped to Germany via London being penalised by extra port dues on arrival at destination. " It is impossible to recognise in the proposed legisla- tion any possibiUty of the interests of India or the United Kingdom being harmed in any direction. On the contrary, the benefits would be sure and immediate, and would consist of a large and continuous contribution to the Empire's exchequer by foreign nations, and the extension of jute manufacturing both in India and the United Kingdom. " In regard to the collection of the tax, it is recognised that the simplest form of procedure is necessary, and the simplest plan would appear to be to tax all jute exported from India, and to grant certificates proving payment. These certificates would form an essential part of the shipping documents. On arrival of the jute in the United Kingdom, the certificates would be endorsed or exchanged by the Customs Authorities here for others certifying that the jute had been landed. These " Landed Warrants " would be equivalent to Demand Drafts on the Indian Treasury, payable in London, and would be cashed by any bank. Re-shipments of jute from the United Kingdom could be made as before, except that the tax would require to be paid to the Custom House previous to shipment. " The question as to whether a rebate should be granted to our present Allies may safely be left until the situation develops, and until the Government give some lead in that direction. " On behalf of the Dundee Chamber of Commerce, {Signed) " William Low, President. " Thos. H. H. Walker, Vice-President. " Geo. C. Keiller, Secretary. " On behalf of the London Jute Association, " C. C. McLeod, Chairman. " C. J. Ritchie, Vice-Chairman. " E. Henry, Secretary. "October nth, 1916." REPORT ON JUTE g India's Views. — The above Memorial was considered by the Indian Jute Mills Association, and their reply is annexed hereto as an appendix. It is a carefully con- sidered outline of the position and has the support of the Calcutta Baled Jute Association, the Baled Jute Shippers Association, the Jute Fabrics Shippers Association, the European Jute Dealers Association and the Jute Fabrics Brokers Association. The Committee of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce have also stated their agreement with the views therein expressed, and recommend their adoption by the Government of India. As the proposals contained in the Indian Jute Mills Association's report do not appear to have in view the question of an increased usage of jute in this country after the war, and the measures which should be taken to secure to the British Empire the advantages accruing from the Indian monopoly in the production of raw jute, it is unnecessary to deal specific- ally with their recommendations in this Report. We desire, however, to direct attention to the remark in the report by the Indian Jute Mills Association that " it has, HOWEVER, TO BE REMEMBERED IN THIS CONNECTION THAT OBSTACLES WHICH APPEAR FORMIDABLE WHEN VIEWED ONLY IN THE LIGHT OF PRE-WAR KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERI- ENCE, ARE SEEN NOW TO BE NO LONGER INSURMOUNTABLE." The Committee, in the course of their enquiries, have been able to verify the statements and figures referred to in the Memorial quoted, and recommend the imposition of an export duty on all raw jute leaving India, with a rebate of lOO per cent, to consumers within the Empire. Apart from the stimulus afforded to the jute manufacturing industry of the Empire, the Committee contemplate a substantial annual revenue. They have laid stress on the importance of an export duty in the interests of the manufacturers and consumers in the Empire, but they do not overlook the fact that it is necessary to pay due regard to the interests of the cultivator also. They believe that these interests could be secured by ear-marking the products of the export duty for expenditure in ways directly advantageous to the jute cultivator, and by liberal expenditure on research into all agricultural questions connected with the cultivation of jute and the production 10 REPORT ON JUTE of pure seed of the species found to be most suitable for any given area. Grants might also be given to suitable areas to encourage the production of allied fibres such as Bimlipatam jute {Hibiscus cannabinus). India is capable of enormous extension in manufactur- ing, and in considering the question as to whether Britain would be able to cope with its probable share of the addi- tional business available, the Committee are satisfied that the jute manufacturing industry of Dundee is capable of, and prepared to provide, any extension which may be called for as a result of the proposed new arrangements. In this connection it is interesting to quote the following estimate, prepared in 19 13, of the annual quantities of raw jute required to maintain the world's jute mills running at the full capacity of their machinery and labour in the year in question. (Fuller details for individual countries are given in Table VIII.) British Empire : Bales. India .......... 5,000,000 United Kingdom ........ 1,470,000 Other Allied countries (including the United States) . . . 1,924,000 Neutral countries ........ 391,000 Enemy countries . . . . . . . . 1,252,000 10,037,000 2. Production of Jute. — An abundant supply of jute, at a steady and moderate price, is a most important desideratum for this country and the Empire generally. So far as prices are concerned, the Committee believe this to be in the long run in the interests of the cultivator. Violent fluctuations in price bring a gambling element into the business, which affects injuriously everyone interested in the production and consumption of jute, while it enables some successful speculators to make large fortunes at the expense of all other classes. Moderate but steady prices will pay the cultivator and will be a safe- guard against the production of a successful substitute, which, if obtained, would seriously affect large classes in Bengal, and especially in Eastern Bengal, which is so largely dependent for its prosperity on the jute industry. This Committee would accordingly suggest for the con- sideration of the Government of India measures which REPORT ON JUTE ii they believe would lead to increased production, improved quality, and moderate prices. Increased production may be obtained by extending the area under cultivation. This could be done on a large scale in Assam if the labour difficulty could be over- come. Possibly parts of Champaran, Muzaffaporc and Bhagalpore might grow jute, and it is not certain that the cultivation of jute has reached its natural limits in Bengal. The wider the area over which the cultivation of jute is spread, the less the chance of the whole being seriously affected by unfavourable weather conditions. There is, however, probably scope for a much larger increase in the quantity produced by increasing the outturn on the area under cultivation. The Committee are aware of the valuable work done by the Agricultural Department and believe that the time is now ripe for applying on the largest possible scale what has already been discovered regarding seed selection, manuring and the best methods of cultiva- tion. The Committee would recommend that jute farms be opened wherever proper supervision can be secured to enable as many cultivators as possible to see with their own eyes what can be done by the best methods to produce large crops of good quality. There should also be as many seed farms as can be properly staffed to propagate pure strains of the best varieties. These should be extended as time goes on till the whole seed supply is under proper supervision. In dealing with this matter it is essential that control should be so strict as to ensure the quality of the seed produced on seed farms either directly con- trolled by Government or supervised rby it. One of the possible measures of assisting cultivators would be to defray the cost of the seed supplied to them either in whole or in part from the proceeds of the export duty on jute. The area required for seed is estimated at about 3 per cent, of the area under cultivation, and the cost of seed for the whole area would be about ;{i30o,ooo. 3. Distribution of a Short Crop. — The consumption of jute is so large, and increasing so rapidly, that a short crop would nowadays be a calamity. In such a case it appears necessary to secure to the mills of the Empire, and of our Alhes, a prior claim on the supplies available. The 12 REPORT ON JUTE Committee therefore urge that machinery should be set up to deal with such a situation. They suggest as a possible procedure in the circumstances contemplated, theallocation, or proportional allocation, to British Empire and Allied mills of their season's requirements, plus their normal pre-war base stocks ; and the rationing of all other con- sumers with the surplus jute, if any. 4. Quality of Jute. — It would appear to be estabhshed that the falling off in the quality of the fibre reaching this country in recent years is not to be attributed to deterioration of the plant or fibre, but in part to inferior methods of cultivation and preparation. The trade, however, is painfully aware of the defects resulting from fraudulent watering of the fibre, heart-damage and dis- honest grading ; and the Committee desire to represent these matters as strongly as possible. They consider that steps should be taken to regulate the amount of moisture added to the jute, thus also reducing the risk of heart- damage. As regards grading they are of opinion that great improvement is possible if effective control be established. They therefore suggest that Press Houses should be licensed by the Government, the fear of loss of licence furnishing an incentive to the native baler to bale honestly. The Committee believe that such Government control would result in a considerable reduction in the percentage of moisture at present found in jute. 5. Bhita Bazaar. — ^The Committee are agreed as to the prejudicial effect of the operations of the Bhita Bazaar in Calcutta upon the jute industry. While recognising the difficulty of regulating the activities of the Bazaar, the Committee consider that improvement would result if steps in this direction were taken by the Government of India. At the same time it is not improbable that in- creased production would tend to prevent violent fluctua- tions and excessive speculation. Allied Fibres and Jute Substitutes In the past, threatened scarcity of jute and consequent high prices have resulted in considerable attention being given to certain other bast fibres which sufficiently resemble true jute in their physical qualities as to be used REPORT ON JUTE 13 successfully in place of that fibre. A considerable number of such fibres from different parts of the world have been investigated and shown to be of satisfactory character ; but in the majority of instances questions of cost, scarcity of labour in the country of production, or imperfect pre- paration, have prevented a recognised position in the market being secured. Jute substitutes manufactured from paper yarns have also received much attention, especially on the Continent, but previous to the outbreak of war these materials had proved a commercial failure. Bimlipatam Jute. — Fibre plants occurring in India which have been investigated in this connection include Hibiscus cannabiniis (Bimlipatam jute), Sida rhombifolia, Urena lobata and Malachra capitata. Of these the most promising is Bimlipatam (Bimli) jute {Hibiscus cannabinus), also known as Ambari hemp, Deccan hemp, etc. This fibre is well known to the trade. The plant is cultivated (usually as a mixed crop) in most parts of India, notably in Madras, Bomba^^, Bihar, Bengal and United Provinces, the fibre being produced on a considerable scale in Madras, where the area under the plant (grown as a pure crop on the East Coast) is stated to vary between 70,000 and 80,000 acres. Over such a wide area the crop could be easily increased, and it is noteworthy that in Madras the difficulties of labour encountered in the jute districts do not occur. The following table gives the official returns of exports of Bimlipatam jute from Madras since 190 1-2 ; the chief ports of shipment are Bimlipatam and Vizagapatam. Year. Quantity. Year. Quantity. Cwls. Cwts. 1901-2 36,416 1909-10 . . . 73.375 1902-3 64.787 1910-11 61,205 1903-4 81.279 1911-12 60,193 1904-5 177.796 1912-13 69,700 1905-6 244.390 1913-14 440,060 1906-7 298,411 1914-15 . 136,440 1907-8 98,762 1915-16 "7.340 1908-9 96,260 By far the larger part of the export is to tlie United Kingdom, with important quantities to Germany. The 14 REPORT ON JUTE sudden rise in the exports for 1904-5 to 1906-7 is attributed to the failure of the Russian flax-crop ; and the striking increase for 191 3-14 to the shipment of all available supplies in consequence of the closing of local mills. Their re-opening in the following year, combined with a fall in demand, and low values on the Continent, resulted in a large reduction in the export. The Committee are of opinion that Bimli jute {Hibiscus cannabinus fibre) could be used for mixing purposes to a much greater extent than at present, both in Dundee and on the Continent ; and consider that benefit to the trade would result from the extended production of this fibre in India for export. There would be no object in encouraging its production in the great jute-producing areas, but Hibiscus cannabinus has the special merit of flourishing under conditions which are not suited to jute, and occurs over wider areas than the jute districts themselves. In order to trace the progress of the fibre the Com- mitted recommend that separate returns of production and export of Hibiscus cannabinus fibre (" Bimli jute," etc.) should be made in future. Exports of Bimli jute as such are not separately recorded in the Annual Statement of the Sea-borne Trade of British India, but are included with ordinary jute. An investigation of the races of Hibiscus cannabinus has been carried out by Messrs. Barber & Finlow, and A. and G. L. C. Howard, and it is stated that efforts are being made at Pusa to cope with the demands for seed of the improved " Type 3 " which has been favourably reported on. The Committee, however, point out that in the past serious complaint has been made by the trade of the amount of sand and mud shipped in Bimli jute as a result of imperfect preparation. They urge that steps be taken to effect an improvement in this respect, and are of opinion that the brittleness which sometimes characterises this fibre could be avoided by more careful retting. Summary of Recommendations In making their recommendations the Committee have kept in view the importance of securing two main objects. REPORT ON JUTE 15 I The first is to make use of our practical monopoly of jute to further the interests of the Empire. The second main object is to increase the outturn, and thereby steady and keep at a moderate level the price of the raw product. The attainment of the first object must depend on the extent to which the general preferential treatment of the various parts of the Empire and of other countries becomes part of our general policy. If the policy is adopted there is no raw product to which it could more easily and advantageously be applied than jute. These recommendations of the Special Committee may be summarised as follows : 1. An export duty on all raw jute leaving India, with a rebate of 100 per cent, to consumers within the Empire. The annual revenue derived from the duty to be collected by the Government of India, and devoted to the investiga- tion of problems affecting the production in India of jute and allied fibres. 2. The early establishment of a comprehensive scheme for the investigation of the problems affecting the pro- duction of jute and allied fibres. The provision of an adequate staff, and the establishment and maintenance of numerous experimental areas among the village communi- ties engaged in jute cultivation are regarded as essential to the success of the scheme. 3. As soon as seed-selection experiments are sufficiently advanced, the Government of India should provide to each grower (and if necessary free of cost) seed sufficient for his season's crop ; and adopt means to ensure as far as possible that none but the approved seed is sown. 4. Machinery should be set up by the Government to deal with the situation arising from a short crop. In that eventuality the supplies available should be allocated, proportionately, to the mills of the British Empire and of the Allies, and other countries rationed with the surplus, if any. 5. Further enquiry is desirable into the question as to whether it is possible to diminish the excessive watering of jute. 6. The establishment of a system of licensing of Press i6 REPORT ON JUTE Houses by Government is recommended ; and withdrawal of licence is suggested as a penalty for dishonest baling. 7. Steps should be taken by the Government to regulate the operations of the Bhita Bazaar. 8. Measures should be adopted to secure an improve- ment in the condition in which Bimli jute {Hibiscus canna- binus) reaches the market. The production of Hibiscus cannabinus fibre (" Bimli jute," etc.) should be encour- aged ; and statistics of production and export of this fibre recorded separately. (Signed) C. C. McLeod, Chairman. Geo. Bonar. R. W. Carlyle. George Malcolm. S. E. Chandler, Acting Secretary. May iSih, 191 8. APPENDICES A.— STATISTICAL TABLES : Table I. Area under Jute in India, igii-17. II. Production of Raw Jute in India, 1911-17. III. Exports of Raw Jute from India, 1911-12 to 1916-17. IV. Imports of Raw Jute into the United Kingdom, 1911-17. V. Imports of Jute and Jute Tow into Germany, igio-13. VI. Imports of Raw Jute into Austria-Hungary, 1910-13. VII. Re-exports of Raw Jute from the United Kingdom, 1911-17. VIII. Maximum possible Consumption of Jute in the World's Jute Mills (Estimated 191 3). B.— SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE OF WITNESSES. C— COPY OF THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE INDIAN JUTE MILLS ASSOCIATION ON THE SUBJECT OF TRADE AFTER THE WAR: TRANSMITTED TO THE SECRETARY OF THE DUNDEE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ON SEPTEMBER 29TH, 191 7. 17 o p < M I 0^ Q H O o "J to 1-1 ■w* *^ o o • •A *^ O O « M o Q o ^ ri tA lO !3 M n o" ON ^ t^ < •^ X O; W ei" M t^N o\ en ro M O o o o o O o o o o t^ 00 O w 00 '^ ^ m" M rf lO m" ^X o >0 M On ro t--. 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HI r>. in T}- ov CO in o vo HI HI 00 -"i- CI c^ c^ CO •*'00" ■+ hi" CO HI ■<*• CO IH d vo vO M vo" CO d vO N HI VO vO O vO IH oo" cT CO CO >n o_ in o vO o" I*- fO M Gv O in in CO 0^ CO Tf rooo CO o\o r^o d vo 00 Ov O d vO ■ fOvO o CO CI qv CO O M HI O o invo 00 r^ in 00 CO HI o in Qv o M in M >n t>. CO 00 CO HI in CI CO HI >n VO M -^r HI CO Tj- M vo vO CO ■^^ 00 W d in vo" VO HI VO CO 00 o in O" hi" CO HI HI O • >n 2 t K 00 VO ' CO o" vO vO 00 o" r^ ■<^oo o covo -"i- M as o t^ o 00 'i- vo in t^ t^ t^ o f^ •»f CO ci" rC CO cv t-^ r^ CO HI N N d O (^ 00 c» CO r-- oo" in in 11- o 1? vo 00 CO HI VO vO CO If CO CO If HI rf Tt- N ^o in r^ t^ O in in t^ d t^vO CI CI O t^ CO Tf "f vo" cT if oo" "tf 00 il- c« vO in vO_ in u o X W O H n X to c H S 1) fe •A «! .t: ^ ti ^^ c *-• H VO CO vo" Tf CO 00 00 CO C>» Ov HI N o\ HI HI CO in r^ o^ CI CO If O Ov OvOO in hT oo" m" CO vo" d^ vO CO (J, m 00 00 c» f 00 « o_ o" cT CO U-) 00 CO N CO 00 Cv 00 O vO 00 o" d ■<*■ o" N o H u a H o o Q U n o H t/) C/3 cqfqu,^H-,«p 19 in o H H ?: o >,K P. ° ^ S ^ '" W o 3 o H . o H CO CO' O vo O CO T ° tCo" 00 CT> vO in o HI t^ r^ ro 00 o CO HI HI CO vO 00 ■^cT 00 00 in in t^ CO CO vo" r^ vo d U") M d in d r^ d" d Tj- CO vO_ CO CO o CO <7i in 00 cri in CO CO CO CO 0^ in in d HI in 00 t^ «_ o_ hi" ro d vo CO co CO >n CO o" 11- 11- vO o" vO VO N O if- in CO vO 00 Cfv VO CO d If vO d vO o" CO vO O O m t--~ CO in HI d O CO O Ov d Hl_ CO d" O in d ^1 ■i: U4 ? <= « vO ^ "^ ^ Co" « « . hi^ a I O Ti I ^^ '-n t^ o'«i ■Ji vj 3J « K C V n O ^ •? s? ci ^ "S J? 5 =".« r^ S ■*-' V -^ s vO ^ ui HI ^ h 2» ID ^■"-^ o'« Cj >*~, 2 ■*-• ./< "vS I" S« vD ■** — . vO in o^ d Ov o\ CO •n h) (ft < w ?^ 5 d *-■ U 5 rt J3 .^, gu,0 H o H u ^ I in HI Ov d a ^"^■_ tS w to § O ? V m s "« •• li J. -*= kZ ^ h.^ o CQ 20 REPORT ON JUTE w >-l < H I M s o o o l-t Q M H »-« z ;3 w H O H 2; w H h O H « O Pi S I i r^ ON ON ON 1 lO O ro O O "? ■^ On M__ M ON V3 0^ CO r^oo" ul u~l u-> tT in ■^ r-^ r^ t-t fO t^ M i o O rOO iTl N lO ON t^ V! ro 00 mco 00 en i-i <^ O ^ oo" oo" o N fO U-) N o c- -^ ■»*■ "? o >o ro ON ^ f< vo" w" -^ l-l '*- M lO Tj- ro tfi w vo' o" p > 00 o fo Ol CTv fj 'i- M (A >o M ir-,00 M <-^ o fi ON -^ 0^ M Tf 00 M ro cs M d d H ro On ON t^ O O ON . M M U-) M- PI Ht --p m" to M u-> C^ •*■ 00 m fO N 00* oo" tH N IT; -^ o 00 00 Ol . M 00 vO >n '-' >-a o" fO lO^O CTi a> n- ^ O; ON lO >o M O 00 t^ , ,• N O (M 00 \o S CT> 0_ Tj- T)- C7» ^f;^ -^ w' m" M ro (S 0< ON O O On • fO "-1 t^ in in e O^ O_00 o M On .° ^O in t-T M ^ O ON ro CO M ■^ On 00 , • 00 'O OO M ■^ •c o f-- 'i- TT M ai ON (2 ^ ■5^ c< e M to H N M M H P vO 00 ro in ,• P» ■^ -^ ro S CO in fo Ol M ^?, r^ t-i t-i fO CO M- fi in t^ , ■ • 00 o t^ o g ON CO M On M ^oT M CO 00 ro ro ON r^ M M . ,• in •«1- -^ r^ S o. oo_ CO r^ On H ^8 t^ oT On ro N • idia hina ^ . ther countries "rt g h^^oO -i-> o O ii H tn o o to o" oo CO S ^ O ■*-> ■>"* <*- s lO Ii S § ■=■ c s ^ 6/3 ^ !a o bo to ^ - 2 •I g-S 13 o O So o S o 'XS bjO •13 a o V-i SH a ■4-> (U U a S* I hH ON 05 <0 Jh 60 vi H) > Ml H ; o 1^1 to fq APPENDIX A 21 ON z ■< s w O o H o H M H 13 ■< H W .J « <; H 4) o 2 ro o t! ^ M 00 o -:- O >^ (xT o 1 > CO d CO O o o o o O U-) O lO lO (4 •>r IT) lOOO N w •^ o" o" o" lo fo o> ro »-< »-< C^ t^ cn fO fO § < > o o o o o o O O "O o • ro M N (N O •-• vj ^o IS ao O rA M O M o CO to O GOOD lO lO »o O >o d lO >-i tT lO O ~j in o tw n m' N 00 O 00 o ■H . t^ ir-.vO M ro ^ t^ o t "I? " 1 TS = - 0^ oo" i-"" hT 1 in >-^ »-t oo 00 r-^ . •2 . O Ov ■o ir> 1^ ri i-i U-) fO ■^ >-< o" M M vO 'J-O ■«*• fO .a . '-' -^ M w o c J; "^ M vO N 2| oo" rC 11 t-t • • • • • 1 • Indi n . gary • sh Indi; erlands t Britai ria-Hun :5i 2t^ .. C « £. p o O 1 Wh H 1 P4 O U 4) d e int Tabl Th ons i ^ c .^ - .-,— „ ►-< <« ^ o\ " O d M 00 4; tn 1-, o f^ O k "^ e != d, ? w E ri :: " ^ t^ e aserved tha ears 191 1 t per annum the United 7,899 tons >N^ g „- 4) « t-! w XI ^ i^ ON -t-> U ^^ M -i-i---^ cn -^^^"^5^ •^ 1^2 'K - ariiger pprox. avera ts into in 191 a cs ^^ w cn 2 c/j d d ^ S d -^ "^ _ M-'-' C J- "" ■ S ^ S B ^>«>,t:o a c d C "» c3 "r, °o 6jD B 1-1 "O Igin Ger rns ere 1/2 5; -t-- 4> S i - 1- >. -« '^ S d c istik ed as ngdo erma erma « t; i? ^ B 1; *- .t: +. ^ 1- 4J d c3 dl3P5^ •ii-S-^: rt -M T^ 4) -^ T3 - >N-^^ 4J he S "J 3 ures ar ed Kin lite fro ence m and j u- .-I 4) -M ■ 7^ d '< tn 3 rt x; d . Hog o =■ tn« ■<-> O a • ^ X o 4J a1 d «J rJ rt ^ C 4) (-4 rr H fO »-« ON ot>S ^ NO c< t^ r^ r^ N « fO m w inoo c^ o> %J kO" 00" NO •«)- 10 ■<1- (O (JN M < 00 r< N 'I- PS M OnnO -^ 5 M V,. -^ 10 >0 M C\ 00" m" z '^ PJ M u> 00 00 ffi < H M 00 N t- Tf •a . 00 fO M r< cn i 5 00 ^1 "«; \0 M fO -^ On ►-» H z H-4 CO M r~ M • •S . t^ 00 t-. o< H iS N t^ 1 — 1 a\ >o > H r* < Of o a M- CO M ►H •a . 00 10 M t-l HH M <3N ?> TJ- w >-) n , • • • • < H 1 • itish India rmany .... eat Britain . her countries . . u 4) I- -w -t-> gPQOOO ^ ii H IM ■r-. ri -< u M ». a M s M ;^ rt fe • rl « (/} tMj ri s b 4) B CO -s 10 S >j .0 -M CO 4) CO :^ 4) •-J IH CO 4) bo ^ « )^ -)-» <^ tU t^ ^ <^ ■n >.'« c U u, ci 2-s ^ Bts \-t X CU t^ -M t^a: 4) « • »— » >,.^o ^% cn d 4) -2 +-' ■s-^ ,0 c4 .^-^ 41 03 ^ ro CO cn o< ^ C M >-« •" S •^ MH d ■^ d ctJ 4) cn ^J tn 4) BS2 ^^ « CTj 4> tn tlf w cl - u kH f< p U -2^ > ca ^ « > ' m ••H 4) c ja CO ■-H ■*^ V d •• ■ a 22 REPORT ON JUTE I M M o Q O ^: Q H H O M H t3 In o I/) H U, O fk W s n < o CO CO en 00 N CO 00 ON o 00 00_ vhj vd" in M H H H Z < O! . 00 (o On S w S. 00 to ■^ o H 1-1 o 00 o l-t 00 o CO M vO lO CO On O t^OO On t^oo OO On On ■>^Oo" 0~ i-T rT c< M r^ 00 M ■0 TT OnOO no CO O" On u-JnO" •- c^ inoo NO NO o"" CO CO CO CO 00 00 oo" ON t^ r^ On r^ O CO CO ■^ in cooo c^ On in o in in t^ w t^oo r^ t-^ •o o ONOO On m 00 NO t^oo NO o Tj- in ■^ w" ■^oo" On -^oo" On CO M NO O O O JH ■^ 01 1-1 M 00 -^J- t^NO O CO N o coot^ioMint^ NO_^ 1-1 inoo t^ rl- o -^ no" cfN in o" in in oo" oo" O l-lCOi-icOCO(N04 t^ M CO W On wNOinON'>d-t^O 00 inMPn NO NO ■^ O On OnnO t^ r-^ in i-i NO M CO O NO C^ 00 P) CO M Th ' •«)- in CO o< 1-1 00 C< w in NO in 0*" NO ON o CO !>. 0^ in CO in -I- On M CO t-^OO OJ t^ t^ M NO N t^ND ON o inNO •«i- o< p* m" n" in Tf 1-1 CO On w -hI-nO OnOO M t^oo 00 1-1 00 t^ 00 CO -^-nO CO in m 1-1 no" CO M O O no" in ■'t CO o M o NO CO On CO On C< in N •- CO CO tj-no inNO t^oo o J>. inoo CO o On o in 1-1 HI in M in o o" 00 CO NO in f^ CO in r^ O N oo On O M -"i- r^ t-- 00 CO r^ r^ CO NO CO 0< in NO in O CO 00 CO t^NO Tt- C4 Tj- M CO M M On On inoo M in On O in CO w" r-^ M 00 CO CO CO o m 1-1 CO c) t^ 0> On N CO -"^ On in r^ CO 1-1 HI t> On in -^ hT in O HI w m W t/i in O to in (—1 « H ^; * P o fi 1) P "75 tJ Q 'So y c M r^ rt nl « ~ -^ "S O "tt 00 .-^i^ ^ S 53 * « R> M « g >^ < o ^'Q.t! S e O ^ lU 1^1 45 :<^-2i .^ ■*• "5Sfi to 1 e H u h" oo" oo lO o fO rO C> VD t-T IT) " O lOOO lo r^ • O O 00 I O "lO PI O "-I u-)00 00 M 11 O f^ ° CO ^>0 lO lO ^o N 73 •«MU TD o « 2 f COOO ^ t O" ro^- «n -f ro P" o ^ t Too rn fO p," "OP* ^ i-T CO ff • o •-< in eg i-OO „ I P> 'Too S fooo" o^ (O kO oo rf - IT) r^ a .^- ■(« c o rt O g IS ° >£) ON vO fO PO o 00 N P) 00 cS 00 o «n PO 00 PO PI PO fO p» O o »-< O o H Kou P< T»- N N O lO loo" ■*• w IT) fO o o N t^ fO P< N t~~ PO fO P< in 00 Tl- M O 00 PI >-i 0\ PI ►H On t^ o" invo' PO ■^ O P< On •-< Mt PI TfOO co" ^f ro O O CO 00 PO O mo o poo" pT 00 in PO On Tj- « * - O o in "^ o PO - in . o o r^ NO o PI 1-1 •j- I-I i-i_ in ■^ in PO ^f 5, PI ON ■«■ PI •^o i iH in i-i t^ t^oo pT t-i in , 00 -^00 fO N t^ On ■<■ N t>. On ■j* M 0_ C^ f^ O" 0> PO 5, O O ro „ i-i On w . 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O 00 00 S' >o --r vO •-< t^ (4, NO ONCO Y" ino ro o t-T pi On a> 00 00 vO " in w ro ■»!- On POOO o r^ ro o O" ro On ro On M t^ O M •»^ ro w m On On o i-" in r-i in o" 5, r^ On t^ « t-.. o vL 44 (A e - a ro O in ro O OO pi" NO PI PI CO PI o" I-I in CO On o_ ro O PI 00 o NO On in in o" in 00 PI o_ in o o_ PO PO 00 NO PI IH PO On 00 ro PO On O H Kucj w ro PI o NO ON -^ ON PI in On 1-- On On On 00 On Tj- r^ N M ro PO w On PO in 1-1 ro o in •<»-oo CO 1-1 CC o o" 00 ro Tf o IH >-i PO PO r^ t^OO PO 00 PI ON I-I ro ro On O On in IH t^ PO N 00 ro o inoo Tf On r^ PI qi IH W M •^ o in w o 1^ IH OnO ro 00 t^O o •* ON t-> in PI - • - ino in oo" O -*• PI r^ p< PI •«^co r- On o o r- 00 O 1*- M in IH PO IH in PI VO PI o PI PO r^m r^ ON 00 PI o IH ino_oo o co" ri o" I-C vo »n >H ro M fO ro in in ro M in w 00 f O On ro * ^ - in r^ in 00 o o PO PI PO O ON On 00 ■^ -^ Ti- ro t^ IH .^ ro if w" •^ o" o in O ro PO M PI r>. O 00 t-oo •«*-o O PI • 1-1 m o in r^ -r rC On m in PO ^ ■''is «d6 a m •o a u H a> e o cn Xi 42 ,• « 5 a -M 1 J S 4) •-H ^ o H s o d ClJ a> d m IH 3 > 4) H 54 REPORT ON INDIAN SILK vO o fO ro t^OO >o "T M to ^■^. a\ o O . 00 vO u-i On U-) ■^ vo '^- t VO M t^r^. ■^ vO_ N ON S" -o >o ^ 1 ■ -^ 1 •<*• r^ r^ ■^ ro ro w vo o_ rf •f 0\ On o t^ r^ M M HI n" PJ ro to . o\ On 00 00 . r^ vo On ro ro vO m O O O O "2 ro N >o to CI r^ - *:: , t^ t 1 -<^ ^ o" ° o" On m" w" a 00 oo" cS d\ " ;3""^ t^ M N « to 1 "-) 00 00 C7> N c»_ r- t^ °° °°. -i- T^ " N fi" of HH M '3 M M N r-voo to C3 . ro ■0 to h-( . >^ to c^ r» >o ro C^ o vO_ 0_ r^ Tf l-l M O O 1 ro ■«^ oo" iri pT rC r^ L f^ CO CO 1 ro 2" O ro ro lO H vO •1-1 • »-l 1 en ^ 1 ■ "2 lO ON CO ON ro " o" ci cq Ci M w O (S N Ov ON 00 o M 2^ «-~o ON o o ro t--. HH o_ o 0^ On ro ro ^ S^"^ pT Ov t^ t^ m 00 00 •* ■^ M vO t^ rf ro ■^ O 00 1 M W - 1 M •^ I r^ ON lO M VO_^ 00 00 H 1 o On cS t^ 1 r^ c< C^" (U a u ro vo ro vo ro ^"^ IN •*oo M 00 t-t H^ rA ^f^ M "::" On o M M Woo r^ Ooo r^ Xt < i 00 'f ro •'"oo" M 1 OJ . f^ fO r^ tv. M I--0 00 t >o 0) in M 00 CO ■0 »o •<1- ■^ ON +^ »-( M T) . 00 2 "^ ? «>. , s -^ 00 00 0\ ON >o 00 ' ON >n O 00 ON C^ On . ON ri ON On 00 00 M vO vo ■. •-• 1 M M . 'Q C/5 ij w M ? ^"1 M 00 1 oo* '^ ^ IH PI vo vo -1 o 3 ^1 w Sn m M to to Q ,A 1:; 00 vo ON <^ O M N " ff N 2 o^ vO 00 Tt- •o i^ o < 4 ro "^ o" M lO -• 00 00 M N ^^ M M t ON ON ON 2 H ro , ro « «J •J ■<*• vo VO iN o 1 o" -"1 M 1- cJ5 M o ro 1 ro to to 1 s o\ ro ro vo vO VO VO VO N ,-2 P^ 0\ Tf T^ ""> 1 ro 00 00 VO vO _, s CO \0 1 o~ vo ro ;:1 W •o K) 00 to ■f oo" ON 1 N ON o3 w ef o vO vO t^ 1^ H-* H cT 0> M w vO vO . t^ "^ 1 ro ro ro ■ 1 00 '^l ro P 60 s ^ ' ro On On i!. o o" -^ 1 T? a ^a^ n 00 00 •>*• Tj- O lO ' to to to (— 1 M M o\ o o__ VO VO > H 0) c^" o 1^ .O a . o o O O t^ j^ to »o rt < O N N ON On vo vo 00 00 H CO O 1 - 1 o_ "'^ 1 ■^ V ^1 -o lO vo t^ n" oo 1 00* H m S ' o lO to O f< ' f* t^ t^ M O^ o^ ■^ >*• 2^ T ■^ CO ro ••• « of .. hH M _^_ o *• • • • C> • • • , . • hJ • • • ^ •g S ^* (0 P cn • Hi . ,—. • H * "a? • • § "K Z rt nj S rt P3 g ^ P ^ ^ ^ oi-^r • ^'~' • * -^T ' ^1 -rt ^i 1— « 03 f— 1 ^ a •—1 05 -t-> -(-> ■*-> -f-> fe CO o H ^ > in O H O APPENDIX 55 t^ t^ fO I 00 l-i U-) o" I O^ o M I I HI ON >-« o H 00 I o Q Z s o Ik Q Q Z •< i-l >< u n O in H OS o p. w » I-l a -< H H fc: o O •»» I-l O M lo in d" w •«• CO O <^ O vO fO O pToo" ■^ 00 >o •* N O I-l d"o I-l' l>4 o w N w 00 ■ tA o a^ vO" rC K CO 00 in r^ a> f^ ■«r N I-l OS ^" d t^ (>i ■<*■ •«r Cn m in in vO "n n") Tf r^oo >n N <^ >n >o •I- ''I f • n-> C>00 7 « 00_ N S. « -ifin & h) in >< (US ti H Ii3 5 O* oo in 00 O oo" ■n 00 o <7> 00 CO 0^ CI rr, •n O n" 'n oo" 4> C/) ra • Ui E c 3 o o<>o M vo in oi PI t^vO 00 PO fO 0\ ■^ 00 c^ o fO Tf M-00 N t-ON r^ 1 Tf-fO 00 1 " - ' r^■<^ HI M ro >n CO ro N t^ NO ►1 fO t^ N O HI HI 00 -"J- PO HI w O r^ O t^ t^ 1 T"^, o ' n" cT in 00 lO ■^ ei PO M VO t^ , ° ^ ^ t^ ON o_^ ' r^o" •^ en t^ M en ■^ O M PO Tj- f^ ro o o O 00 ro PI ro fooo u-) 00 lO >n fO •f N O u^ PO PI in r-- in 00 w (S PI t^ o >-• d^ vO lO M ro ^ 00 O N ON 00 I-l M HI ■^O Cl^ ro i-i" d'oo" N fl vO •<*■ ro U-) vO .*■• VO ON "^ M 1-1 CI fO CO ^O >o C7v PI w-N o 0^ On PI M in -^ t^ 00 tt in •^ ■^ M •-^\0 N ro •f o H (4 D nj ri '/I ^ C-T3 rt Q d o M 2 8 o H ro O ro O 00 n" NO M 00 M no" HI 00 ON o PO O N 00 NO NO ON in in o" in 00 NO_ . o ro M ON ON ro r-~ o O ON CO ^ in n o o ro PI 1 PI p) HI r^ o PI 00 PI 00 (^ o"oo"o" 1 PI ^ HI PI HI in o ON POO 1 vO PI ■^ no" pi" t-^ o •^ PI 00 HI ro •<^ o CO 1 PI O NO 1 o ro PI 1 NO ■ U) n «5 o t S I-l oo m O ro 00 Oi o ON 00 PI 'n PI o 00 in 00 PI o 00 ro HI ro (7) u o o H HI On ■* HI O ON in t^ HI vO" if o in O o ij- ro ro ro HI PI 00 t^ r--co NO 00 PI HI r-. O in HI o o N t-- O T)-00 On t^ in ro if if NO O f-. ON ON '*• 00 ro ro in '^ PI ^O in ro HI O PI in ■*• t-~. M 00 PI PI ro in m o o t^ 00 ro o HI lO w t^ r^ t^ 00 O ro C^ ON r^ ■^ PO PI •^ -^ ON t-» •^ M NO HI r^ CO o ■^ Ov PI GO CO HI r^ PI o On M 00 t- m Oi in HI o ro PO ON ro NO o" PI PI ro 00 00 O PO ro PO 00 ro oo" ro ro CO ro ro o" NO ro in PI S r^i o H (/) o H 2 •3 W 1) i-i H o (3 ii O I en cn =i C3 13 u X! -i-> a o o rS (/) u ii to y3 > Q o 56 REPORT ON INDIAN SILK Is, t^ t^ N r^ ON VO •n in CO o M 00 CO 1-1 m M- fO CO 00 IH •«}- ^ "- 1 1 c< ° 1 "^ 1 1 1 CO ^. t^ 1 C-- , , '^^ t o\ N o «n o t^ VO ON ON O vO M CO 00 0\ >0 rO O t^ VO M IH r^ in r-. 1 ^- 1 1 o ■<*• en t^ CT» 1 ■<*- tH •» O 1 o_ 1 1 °-^ 5 M 00 oo" N IH ih" 1 vo" >o T? ■«f in 00 ' 1 00 fO ' 1 CO c< tH 1 IH 1 1 1^ M M N C^ m OS M O »n o o o N o p< c^ N o N CO o> H M t-H C4 fO -* Tf 00 tH 00 Ht ON N m 1 N M fO tH c* CO t^ O M IH 00 t^ CX3 1 M lO >o f^l 1 1 1 rC N ■^ ■«f I oo" •^ ll. in >o M ' ' ' ' N 00 VO VO ' ' ^r) VO VO N I> r-- 00 o 00 ■^ M O\co 00 ro CO N tH tH f^OO t^ N a 1 M M 1 lO - 1 1 1 1 1 VO r< o_^ 1 o_ O O VO N z M 6\ d> ° 1 o" o" lO . M ON On 00 M VO O M •H O M N CO •o 00 CO 00 IN 00 VO VO en iz: o 1 M C^ 00 ^111 00 o_ n" H vO ' • ' VO 00 >o •n N in o o CO CO CO C< N VO o O • •o t^ N ID O m r^ o CO 00 00 00 Q M o tH N VO *"* CO CO CO c< M t^ (/5 •O •<*• t~~00 O VO M •n VO VO M- Tf On M ■* Ci T*- tH to N 0\ 1 o> CO IH IH C< 00 iH Ml 1 o_ t-t ttoo in 1 co_ o >o in 00 00 1— 1 o OO" oo" IH fo 1 >o •o tH N ' CO ON VO 1 VO ' o c^ Ifi t-t ■<*• 1j- Tl- N M 00 ^ < O N O CTt t-t •n o\ o o •n o ■* 1 00 w o N r>. oj c< o_ M vO__ vO_ O tH o o 0\ VO* r^ oo'vo" oo" •^ tH IH 1 IH 1 1 vo" (> ■^ ■^ (T) ' ' m o CO 1 CO ' ' S^in (/3 ■^ •<*• to CO CO 9. *"* « O IH . ro O fO fo in O «o o CO vO Ov ON O N On 00 O 00 t^ ■<^ M ■<^ O 00 VO "-> in C^ tH 1 CO o Tj- IT) I On ^, •*■ vo_ lo d" 1 »o M VO IH VO o! I vO N 00 1 o" cT p^ M 00 1 00 VO W ' >H o 00 CO 1 CO ' VO 00 o M tH CO CO to M IH ON o N HH fO o P< VO IH t^ o 00 CO CO CO O On tH H I rs, ^1 I^ CO N C<_ O M Ov t-- o_ t o_ N On in o o> o rf O* 1 >H ON o" o" T? rf vO" o" IH 0\ 1-1 ' M t^ ' N 1-t CO CO y H )-< H O . rt • fit o c! • • • ■■+J U5 .2P rt c • go. • .... pa < D a CO 'i3 c o a w 1 ■ •-* d rt rt S'3:2 (0 -t-l c p o o o o a o in C O •fH tn (U tn S w •fH flj Gj t rt ;=)-o in M -"f M vO ■»^ ■ 1 1 »-i o\ VO ' o ro >-i M 1 VO M ■^ O t^ ■f -^ lO in HI O "-> hH o O o ro ■<*■ t>- r^ ro O t^ o N O o O •-< IH iH O O ro »-» M ^ . ^, VO ro . Ov U-) 00 - 1 " I ■> - 1 1 m C\ ro '-' M VO VO P( ■^ oT ro ' t~~ o\ CO ' to O ' 1 M •f vO ■o C^ CO ro ro M a N ■^^ 00 00 -*• '^ 00 VO 0< HH \o ■o ro fO ■o <4-l . O o t^ VO VO N VO w r- ON 00 (^ .. VO t^ 00 >-< O Cv O 0^ o Cv « ^ o_ o w 0_ N l^00_ ■o c^ o 1 ^ I I 1 •«^ C^ pT n •^ p-T ri 1 1 d\ CO ro VO 2 1 1 1 o o lO lO CO -"T ' 1 t^ CO O HI to 191 rne T 00 »o fO Ov c> o o o t^ M n •o Tt- o_ -o^ CO •2 cl) 1 1 "" o fO 00 oo" pf i-T 1 •^ oi r^ 1 1 00 ■*■ t^ ' r^ (^ ' 1 t^ 'O t^ o c> o< M ro the o vO f o o lO o o >o r- N 01 ON 01 5; 0^ ir> a\ Tt- r^ (^ 'O ■n N b 5 , «^ , CO >o ^ 1 o ■^ 1 . ON ON VO ro >o O o" t^ 1 C^ oo" ■n a 6 1 1 >o 00 (» ' 00 1 1 1 00 1^ M ■^ O ^ l-t M of c< M lO w-i 00 "l- o c< r^ T^ "" fO o 1 VO 1 VO PO 00 v^ 4) M W • • • • • . • • • • • • • • ^-3 • a> c 60 CO a 0) H • «■§ • rj > o -a ■ .!3 • • w c . Ui d D O c CO • . '. ii o 3 K- to Cl. (U 60 en 4_> -S a . ed Stal untries O u c .5? o r-* c Si s: United Kin Ceylon . S 1 ce . cd Stat r forei .a a CO C O C O 12: Chin Unit Othe CO O ■c Fran Italy Unit Othe o u O o O u "otal Silk, Coco "rt H 2h "(3 o rt rt M -»-> ■*-» -<-> H 4-* .4-1 TJ o o o "^ o o O a H H o o o H H H 58 REPORT ON INDIAN SILK ON o H 00 o 0> to M «> S I § 1 Q tl « S o ^ •< Ik t> ■< CO o « n < , t^co o VO 00 >o N to »H 00 M o CO CO -(••VO O CO fs M vo t^ >n o> to o> •<»• Ov MM'* t^ to to ON CTv Ov O vis M t '^ "? q; r-00 ■^ o_ •. t^ ■«*■ M fO ■<»■ c« fO M N fO (O CO »o IH vO t^ o o t-^ Ov -^ ro O N Ov IH CO CO M 00 Ov CO M rrj •<^ 1-1 00 O VO r-> M >*■ o r^ o o f^ 0\ vO O 00 t^>o o_ ^°' 1 T»- 0> >0 -vj- 00 VO 1 >o •H to r>. 00 IH "* rn rC m" ■^ "<*■ 4 o" ->f -vf d! Ov a t^c^ •o ' VO O •o VO to M VO c-^ ■^ 00 Tt-VO o 00 CO IH 00 1 ?;2 0\ IH -"^ CO* N CTv to o" M 00 1 vo' ro O d ■^ ■^ Oi fooo" oi oo_ IH CO r^ oT IH to M VO* 0\ M N 00 \0 M 00 ' CO * «0 CO o M N M \o C"» »H ^ t-( O *"< N O N N 11 00 •>!■ CO CO CO vO 0» 00 00 M vo 00 r^ >-( 00 fO IH VO O VO CO •<*- •<)- vO CO ov ON I n" T^ •'f M CO rCcT o" ■«1- o" 1 "^ to vo" to IH o_ CO o» «r) ■^ t^ t^ ' t^ t^ O i-i ■^ VO ' N cs to M t^ o ^ to HI M N N N . f>. fo r-» r-~ o •* o ■* "4-OvOO IH •H M vO N 00 IH **> M 00 r^ •^ o to N fO o •Tj- -"I- ■«*• M- M M 00 ON r^ •^ is M fO vo" to C< 0^ tv. cf o" OvOO 00 ... 00 to ■^ VO O d N \0 On 00 o o c< r^ o lO vO t-. fOvO r-~ ' N N CN o r~ M M ■^^ o N IH N <0 N CO vo_ r« (?i o VO O VO •O O O vO >o 00 00 r^ -"f ^ VO M fO 0\ Ht ■«*■ lO C« t^ ■^ CO M 00 to lO M to CO ^ M ■^lO to vq VO_00 Tt N VO C4 o_ . r-- t^ O Ov ON ON M :2 d" M* oi M 1 >o •^ o" hT a! o* IH 1 - lO o" o" o o 00 N N N ►H O M M ,_, •^ -0-00 r^ VO O vO 00 t^t^ CO VO N 00 to t-ioo'oo" qv o_^ CO 9. ". 9J vo'do'vo" IH 1 1 t^ CO o* to o" o\ N t^ to vO ' ■tfi-. >o VO t^ N r^ 1 ■<«- M vO IV H* CO to cn M HI HI Tf CO CO 00_ M . N >O00 to O M ro ■«f CO M 00 N M M o o o c< o O M N ■^ O -O-OO M fO O vO o a Ov O VO VO M 1 • t^ rO •* •f i-i ro o VO CO -^ IH crv W M CO P( to vO_ o a> cs' -^ O O>oo' rC »H On C^ ri 1 ^ •4- N to N 00 CO o Ov 1 to to r-^ w COO. M IH N >o to o_^ oT 00 o o 00 M r0«O 0\ r^vo CO ■^ ■^ 00 N o •«!f f N to O t^ to Ov fO t^ 00 N M CO CO 00 VO ■* ■oo ^. to 00 ■<^ 00 00 vO IH 00 vO_ 00 _• fO N t~^ n" ... CO CO fO w ■^ -^ 1 d f^ t^ CO 00* M CO u-i fO M M M M CO vO M VO ' t^ 1 VO r^ CO >«• to o_ M M >o to 00_ M N fO N t^ M rj- 1-1 vO o o to to C< VO 00 vO 00 M-O ■* M- O Ov f^ >o o o ■«*■ Tj- 00 Ov t^ M ^a of •^ i-<" t^ m" w" vO o" - I 1 IH I^- o vo" w*y3* M CO On M vO !>• ■o • • • • 0) • • • fO • • • • . . . CO • • CO • o> IH • • • • ■ • • • • • • • • • • • • . • • 'ST 'oT '«? "4? "aT •4^ -4-> •+J -tJ -M W crt tn (/I C/3 • cd • • • rt • ■ • ri • • • a • (TJ • • • ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ t— « *.-^ ci eS rt 1-1 in -rt ."ss "(3 .s « 1 M o" r- o 1 oo" o (^ ■^ ' »H M M »o t-» 0\ o o 1 ro O N o w S 00 -"d- O . M o ro o >o M M o ' M r^ u^ r^o r« 1 O o •<*■ »H -♦ ^ o> ■«»- oo t^ 00 1 ro M •^ N ' lO 00 On i-i O H 't- t-* t-t n M o O r-4 00 1 i?5' ^ 1 "- 1 r» t^ o N •"^ o" o «o ' o ' vO o t-t »-« M t-4 Ui ^n r^ o ■«• »-( Q 00 ^ ■^ 00 Z ;*• to U-) On , o_ t— 1 ■'^ l-t ■** m" 00 M* s o On O r^ ' 00 M i-i N (O o Oh b ^* o o S r>4 r^ O r^ 2 ■o ■^ < u e?v M ' o ' O w s M CO »^ Tj- < .■^ K O d N O fO >o ■ O O fO CO ^ 6o 1 t^ w ro IH •J _K o> « 1 »-< m § M tH 00 ' o o fO w >o > •*; <: ^ (^ ^» 00 " r^ >c b. -o C^ ri u-ioo 1 vO e 1 • ►H oo__ in lO O h. o ^ rn fO -^1 M (« OS in w ■1 > 00 H M •>l^ 1^ >o « Pi ^ f« M o ro M 00 Tf o o ro •^5 >-> m r< r^ o ~ cf t^ »H 6 • 5 IT) f« ro o H • >. • ■ 60 v! __, i3 O) O '^ "^ a 00 >O00 Tf ro 00 t^ Oi ■-< On u-> ro OOO M 0\ O O ro tA rC o" oJ (S >-i CO 11 r^ On ro ro t^ O Tt- N "I ro O ■-i o 1-4 rC ■ ro O vO 'T O On ro ro t^ lO "-I NO On ro •^ NO nO 1^00 NO in « iM Tj- ►< r-^ t^ c« NO CO On "I t^ 00 fO rONO C) '*• w ro O O 00 NO ro (^ 00 CO o NO -^ r^ NO ro -"^ O <0 O •>l^ w n NO ■<»■ o ■>j- t^ M lO 01 o •^ MM ON ro T^ On NO w ro r^ N -"J-oo >-i f lO f< 00 (N M n no" t-^ "O -t- On ro C< lO ro 0> fl ■«^ • a\ o o t^oo ■^ On in ro o< IT) NO VO NO NO O t^ t-; ►1 in On O U-) oT O (^ M 00 ON in 11 ro o_ M 11-) lO M M ro iTnO t^NO -*• NO On M -^ ct 00 D 00 t^ rC r^ Tj- t~^ Tj- ' ■0 w ro n ¥A in M M o >-< CO 1 '^ o o o> ■*• ro ro ■<}- ro w in r< On On O •<1- u-) NO U-) o in 00 t^ I «n ■>i^ • M O rONO 00 ■«t H 'n O 01 00 ro ON ro O>oo O 00 NO r^ ro T>- ro t^ N ro n NO NO 00 in in t-i l-H ro 'i- N in ■^ NO ON 00 'i- 00 t^ t^ MO ro ■^ t-T 1 « o ro NO NO ' NO ON O ro o_ IH O H 4> < X O o< >- O 1 in -^ ■<»■ On m 'I- ro O n O 0< O 00 o ro M CI o On 00 M O ON ■0 , ■<*■ in N •^ tA ro ' o ro NO NO ^O CO >n -t- ro ■^oo_ On m Oi ro On ti 1 NO 11 ri ■<^cl r^ rONO ro 1 rs On I^CO -t- in" o" in r>. ■<»-ii t>- O 00 N 1 •»!- ro ■i OnOO no I t^ M "1- t^ t^ NO M o »ono ■>^ n M w in •ooo 01 On ON •*- O O 1 lO CO M n w O N O 00 O rv N M O ON O 00 M nO" CO in M 01 M M 00 rooo o rs 00 o in •^ O w r< •^00 t^ On •«»■ N O U-) N O ro in Ti-ao_ n 1 rC ro 00 o >o CN| ro o On o» On oo" 00 00 ro NO On O o_ O^ o H ro O ro O 00 n" NO 00 01 no" to 00 ON o_ ro O o« 00 NO NO On lO o" 00 M NO_ lO o •1- NO_ ro ro 00 NO 0< M ro • c d < 4> X! a o d ■♦J cJ 175 td > o o x: H 11 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD Summary of General Information prepared at the Imperial Institute The silk industries fall into two main classes, the finished products of the first being the raw materials of the second. The first class, with which the present enquiry is prin- cipally concerned, have for their chief ultimate object the production of yarn ; these industries may be termed the silk-producing processes. The second class are devoted to the weaving and dyeing of fabrics, and are usually distinguished as silk-manufacturing trades. In the first class we have, as more or less distinct industries, the selection of disease-proof eggs (the French grainage) ; the cultivation of the mulberry (the food-plant of the chief domesticated species of silkworm) ; sericulture, the rearing of the silkworm from the Ggg to pupation ; reeling, the winding of net silk from the cocoon ; throwing or twisting singles into organzine, etc, etc. ; and the carding and spinning of waste silk. The silk industries have almost always, and in all countries, been subsidiary to agriculture or to other trades. The greater cost of silk as compared to other textile fibres is mainly the result of the larger amount of manipulation required in its manufacture ; and, to keep down the necessarily high price, sericulture, reeling, and weaving have been mainly carried out by women and children, whether in the cottage industries of China, Japan, Northern Italy and Southern France, or in those large American factory towns in which the male population is mainly employed in the iron and steel trades. International competition in silk production has been almost entirely a question of the relative cheapness of labour. 60 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 6i It is difficult to obtain trustworthy figures with refer- ence either to consumption or production of silk. A large proportion of the weight of silk fabrics represents tin compounds and other adulterants ; great quantities of material, much of which passes as " silk," contain large admixtures of wool or cotton ; and real, or net silk, almost entirely the product of the mulberry-feeding silk- worm {Bombyx mori), is mixed not only with spun or waste silk, largely produced by the oak-feeding Saturnid " wild," or " tussah " moths, but also with artificial silks, or lustra-cellulose. The countries producing raw silk are treated statistically in three groups, which may be termed Far East, Near East or Levantine, and Euro- pean. The Far East group comprises China, Japan, India and Indo-China ; the Near East, Persia, Turkestan and Central Asia, Asiatic Turkey, including Anatolia and Syria, the Caucasus, European Turkey, the Balkan States, Greece, Crete and Cyprus ; the term European including Italy, France, Spain and Austria-Hungary. The vilayet of Salonika was, until 1913, included in Turkey in Europe, but is now grouped with Greece, leaving only the vilayet of Adrianople as representing European Turkey ; and the small yield of Cyprus has been somewhat variously assigned. In China and Japan, which probably produce between them nine-tenths of the world's supply of raw silk, the home consumption is enormous ; but it is difficult to ascertain the true ratio which this consumption bears to the export. The Lyons authorities, to whom we are mainly indebted for statistics of silk production, have been content to represent the productions of China, Japan, India, Persia and Turkestan by the amounts exported from those countries respectively, so that the figures thus recorded do not represent the whole of the world's production of raw silk, which at the present time probably considerably exceeds 100,000,000 lb. per annum. (See table on p. 35 supra, in which China and Japan are represented by exports only.) The average annual production of the main silk areas in the world during the present century is given for three quinquennial periods, and for the four years 191 6-19 in the following table, in which, however, the Persian, 62 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD Chinese, Japanese and Indian figures represent exports only, while the Near Eastern figures during the period of the war are mere estimates. World's Average Annual Production of Raw Silk for 1901 to iqiQj IN LB. Western Europe : 1901-1905. 1906-1910. 1911-I5. 1916-19. France 1.357.400 1,284.154 887,166 468,543 Italy . 9,494,211 9.797.459 7,977.864 6,042,538 Spain 177,640 163,398 160,264 168,124 Austria-Hungary 681,703 790,023 612,457 340,1071 Total 11,710,954 12,035,034 9,637.751 7,019,312 Near East : Asiatic Turkey and Cyprus 2,219,360 2,516,458 2,089,104 1,300,750 » Salonika and Adrianople 516,560^ ('357.151 66,150* Balkan Provinces 310,200 V 1.367.450 j 288,813 220,500 1 Greece and Crete i40,8ooJ I245.603 242,500 1 Caucasus . 862,489 1,090,464 565.013 275.625 1 Persia and Tur kestan . 1,030,040 1.277.937 886,266 187.425^ Total 5,079,449 6,252,309 4,431,950 2,292,950 * Far East : China 13,923,800 15,885,692 16,379,389 15,464.022 Japan 10,716,200 16,393,012 25,206,853 36,768,886 India 660,245 607,647 274,262 253.815 Indo-China — 29,102 15.584 Total 25,300,245 32,886,351 41,889,606 52,520,289 Grand Total 42,090,648 51,173,694 55,959,307 61,814,551 1 Eslitnaie only. * Previous to 1913 the vilayet of Salonika was in Turkey in Europe. Chinese Production. — In an estimate by M. Rondot of Lyons in 1879, Chinese production of mulberry silk is stated as 16,625,700 lb., of which 9,503,550 lb. were exported, leaving only 7,122,150 lb. for home consump- tion, so that the export and home consumption are approximately in the ratio of 57 143. In 1894, however, M. Rondot seems to have realised that he had allowed too little for home consumption, and in his U Industrie de la Soie en France of that year, he puts production at 23,152,500 lb., and export at 10,473,750 lb., leaving 12,678,750 lb. for home consumption, a ratio of about 42 : 50. The detailed figures for 1878-9, however, com- piled by the Chinese Customs authorities for all the provinces of the Empire at M. Rondot 's request, give total productions of 30,600,000 lb. and 34,000,000 lb., with exports of 8,601,705 lb. and 9,503,550 lb., leaving 21,998,295 lb. and 24,496,150 lb. for the home consump- THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 63 tion in the two years, a ratio of 27 : 73, approximately. A report by the Swiss Consul-General in Yokohama in 1905 gives figures similar to those of the Chinese Customs, viz. 33,075,000 lb. production, 24,255,000 lb. home con- sumption, and 8,820,000 lb. export, a ratio of 73 : 27. By 1905, however, the actual export from China was about 13,000,000 lb. or more, and we have no means of knowing whether the total production in the country has increased in the same proportion as have the exports. These latter have risen steadily, being about 6,615,000-9,922,500 lb. between 1872 and 1890, 11,025,000-14,332,500 lb. between 1890 and 1906, averaging 15,885,692 lb. between 1906 and 191 1, and 16,379,389 lb. between 191 1 and 191 5. At the ratio of 73 : 27 the last-mentioned export would indicate a home consumption of 44,285,012 lb. and a total production of 60,664,401 lb, China is thus by far the greatest silk-producing country in the world, the industry centring between 30° and 35° N., or roughly the Yangtze Valley, so that Shanghai is the greatest raw silk market in the world. Modern methods of reeling are coming in by w^ay of Canton, and a school of sericulture at Yunnan is a step toward placing silk as a crop in the position left vacant by opium. Japanese Production. — Japan is particularly well suited for sericulture. The small proportion of her area suitable for arable cultivation leaves ample room on the hill-sides for the mulberry, and the dense population has hitherto been content with a low rate of payment for their labour. Her export of raw silk increased 50 per cent, between 1906 and 19 10, being at the close of that period about 20,000,000 lb., with a value of 13^ million sterling, 28*5 per cent., that is, of the entire export trade of the country. It is, perhaps, even more difficult to estimate the total Japanese production of silk than to guess at the Chinese total. The enormously rapid development of the industry in Japan is a much more modern process than is the case with China, and is so intimately related to the expansion of the export trade that there is little reason to presume any increase of the home consumption at all propor- tionate. M. Rondot, in his V Industrie cie la Soic, already 64' THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD quoted, puts the Japanese production of raw silk in 1894 at 8,599,500 lb., the import at 22,050 lb., and the export at 6,262,200 lb., leaving 2,359,350 lb. for the home con- sumption, a ratio of export to home consumption of 1 1 14. The Swiss report of the Swiss Consul-General at Yoko- hama in 1905, previously quoted, gives a production of 16,537,500 lb., with an export of 9,922,500 lb. (wrongly- described as " the largest in the world "), and a home consumption of 6,615,000 lb., giving a ratio of export to home consumption of 3 : 2 ; but the records show that the actual export from Yokohama in 1905 was 10,230,000 lb., and that from China 12,936,000 lb., and that the Japanese export surplus did not apparently exceed the Chinese total until 1909. The published official statistics of Japanese production of raw silk, as compared with those of the exports from Yokohama, indicate a home consumption during the twelve years 1903-14 ranging from 3,688,143 lb. in 1904 to 9,565,109 lb. in 1914, and averaging, for 1903-13, 5,728,528 lb. The exceptionally large amount retained for home consumption in 19 14, taken in connection with the reduced export for that year (5,224,954 lb. less than in the previous year), may be rather the result of the outbreak of war, the expansion of Japanese weaving industries belonging rather to succeed- ing years. The Japanese import of cocoons from China rose in 191 5 to 18,334 piculs from 6,532 in 1914, and that of raw white rereeled silk to 1,459 piculs from 69 ; the value of the total Japanese imports of tissues, yarns and materials of silk rose in the same year to ;£456,95o from ;{^2 54,62 8 ; that of the Japanese production of silk fabrics was £10,461,717 in 1914, £12,404,188 in I9i5,and £16,341,897 in 1916 ; and that of the Japanese exports of silk tissues, yarns and materials rose from about £21,000,000 in 1914 and 191 5 to £34,481,305 in 1916, and to £45,131,765 in 191 7. These figures to some extent bear out the opinion that Japan is becoming more and more a manufacturing country, the industry there chang- ing from one of sericulture and incidental manufacture to one of manufacture for export of raw material largely imported — mainly from China. It is thus not improbable that a relation may develop between Japan and the THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 65 United States with regard to silk analogous to that which is now obviously operative between the United States and the United Kingdom in reference to cotton, viz. the country hitherto producing the raw material mainly for export will, to a growing extent, manufacture its produce at home and thus become a competitor in the world's markets for the fabric. In estimating Japan's present total production of raw silk, it would thus appear that we must add at least about 5,750,000 lb. as consumed locally to the 44,000,000 lb,, the approximate export in 191 7, making a total produc- tion nearly approaching 50,000,000 lb. Figures of the Japanese home consumption for 191 7 and 191 8 in bales indicating an all-round increase, are as follow : 1917. 1918. Percentage increase. Raw silk Douppions Spun silk 198,500 62,300 50,000 249,700 79,800 64,650 25 more than 30 nearly 30 Total . 310,800 394,150 nearly 30 From 191 2 the United States has taken five-sevenths or more of the Japanese export of raw silk, this repre- senting about five-sixths of the American total import. The total amount exported by Japan in 191 7, viz. 43,976,287 lb., has been stated as 64*7 per cent, of the estimated exportable surplus of the world, the joint contri- bution of China and Japan being more than 85 per cent, of that amount, viz. 58,320,820 lb. out of 68,010,926. Indian Production. — ^The contribution of India to the silk in commerce, which, during the last quarter of the eighteenth and the greater part of the nineteenth century, exceeded 1,000,000 lb. per annum, and during the last half of the latter century frequently exceeded 2,000,000 lb,, has during the present century been a rapidly declining amount. From 1857, when the utilisation of waste silk began in Europe, and more markedly after 1877, from the effects of Lord Masham's invention of carding and spinning silk waste, Indian silk exports changed their character, the waste and wild silk trade improving, while that in reeled silk declined, so that quantities were kept up, though represented by a lower value. In 1 880-1 the exports from British India were 551,000 lb. of reeled silk 66 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD and 788,000 lb. of chasam, or " waste " silk, valued together at 55 lakhs ; in 1 900-1 the figures were 560,000 lb. of reeled, and 1,031,000 lb. of waste, valued together at 51 lakhs. " The exports of manufactured silks have shown a still more serious decline. In 1886-7 they were valued at 32 lakhs, in 1896-7 at 16 lakhs, and in 1903-4 at only 8 lakhs. In both raw silk and silk manufactures India now receives far more than she gives. The imports of raw silk were, in 1876-7, 1,461,000 lb., valued at 45 lakhs ; twenty-five years later (i 900-1) they were 2,535,000 lb., valued at 102 lakhs. There has since been a temporary decline, very possibly an after-consequence of famine and plague, the imports in 1903-4 having been 1,544,000 lb., valued at 59 lakhs. The imports of manu- factured silks show a remarkable expansion. In 1876-7 these were valued at 58 lakhs, and five years later at 35 lakhs. In 1903-4 they rose to 183 lakhs, the highest figure yet attained. Thus not only is India failing to produce silk goods suitable for the demands of other countries, but she is opening her own markets to a foreign competition that must tell disastrously on the local hand- loom weavers " {Imperial Gazetteer of India, vol. iii. (1907), pp. 211-12). The chief silk-producing Province of India is Bengal, while Burma and the Punjab are the largest consuming Provinces. It is significant, however, that " the Bengal production influences but slightly the manufacturing centres of India. Bombay imports its supplies from China, and distributes raw silk thus obtained to Northern and Central India. All but one of the filatures of India are located in Bengal. In 1891 there were 81, and in 1903 these had decreased to 63, which gave employment to 9,000 persons. Three large silk- mills (two in Bombay, and one in Calcutta) are worked by steam-power, and are almost exclusively concerned with the Burmese market, a trade that was formerly concentrated very largely in Glasgow, but is now shared by Japan. There are also some twenty to thirty hand- loom factories, mostly in Bengal. The Bengal factories of to-day largely work up tasar silk, in place of preparing the korah silks formerly turned out by them ; they are owned and managed by natives and do not employ THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 67 European machinery " {ibid., pp. 208-9). A more recent estimate, based partly upon official figures, given by Mr. Rawlley {Economics of the Silk Industry, p. 204) for an average of the years 1911-12 and 1912-13, puts Raw silk produced in India ,, ,, imported into India Total Raw silk exported from India Balance available for consumption in India lb. 2,360,000 2,870,000 5,230,000 1,710,000 3,520,000 The discrepancy between the amount of export here given and the average of the figures officially recorded for those years (see tables, pp. 53-8 supra), arises from the inclusion by Mr. Rawlley under " Raw Silk " of waste and cocoons, much of the former being the produce of wild worms. The production of the well-organised industry in Kashmir, which has had some effect in masking the decline in Indian production since its incorporation in the Indian Returns in 1905, only reached 215,749 lb. in 1911-12 and has, owing to unfavourable weather and a destructive fire, shown a decline in succeeding years. Of 224,000 silk-worm rearers in India, 80,000 are in Kashmir, 70,000 in Mysore, and 43,000 in Bengal ; and, of the total raw silk produced, 50 per cent, comes from Mysore, whence it is exported to Madras, the waste coming to Europe. Patiala, where the silk industry has been managed since 19 14 by a native trained at Montpellier, put silk on the European market only in 1916 ; and the Indo-Chinese industry (which, though more than two thousand years old, has only recently entered the export trade) has not yet reached an export of 40,000 lb. Near East. — The unorganised condition of the sericul- tural industry in the Near East makes it very difficult to obtain any precise figures as to production, so that those published are merely rough estimates. Persian Production. — The cultivation of the silkworm, in addition to the transport trade in Chinese silk, is of great antiquity in Persia. Down to the middle of the last century silk was the staple of Persian export trade ; but in 1864, the year of highest production,' pebrine appeared : by 1869 the output had fallen 80 per cent. ; * The production for that year is given as 2,190,000 lb., value ;^i, 000,000. 68 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD and the trade of Gilan has never entirely recovered. In 1885 Persia's entire produce for sale averaged about 600,000 lb., of some ;£2oo,ooo value, two-thirds of which was furnished by Gilan. Lord Curzon wrote in 1892 : " In despair . . . the peasants have turned to other crops . . . tobacco, olives, opium, rice. ... It is doubtful whether, at least in Persian hands, the silk industry will ever permanently revive. Under other auspices, a different tale might soon be told, the disease having been expelled and soil and climate remaining what they formerly were." A good deal of the silk of Gilan was made into sewing- silk at Resht, and there were native manufactures of velvet, brocade, shawls and carpets. Almost as Lord Curzon wrote, a revival was beginning, M. Bezanos, a Greek merchant, representing the firm of Pascalidi Brothers, of Broussa, having from 1891 onwards intro- duced eggs raised on Pasteur's cellular system, giving away not more than two ounces to each rearer, and stipulating for a third of the resultant cocoons. The import of eggs in 1 896 was stated to be 90,000 oz., and in 1 897 1 14,000 oz., which, at 2 oz. per tilambar or hatching-shed, each tilambar employing three men, represents 135,000 and 170,000 rearers in those two years. The dry cocoons were baled and sent by sea to Baku, and thence to Batoum, and then by sea to Marseilles, though most silk produced at Resht was reeled locally, and either woven in Persia or exported via Baghdad. The reeling was stated in 1902 to be so defective as to produce silk totally unsuitable for European mills. After 1893 the mulberry is said to have been much planted, and the cocoons to weigh twice as much as when produced from native eggs. The following table, compiled as is most of the recent history given above, from the Reports of Mr. Consul Churchill, gives the weight and value of the dried cocoons exported from Gilan. Year. Value. Year. Value. lb. £ lb. £ 1893 . 76,160 6.475 1902-3 . 3,366,000 247,503 1894 . 167,552 11,780 1903-4 — — 1895 . 235.760 15.505 1904-5 — 218,846 1896 . 229,040 14,040 1905-6 — 215.578 1897 . 346,080 23.550 1906-7 2.497.339 302,384 1898 . 614,880 55.800 1907-8 2.937.558 473.289 1899 . 1,178,688 112,350 1908-9 1.879,813 204.626 1900 . 1.615,488 150.265 1909-10 2,391,187 — 1901 . — 1910-11 2,511,214 1911-12 2,415,000 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 69 The weight and value of the cocoons exported, as against the value of the imported eggs, have been as follow : Silk Production in Persia ^ Year. Value of silkworms' Weight of dry Value of eggs imported. cocoons exported. cocoons exported. 1906-7 . . . 52,130 2,717,000 240,149 1907-8 . . . 64,862 3,250,000 481.313 1908-9 . . . 55.396 2,093,000 215,150 1909-10 . . . 52,036 2,606,500 308,844 I910-II . . . 46,865 2,697,500 297,047 1911-12 . . . 61,297 3,048,500 323.117 1912-13 ... — 2,044,035 — 1 From the " Statistical Abstract for Foreign Countries, igoi-12," pp. 250-3. The closing of the Dardanelles in 1914, stopping expor- tation by the routes previously usual, the silk of Persia found a market, with that of Turkestan, in Russia ; and the practical exclusion of all Levantine silk from Western European commerce during 191 6 and 191 7 has necessi- tated the substitution in the table on p. 35 of an esti- mated equality for those years with the production of 191 5 for any actual amounts. Caucasian Production. — -The white mulberry is considered by De Candolle to be not indigenous, but naturalised by ancient introduction on the south-western plateaux of Asia ; and the occurrence of spring frosts and severe droughts renders the leaf-crop and consequently the yield of cocoons uncertain. In the Caucasus, according to official statistics, there are more than 3,000 villages comprising 400,000 families, or some two million persons, engaged in sericulture, but the yield of fresh cocoons fluctuates according to the season between 4,900 and 6,800 metric tons. In the middle of the last century the silk industry was one of the chief sources of the income of the population, and there were large mulberry plantations throughout the country, while even domestic servants were habitually clad in silk ; but disease appeared about 1 860, and the industry has never recovered. Ruins of former silk-factories and the remains of large mulberry orchards are numerous throughout Eastern Caucasia. Before this murrain Central Asian varieties of the silk- worm were bred ; but subsequently Japanese Green, White Baghdad, and Yellow French were introduced, 70 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD the Russian Government establishing an Institute at Tiflis in 1887, where by 1893 no less than seventy varieties were raised experimentally. Several branches of the Tiflis Institute have been subsequently established for the distribution of sound eggs and for teaching, travelling instructors with " ambulating laboratories " have been employed and instruction in sericulture is given in the village schools. Previous to 1899 foreign eggs were not inspected at the port of entry, and, being cheaper than the " cellular grain," were bought with serious results ; but during the present century pebrine has been absent, imported seed being strictly examined by the Imperial Agricultural Society at Tiflis, and by the Government, and none allowed to be sold without a certificate of testing. The eggs are now chiefly imported from Broussa and from Italy. Silk production increased steadily during the first decade of the century, and it may be doubted whether the figures for 191 1 onwards indicate any real decline in the industry before the outbreak of war. In Turkestan and Transcaucasia some organzine and tram are thrown in the Asiatic method ; but much of the silk is wound by steam filatures in Transcaucasia or sent as cocoons to Moscow, in which neighbourhood there are extensive throwing-mills with Italian and American machinery, and the greater part of the silk grown within the Russian Empire is woven, together with a still larger amount of imported silk. Asiatic Turkey. — ^The mulberry and sericulture are very generally distributed throughout Asiatic Turkey, the chief districts being Broussa, Northern Syria and Lebanon, the ports of which are Beirut, Tripoli, Ismidt and Diarbekir. Rich silks were woven at Broussa early in the sixteenth century ; and, before the commence- ment of our direct silk trade with India in 1621, England was dependent upon Turkey for raw silk. The recent history of the industry has been typical of that of many others. It suffered severely from the epidemic of pebrine in the seventh decade of the last century, which attacked the local breed of silkworm that gave the much-esteemed large white cocoon. Japanese eggs were introduced and the trade, which has always been closely dependent upon THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 71 the French market, quickly recovered, so that by 1 880 there were still a large number of sericulturists in the Lebanon ; the industry rivalled tobacco as the staple product of Syria, and the export from Broussa was about £350,000 in annual value. Mainly by the efforts of M. P. Gen- nadius between 1883 and 1889, Pasteur's system of egg- selection was introduced at Broussa, and sound eggs and trained sericulturists were sent from the Broussa Institute to all parts of Asia Minor and farther afield to Tiflis and Cyprus. The eggs were mainly imported from France, and the cocoons or reeled silk exported to Mar- seilles. Sjrrian Production. — By 1895 much land in Syria formerly devoted to grain was planted with mulberry, and many of the peasants of the Lebanon became wholly dependent on the sale of the cocoons. The fine Syrian silk is mainly employed at Lyons and Saint Etienne, in the manufacture of laces and other high-class fabrics much of which found its market in London, so that a falling off in the English demand, caused by the South African War in 1899, led to temporary distress in the Lebanon in the following year. Nevertheless, in the ten years 1897 to 1907, whilst the production in the Far East had increased 50 per cent,, that of the Levant had more than doubled itself. In the latter year there were 1 1 5 filatures at Broussa, with an output of about 1,102,500 lb. of raw silk. Already by 1902, however, the Lyons Silk-mer- chants Association reported the emigration of Syrian labour consequent on heavy Turkish taxation, and the hampering of the growth of the industry by the lack of transport facilities. The weavers of Beirut, Damascus and Aleppo chiefly employed the stronger Chinese silk imported from Shanghai to Beirut and Tripoli, the local produce being almost wholly exported to Europe. The low rate of wages led to this emigration, women and girls being paid 6-7 pence a day for winding, and 1-2 francs a day of ten hours for weaving, and men i \d. per lb. for throwing tram, and ^d. per lb. for organzine, earning 2-2 J francs for a twelve-hour day, and from i|— 3 francs a day for weaving. Thousands of the peasants went to North and South America, Africa and Australia, many of whom 6 72 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD were skilled rearers of the mulberry and the silkworm. America having become one of the largest consumers of silk, and rivalling Saint Etienne in the output of ribbon, the financial crisis of 1907 seriously affected the demand at Lyons ; but its effect on .Syria was, perhaps, some- what counteracted by the earthquakes of Messina and Calabria in the following year, which ruined the district whence Lyons had obtained " Messina," its choicest raw material. Soon after this the competition of the better-reeled silks of Japan and those of China, produced by labour even cheaper than that of Syria, began to be felt in Asia Minor, and the Levantine industry appears to have reached its maximum in 1909. Its decline was hastened by the coming in of the sheath, or hobble skirt, which brought about the crise d'aulnage, as it was termed at Lyons, the metre crisis of the Italian market in 191 1 and the succeeding years, and is estimated to have reduced the world's consumption of silk by over 2,200,000 lb. The mulberry-trees were largely uprooted, and the men took to growing tobacco and oranges and the women to lace-making. Several bad seasons in succession hastened this process, a dry spring producing small dry leaves on the mulberry, so that the whole import of eggs cannot be used, and the price falls. Up to 1909 some 270,000 to 300,000 2 5 -gram boxes of eggs were shipped from the Department of Var about the middle of each August, reaching Beirut in the first week of September, were dis- tributed at the end of October to the monasteries near the snow-line on the Lebanon, and kept cool till March 19th, on which date they were all put in incubators ; and, after hatching, were kept in special straw huts till May ioth-i5th, when the worms began to spin. There were then some 150 filatures in Syria turning out a uniformly fine quality of silk in skeins of standard size, made up into bales of 220 lb. each. The following table, compiled from the British Consular Reports, gives the export of cocoons and waste silk, and of raw silk from Beirut and Tripoli, for the first twelve years of the present century. THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 73 From Beirut. From Tripoli. Cocoons and Raw silk. Cocoons and Raw silk. waste silk. waste silk. Year. BagsA Bales.t Bales? Bales.-i 1901 .... 2,125 2,300 330 630 1902 1.950 3,200 370 750 1903 2,400 3.700 300 531 1904 3,600 4.500 300 600 1905 2,850 3,600 1,500 500 1906 2,725 3.560 530 708 1907 2,320 3,600 750 654 1908 2,100 3.500 — 550 1909 1.540 3.050 — 510 1910 2.240 4,200 2.835 955 1911 1,800 2,670 2,197 230 I912 1,260 2.455 1,500 250 1 0/90 -160 lb. we ight. «0/ about 2 cwts. The total production of fresh cocoons in the ^Turkish Empire was estimated in 191 2 as 33,000,000 lb., 80-85 per cent, of which was reeled in the country and the rest exported, the export of reeled silk being then about 1,100,000 lb. from Syria, and 1,540,000 lb. from Broussa and Adrianople, whilst the few native hand-looms con- sumed comparatively little. Only a third of the mul- berry-trees are stated to have survived the war, mulberry- logs being commonly sold for fuel in Constantinople ; and the output of cocoons is said to be now less than 7,000,000 lb. Cyprus Production. — Cyprus possesses a climate excep- tionally favourable to sericulture : Cyprus silks have been renowned for their quality since the sixth century : the mulberry flourishes throughout the island, although but little care is given to its cultivation and it is commonly exhausted by being stripped of its leaves twice in the year ; and at one time the island produced 70,000 to 80,000 lb. of silk yearly. During the European pebrine epidemic of 1845 Cyprus eggs were in request; but the disease reached the island, and by 1880 the annual output had fallen to 5,000-8,000 lb. Instructions on the proper methods of rearing silkworms were published in 1878 : a number of men were trained in sericulture at Broussa : in spite of the opposition of merchants importing eggs from France, the production of eggs according to Pasteur's cellular system by locally trained licensees was encouraged ; and a model rcaring-house was established at Nicosia, The cocoons produced were pronounced by Sir Thomas 74 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD Wardle to be of very fine quality, and the export increased from an annual average of 36,579 lb. during the five years 1879-83 to 100,873 lb, during the three years 1894-96 (Tyler, Development of Cyprus, p. 78). In 1 896, however, the yield was only 15I kilograms of fresh cocoons per ounce of eggs, as against an average of 30 kilograms per ounce at that time in Italy, and 35 kilograms in France. Bad rearing conditions, such as overcrowding, lack of ventilation, want of cleanliness and inadequate feeding, have had to be contended with, and it is now realised that it is essential to stop the use of inferior eggs as well as to supply better. A simple incubator made from a petroleum packing-case has been intro- duced, to supersede the practice of hatching the eggs on the women's persons ; and five rearing-stations have been established under the management of trained students. The export, which rose from 91,775 lb. in 1902 to 134,845 lb. in 1907, fell in 1908 to 107,075 lb.; but, with the measures then taken by the Department of Agriculture to improve the conditions of rearing, it rose in 191 1 to 160,782 lb. The cocoons have improved in size and uniformity of colour ; but the rearers have been unable to adapt their methods to sudden weather-changes. For the six years ending 191 3 the total production aver- aged 140,000 lb., a yield of about 18 kilograms of fresh cocoons per ounce of seed ; but between 191 3 and 191 6 hot, dry winds prevailed, and many mulberry plantations were uprooted to make way for oranges and other fruit thought likely to be more remunerative ; whilst in 191 8-1 9, with rainy, uncertain weather, flacherie and pebrine were prevalent, and it was thought advisable to sacrifice nearly all the eggs. Until 191 6 probably 25 per cent, of the rearers produced their own seed without any micro- scopic examination : the cocoons are mostly exported in the raw state to Lyons and Milan, forming a bulky and costly cargo ; and the reeling carried out for silk for local consumption is conducted in so primitive a fashion that more than 25 per cent, is lost. From the account of the industry given by the Director of Agriculture {Bulletin of the Imperial Institute, 17, pp. 523-9), it appears that some improvement is looked for from the THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 75 introduction of modern reeling plant, the establishment of small local sericultural societies and the prevention of the sale of bad seed. Production in Greece. — In Greece sericulture prospered most during the first half of the last century, when the annual production of raw silk was 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 lb. Pebrine reduced the yield in 1854 to a tenth of its former amount ; and the apparently stationary output between 1876 and 1890 was followed by some advance between 1891 and 1905, which is said to have been checked by the com- petition of Japanese silk, and later of artificial silk. In 191 2 the Government encouraged the planting of mulberry-trees and the teaching of sericulture in rural schools, and in- spected and controlled the eggs offered for sale. The average production of silk for the three years 1911-13 is stated to have been 1,288,000 lb., 82 per cent, of which was produced by Larissa, Laconia and Messenia. In 191 1 the production of these provinces was 1,023,776 lb. Eggs were imported in 191 2 to the extent of 68,000 ounces, in addition to 12,000 ounces produced locally, traders supplying the peasants for 10 per cent, of the produce. The pupae are killed by drying in the sun or in an oven, or by steaming ; and, as only one filature remains at Calamata (Messenia), a large proportion of the produce is shipped as cocoons to France. The well-known Calamata handkerchiefs are made of silk grown, spun and woven in the neighbourhood. Balkan States Production. — In Bulgaria the industry is in its infancy, nothing being known of it prior to 1900, and no organised attempt to encourage it having been made before the country became independent in 1908. The chmate is dry and warm, and the mulberry flourishes up to an altitude of 3,000 feet. In the southern provinces, where the climate is most favourable, the cultivation of the mulberry and the silkworm have become leading occupations. The mulberry is grown in open fields, vineyards, and roadsides, as in Italy ; but more especially by itself in plantations in which the trees are 6^ feet apart, either as coppice or more often as standards 3 feet in height. The ground is cultivated beneath them during the first four years of their growth, and planted with 76 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD maize, potatoes, etc. The sericultural methods are still primitive, and neither cleanly nor healthy. In 1902 418,874 lb. of cocoons were reeled at Stanimaca, the only filature, where at one time there were 80 basins ; and in 1903, 485,012 lb., yielding 250,443 lb. of reeled silk, out of a total production of 2,824,471 lb. of cocoons produced in the whole of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia from 29,585 oz. of eggs, the bulk of the cocoons being exported to Italy and France. In 1908 the mulberry occupied about 3,952 acres ; but by 191 2 this was almost doubled. The Government distribute mulberry-seed gratuitously, and all agricultural schools teach sericulture, whilst at three special centres, Sadovaj, Orhamie and Vratza weaving is also taught. All silkworms' eggs must by law be selected according to Pasteur's method, the chief varieties cultivated being White Bulgarian, Salonika, Italian and Yellow French. The latter varieties are imported to the extent of 500-700 kilograms annually. An ounce of eggs is found to give 88 lb. of the yellow variety of cocoon, or 132 lb. of the white. The general low price of silk in 1914-15 was depressing the industry, whilst the import of manufactured silk from Switzerland, Austria-Hungary and France was on the increase. Production in Rumania. — Difficulty has been experi- enced by the Rumanian Government in overcoming the apathy and inertia of the peasants with regard to seri- culture ; but in 1903, 5,500 oz. of eggs were reported as yielding 264,552 lb. of cocoons, and 21,164 lb. of raw silk (little more than a twelfth of the production of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia in the same year). In 1905 an Institute was established by Queen Elizabeth at Bukharest, which distributes eggs, collects the crop, dries the cocoons and sells them in Italy ; and since then sericulture and reeling were, down to the outbreak of war, making such steady progress that Rumania assumed the lead in these industries among the Balkan States. In 1909 a gram of eggs gave 1,238 grams of cocoons ; and, though in 19 10 the yield was only 1,083 grams per gram, in 191 1 there were 34,650 rearers, over 200,000 grams of eggs were hatched and 190,000 kilograms of cocoons produced. THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 77 In Serbia there has been a Silk Raisers' Association since 1895, and the Government distributed eggs gratui- tously. The yield of cocoons grew from 1,560 kilo- grams in 1895 to nearly 150,000 in 1903, the production of raw silk in the latter year being over 28,000 lb. Production in Austria-Hungary. — In i860 Austria had about 100,000 persons engaged during part of the year in sericulture, and produced from 270,000 to 300,000 cwts. of cocoons, of which 6,000 were exported. In 1879 her export was 1,074,496 lb., her production of raw silk growing from 336,600 lb. on the average of 188 1-5 to 790,023 lb. on that of 1906-10, after which year it exhibits a steady decline. The chief regions of production have been Hungary and the Trentino. In Goritz, Gradisca and Istria the industry has declined, in spite of a bonus given by the Government, in imitation of the French measures to maintain it, the peasantry finding in general that they can make more money by growing grapes or other fruit ; but in Hungary, where the whole trade is a State monopoly, it has been fairly successful. Both young mulberry-trees and silkworms' eggs are distributed gra- tuitously, the cocoons are bought by the Government, and the filatures, which are of thoroughly modern type, are under Government control. Only waste cocoons are exported to Milan and Marseilles. The Hungarian output of cocoons was 1,342 metric tons (2,958,848 lb.) in 1902 ; 1,707 metric tons (3,763,704 lb.) in 1903, rising to 1,878 metric tons in 191 1, but only 1,298 metric tons in 191 2. The Trentino district of South Tyrol has been described as " a veritable geographical dependency of the Italian provinces of Lombardy and Venetia " in regard to seri- culture, and the filatures, which are subsidised by the State, are of the latest Italian design. The output of cocoons was 1,170 metric tons in 1903, the average of the five preceding years being 1,525 metric tons ; and the total Austria-Hungarian production for that year was 3,264 metric tons of cocoons yielding 275 metric tons (606,265 lb.) of raw silk. The export of cocoons took place through Trieste, through which port there was also a considerable import of raw material for Austrian looms ; since, as pointed out by Sir Frank Warner {Report of 78 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD Committee of Board of Trade on Textile Industries, p. 40), the consumption in the Dual Monarchy for 191 1, a normal pre-war year, was 807 metric tons — more than twice the production, which in that year was 217 tons for Austria and 135 for Hungary. Spanish Production. — The modern history of sericul- ture in the Western Mediterranean countries has been one of a decline more marked than in Central Europe, and in Spain the downfall has been more complete than in France. Receiving the industry from the Moors, Spain was the first country in Europe to practise sericulture. The climate is well suited to the mulberry and the silk- worm, especially in the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada ; and in the sixteenth century there was a large production and manufacture of silk. Civil discord, heavy taxation, and, as a culmination, the pebrine epidemic of 1848, annihilated the industry so far as Seville was concerned ; and the total production of raw silk in Spain, which was 171 metric tons in 1872, has not exceeded 100 tons since 1896 ; but, after keeping with difficulty at 1,100,000 kilos of cocoons (82,000 kilos of raw silk), fell in 1914 to 740,000 kilos, giving 73,000 kilos of silk, and in 191 5 to 50,000 kilos. An attempt is now being made to rehabilitate the industry. A School of Sericulture has been established at San Juan de Azualforache, near Seville, and other model stations are being started, mul- berry plants and eggs are being distributed and prizes offered for good rearing and reeling. The cocoon pro- duction in 1914-15 had reached 954,825 kilos, and for 1913, 1914 and 1917 an average of 1,240,806 kilos, but for 1918, 863,801, and in 1919, 880,586 kilos or only 71 per cent, of that average. The export of cocoons has fluc- tuated considerably; but averaged between 1901 and 1 91 2, 54,478 kilos, while the import of raw and thrown silk during the same period averaged 311,615 kilos. In his estimate for 191 1, Sir Frank Warner (loc. cit.) puts Spain's production of silk at 82,000 kilos, and her con- sumption at 133,000 kilos. Italian Production. — From a.d. 1146, when Roger the Norman settled Greek prisoners at Palermo and in Calabria to teach his subjects sericulture and silk-weaving, THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 79 Italy has always occupied a leading place among both the silk-producing and the silk-manufacturing countries of the world. In i860 Italy produced 4,232 metric tons of raw silk, and 984 tons of waste, having a combined value of over twelve million sterling. Between 1863 and 1866 she suffered temporarily from the ravages of disease, but soon began to recover, her production rising from 20,000 metric tons of cocoons in 1880 to 50,000, which was nearly the average between 1904 and 191 3, and culminating in 1907 with a yield of 57,058 tons of cocoons. There is a large import of cocoons from the Levant and the Far East, and the reeling both of these and of native-grown cocoons is mainly concentrated in the three northern provinces, Lombardy carrying out 60 per cent, of the whole, and with Venetia and Piedmont 80 per cent. The plains of the Po thus yield fully three-fourths of the European silk crop. The following table, compiled from various sources, gives the weight of cocoons produced and imported into Italy, the weight of home-grown raw silk produced and the total production of raw silk in lb. during the present century. Year s. Cocoona Raw silk (Italian) Cocoons Raw silk (total) produced. produced. imported. produced. I90I 118,027,035 8.883,945 7.616,070 11.157.300 1902 . 123,457,600 9.871.785 9,223,515 11,995.200 1903 97,222,860 7.773.419 10.246,635 9,997,861 1904 • 124,838,435 10,804,500 7,499,205 12.460.455 1905 . 114.525.700 9,108,000 10,744,965 12,242.160 1906 118,712,790 10,439,000 12,328,155 13.333.635 1907 125,812,890 10,758,000 12,899,250 13.831.465 1908 . 117,290,565 9,869,200 9,948,960 12,123,090 1909 111,925,800 9.353.455 13.355.685 I9I0 105,760,620 8,703.135 9,660,720 10,784,655 I9II 92,500,955 7.695.450 11,626,965 10,394,370 1912 104,671.350 9.051.725 10,617,075 11.481,435 1913 84,870,450 7,805,700 11,144,070 10,367.910 I9I4 8,952.300 — — 1915 76,258,400 6.345.990 — — I9I6 78,969,320 7,964,460 — — I9I7 66,847.320 6.217.034 — I9I8 65,128,200 5.942.475 — — I9I9 43.639,200 4.046.175 — — 1920 59,500,000 — — ' — At its highest point the industry seems to have included upwards of 90,000 silkworm rearers, incubating 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 oz. of eggs, i.e. 12 oz. to each peasant family engaging in the work, raising 125,000,000 lb. of cocoons, 8q the silk trade OF THE WORLD or about 104 lb. per oz. of eggs, from which over 10,750,000 lb. of raw silk was obtained. The import of 5,850 metric tons (12,899,250 lb.) of foreign cocoons brought the total yield of raw silk for 1907 up to 13,831,465 lb., while in 1909 the number of mills is given as 2,413, employing 20,000 males and 212,000 female workers, at wages totalling ;^3,ooo,ooo. The imposition by France of a duty of 3 francs per kilo on Italian manu- factured silk in 1892 gave rise to the rivalry between Milan and Lyons, which led to the transfer of the centre of the European silk trade from the latter to the former as completely as the removal in 1862 of the British duty on imported silk had transferred it from London to Lyons. Silk became not only the leading agricultural industry of Italy, with Milan for its centre, but the annual importation of over 2,000,000 lb. of raw silk from China and Japan to the Milan conditioning house made it one of the chief items in the foreign trade of Italy ; and the silk-weaving industry, of which Como is the centre, contributed one of the leading articles of export. Among the causes assigned for the relative decline of the industry in Italy during the last ten years are emigration and the consequent rise in the cost of labour tempting many peasants to abandon sericulture for more remunerative work ; the lessened demand from America, formerly the chief market for Italian raw silk, in consequence of the competitive cheaper supply from Japan ; the fashion for skimpy skirts ; the replacement of the former mixed cultivation of mulberries and wheat by rice-fields and meadows ; the death of the mulberries from the deep ploughing and chemical manures employed for cereals ; and the ravages for several years of the Japanese Mulberry Scale-insect {Diaspis pentagona). Although far outdistanced by Japan throughout the present century, Italy still ranks third as to the quantity and first as to the quality of the raw silk produced by the countries of the world. French Production. — In spite of previous debddes well- nigh fatal, such as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the Revolution, the production of raw silk in France culminated in the middle years of the nineteenth century. THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 8i With the ever-growing democratic demand for plain broad silk, it had risen from 500 metric tons to 1,000 between 1820 and 1830, from 1,000 to 1,500 tons between 1830 and 1840, and by 1854 it exceeded 2,000 tons per annum. The large breeders brought millions of worms together in one room, and, as generally happens when vast numbers of any one species of plant or animal are brought together, disease became epidemic. First noticed in the Cevennes in 1 849, when a severe spring frost, killing many of the mulberry-trees, rendered the food-supply inadequate, it spread rapidly, seeming to precede the " graineurs " or buyers of silkworms' eggs, to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, the Caucasus and Turkestan, whither they went in search of a sound strain. Japanese eggs alone gave uniformly good results ; but the intro- duction of Pasteur's remedial selection by " cellular incubation," which did not become universal in France until 1875, was powerless to prevent the decline of the industry. The cheaply produced silks of China and Japan, brought direct to Marseilles after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, without the intervention of London brokerage, had obtained a sure footing in the European market during the period of unsuccessful rearing (1850 to 1875) ; and a revolution in the relative importance of the sources of the raw material of the silk-weaving industries of Europe had begun, which was to be paralleled by a similar change in the main centre of the manufacture itself. Before the ravages of pebrine the silk-weaving industry in Europe had been mainly dependent upon raw silk of European production, Italian, French and Spanish, whilst the contribution of the Far East to the silk trade of the world consisted mainly of rare and costly woven goods from China and India, Japan being then closed to foreign commerce. Since the epidemic, China, and especi- ally Japan, have been steadily increasing their share in the supply of the raw material. The production of cocoons in France between 1870 and 1874 was about 12,000 metric tons ; between 1892 and 1901 it had fallen to an average of 8,615 tons ; between 1904 and 191 3 to one of 6,878 tons. The yield of raw silk, which may be calculated at about one-twelfth of the weight of the 82 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD cocoons, sank from 624 metric tons as an average between 1904 and 1909 to 405 tons in 19 14, whilst the number of silkworm-rearers shows a similarly constant decline, from 133,000 in 1901 to less than 84,000 in 1914.1 In 1844 sericulture was carried on in 64 Departments ; it is now confined to 22, and mamly to Ardeche, Gard and Drome. Among the causes assigned for the decline, most of which are likely to be progressively operative, are : the uncer- tainty of the price as largely dependent on the vagaries of fashion ; the want of scientific methods and of organisa- tion ; the alleged competition of artificial silk, the pro- duction of which in France by 191 2 was stated to be nearly four times as much as that of real home-grown mulberry silk ; but, above all, the competition of silk grown in the Far East in improving qualities and in ever- growing quantities at a cost far below what is possible in France ; and the extreme riskiness of the crop. Disease among the mulberry-trees, or among the silkworms, or some slight change of weather at a critical period in the breeding season, may kill the entire stock in a few hours ; so that the peasant of the Rhone Valley has come to prefer some less lucrative but more certain source of revenue, such as his vines and olives. In short, where there is some hope of maintaining or increasing the supply of cheap labour, improved seri- cultural methods and organisation may maintain or enlarge the output of raw silk. The prospect is more hopeful where the cultivation of a univoltine worm enables the industry to be carried on mainly by women and children, and during a part of the year, so that it is merely subsidiary to other forms of agriculture. The compara- tively small yields of Spain, Hungary, Caucasus, Cyprus, Persia, Central Asia and Kashmir may be thus increased, and that of Italy maintained, but in most of these cases there is a probability of other crops proving more attrac- tive. In France a silkworm-rearer makes about fifty shillings in the season, a little over a month, in which he thus supplements his agricultural earnings ; in Bengal a whole family will earn about an equal amount by two ^ See Annuaire Statistique, 35 (1916-18), pp. 60, 123-4, ^^^ Statistical Abstract for Foreign Countries, 1901-12, pp. 146-7. THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 83 months' work. It has been possible for a " paternal " Government to force sericulture upon Hungary, Kashmir and Patiala with considerable success ; but the Bengal ryot can earn more by growing rice and jute ; so that, unless sericulture can be carried on subsidiarily to such other forms of agriculture, it would be worse than useless to attempt to force him to grow silk. For the present, the cheap labour of Japan, and still more of China, dominates the situation, and there seems a probability that it will supply more than the present 85 per cent, of the world's raw silk. The following table (from The American Silk Journal, 38 (191 9), p. y2), gives the approxi- mate percentages of the world's export of raw silk during recent years : Japan. China. Italy. France. C ther countries. I9I3 • 44-4 31-2 130 1-3 IO-2 1914 • 42-7 27-3 i8-3 1-8 9-9 I9I5 • 507 30-9 12-2 •5 5-7 I9I6 • 53-0 27-8 13-3 •8 5-0 I9I7 • 57-6 26-0 IO-5 •8 5-1 Consumption of Raw Silk The table on p. 35 {supra) gives an attempt to estimate the world's consumption of raw silk in 191 3, omitting China and Japan as not readily estimable. During the war so few returns have been available that it has been found impracticable to carry this estimate beyond 191 3. The uncertainties in it refer to the same countries as to which the figures representing production were doubtful, China and Japan. The estimated production in the former country has been touched upon already : it not improbably errs on the side of excess. Japan is mostly credited merely with the consumption of the difference between the home production and the export as given in the official figures, without any allowance for her imports. These, however, apparently consist mainly of cocoons and of raw wild (tussah) silk. United States. — The most striking feature in the history of silk-manufacture during the last fifty years has been the constant and rapid advance in the amount and value of the imports of raw silk, and the manufactured output, of the United States. The following table shows 84 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD that the figures attained, though colossal, and now repre- senting about half the world's production, have been reached by a constant and steady advance from 1870 onwards, when measured at decennial periods. Growth of Silk Manufacture in the United States {From data of the Bureau of Statistics, Department of Commerce, "The American Silk Journal," 38, p. 60, and other soiirces.) Capital. No. of Raw silk used. Cost of materials. Approximate Dollars. wage-earners. lb. Dollars. value of product. Year. No. of establishments 1850 i860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1905 1910 1914 1918 1919 67 139 86 382 472 483 624 852 902 * 678,300 2,926,980 6,231,130 19,125,300 51,007,537 81,082,201 109,557.000 152,158,000 210,072,000 * 1.723 5.435 6,649 31.337 49,382 65,416 79,601 99,037 108,170 Figures not available. 462,965 684,488 2,690,482 6,376.881 9,760,770 11,572,783 17.729,306 25,021,945 34,500,000 37,485,000 1 Estimate 1.093,860 3,901,777 7.817,559 22,467,701 51,004,425 62,406,665 75,861,000 107,767,000 144,442,000 181,125,000 200,000,000 ^ {Journ. Soc. Arts, i 376,974 1,376,618 2,500,000 8,300,000 17,500,000 21,500,000 27,768,333 41,023,333 52.918,958 75,000,000 104,166,666 * 67, 750). During the present century, while the European con- sumption has increased slowly, but on the whole steadily, the American, when considered year by year, exhibits various abrupt and violent fluctuations which have given it a dominating influence on market prices. The following table shows these contrasting details of growth of consumption (in lb.). Europe. United States. Europe. United States. I90I . 28,742,340 11,660,000 1909 . , 30,806.600 22,083,600 1902 . 28,572,500 13,200,000 1910 33.078,996 22,110,080 1903 . 26,402,860 11,220,000 1911 ■ 29,913.030 22,300,000 1904 . 28,699,000 16,027,000 1912 32,021.010 24,657.600 1905 • 24,989,800 15,281,200 1913 , 30,526,020 27,016,000 1906 . 29,665,600 16,658,400 1914 28,595,000 1907 . 30.538,200 15,675.000 1915 — 26,031,000 1908 . 28,837,600 18,818,800 1916 — 33,071,000 1917 — 33,075.000 Beyond its rapidity of growth, the American con- sumption of raw silk in manufacture exhibits two striking features, its increasing dependence upon Japan for the raw material and the almost complete consumption of the manufactured goods within the country. Between 1905 and 1910 the United States took from 65 to 75 per cent, of the Japanese export ; in the latter year it was noted that she was buying less from Italy and France, and that the Japanese spinners were making every effort to meet special American requirements ; and from 191 4 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 85 America has taken 83 per cent, of the Japanese export. In spite of a protective tariff, American production has only been supplying about five-sixths of her consumption of manufactured silk, having an import of about eight million sterling in annual value, nearly half of which came from France. The manufacture has become con- centrated in proximity to the iron industries of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut, which employ large numbers of men whose wives and daughters have provided an abundant supply of efficient labour ; and manu- facturing enterprise has made effective use of constantly renewed and specialised machinery. The published figures show that the export of manufactured silk is but a very small proportion (1-5 per cent.) of the output. An Ameri- can Commerce Report for September, 191 9, states that " the noticeable feature of the situation is that it is the working class which has benefited largely by the war, and which is chiefly responsible for the high cost of all articles owing to its demand for better clothes, better food, and the higher standard of living. Everyone in America to-day wants silk clothing instead of the linen or cotton to which he or she has been accustomed, and, if people can afford to buy a silk garment at all, they are not so very much concerned about the cost of it. As Japan is by far the largest producer of silk, it commands the situation, and if Japan silk is higher in price it is reflected more or less in other producing countries. The demand in America is increasing largely, and the world's supply at the present moment is quite inadequate." At the same time, the manufacturers were experiencing an alarming scarcity of female labour. Foreign immigrants who had been earning triple their pre-war wage had returned to their own lands ; temporary women munition-workers were remaining in the metal trades in which they can now earn higher wages ; and, owing to the advanced rates of pay in all industries, wives and daughters no longer find it necessary to work, and children are kept longer at school. France. — In spite of the decline of her home production and of the competition of German, Swiss, Italian and Russian manufactures in the European market, France has for some years maintained a very uniform consump- 86 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD tion of about 9,400,000 lb. of raw silk, second only, that is, to the United States, in the silk-manufacture of the world, her supplies being drawn from various sources, Syrian, Japanese and Chinese more especially. In the early part of the last century the Jacquard looms of Lyons showed themselves as adaptable to the changing demands of fashion as had her handlooms in previous times ; but, failing to realise the greater rapidity of fashion changes due in large measure to the introduction of the sewing-machine, her manufacturers persisted in producing brocades which were too durable and too costly for the widening market, until their German and Swiss competitors had stepped in to supply the demand for cheaper goods. Both French and American silk-buyers seem alive to the prospective inadequacy of the Japanese supply, and to the consequent desirability of improving both in quality and quantity the next most available source, that of China. There is at present in that country hardly any selection of eggs, the worms are overcrowded and insufficiently fed, so that nearly 75 per cent, of those hatched die before spinning, and an ounce of eggs produces 15 to 25 lb. of cocoons instead of the 1 10-133 lb. obtained elsewhere ; the mulberries also are stated to produce only two-thirds of what they might. The existing area and number of workers should yield from twice to five times as much as they do. The French Chamber of Commerce at Shanghai is establishing a central Sericultural Institute with local branch schools ; in conjunction with the Foreign Silk Association and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, they have formed a Committee to expedite improvements ; and the Silk Association of America has sent representatives to China, armed with cinematograph films, to teach improved methods of rearing and reeling. Germany. — Assisted in its home market by a protective tariff, and by a labour supply, like that of the United States, in cities largely engaged in hardware, such as Elberfeld, Barmen and Crefeld, the German manufacture of imported raw silk has grown slowly, but on the whole steadily, during the present century, the imports rising from 6,569 metric tons, value £7,350,000, in 1902 to 8,601 tons, value £9,288,650, in 19 12. With careful considera- THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 87 tion for the demand, Crefeld first specialised in cheap velvets, mixed with spun silk ("tussah ") and cotton, and more recently has consumed large quantities of artificial silk both of German manufacture and imported. Switzerland. — Before the war, the Swiss import of un- manufactured silk had ranged during the century about 5,000-6,000 metric tons per annum, some 4,000 tons being raw, thrown or spun silk from Japan, France and Italy, and the rest " waste." Of these amounts 3,000 tons of raw and 1,000 tons of waste were re-exported, largely as spun and schappe yarns, to Germany and other continental countries. The number of looms in the country declined from 16,000 in 19 10 to 14,600 in 191 2, and the produc- tion of broad silk (the centre for which is Zurich) from 53,500,000 yards in 1908 to 50,000,000 in 1910 and 46,500,000 in 191 2. Almost all the manufacture is ex- ported, and formerly Zurich sent 70 per cent, of her production to the United Kingdom ; but though, since the removal of the war embargo on Swiss exports, the amount taken by the United Kingdom has increased above that taken in 191 3, and the value is more than four times what it was then, the amounts taken from Japan, and still more from the United States, have increased in a higher proportion. The ribbon manufacture at Basle, one of the largest in the world, is, on the other hand, expanding, the production in 19 16 being 500 tons (value £2,924,560) of which 360 tons (value ;Ci,745,28o), came to the United Kingdom. In 1920 the United Kingdom import reached a value of £3,204,541 . Russia.— Up to the outbreak of war, revolution and anarchy, the Russian silk industry seems to have been developing somewhat rapidly. While the import of manufactured silk had more than doubled during the century, from a value of £472,600 in 1902 to one of £1,058,462 in 191 1, the import of raw silk (mainly from Italy and Japan) increased from 3,153,150 lb. in 1903 to 3,792,600 lb. in 191 1 ; and most of the silk produced in the Empire was woven in the environs of Moscow. The production in the Caucasus was about a quarter of the amount consumed in the home manufacture. The estab- lishment of low through rates for silk from Japan to 7 88 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD Moscow, and the German and Austro-Hungarian frontiers, by the Trans-Siberian Railway from the beginning of 191 3, by which it could reach the Russian manufacturing centre in a month instead of the two and a half months occupied in its transport via Marseilles, was presumed to be intended to have rendered Russia independent of the Lyons market, and to have made Moscow a market for the supply of Japanese silk to the whole of Europe. {F.O. Consular Reports, Annual Series, No. 5,324, Lyons, 1913, p. 14.) United Kingdom. — Although, as compared with those of the countries already discussed, the volume of British silk manufacture and export is small, the industry in this country has had a long and interesting history, and it now occupies a technical position far superior to, and independent of, its commercial importance. There was a manufacture of ribbon, or narrow silk, by women, in London, as early as 1363, the raw silk being imported from Italy. When, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the weaving of broad silk was introduced, we were dependent on Turkey for raw silk, though efforts were made to obtain a Persian supply through Russia. By 1680 there are said to have been 40,000 persons employed upon silk in England, and the East India Com- pany was beginning that import of Persian, Indian and subsequently Chinese raw silk by way of the Cape which made London the chief raw silk mart until the middle of the nineteenth century. The manufacture, however, began its period of greatest prosperity after the Huguenot immigration of 1685. It flourished at numerous scattered centres, in part owing to the availability of partly skilled labour, and of machinery employed in pre-existing textile industries, together with the prohibition from 1701 of the import of either thrown or manufactured silks from Persia, India or China. In 1713 there were stated to be 300,000 persons employed in the industry in England, and our manufacture was twenty times as great as it had been fifty years before. English silk-weaving would seem to have begun to decline probably from competition with the output of the Jacquard looms of Lyons, before the removal of the protective import duties in i860. In THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD 89 1851 there were 130,000 silk-weavers in England, in 1859 there were 70 or 80 ribbon manufacturers, employing from 10,000 to 12,000 weavers between them, in Coventry- alone ; and Macclesfield had 5,000 to 6,000 looms ; but, from the removal of the import duty on manufactured silk, " the decline of the industry has been both rapid and continuous " ; and when the opening of the Suez Canal in 1 869 so diverted the traffic that Chinese and Japanese silk came direct to Marseilles, Lyons and Milan superseded London as the distributing centres of the world's silk crop. Labour in Cheshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire was largely drawn away to the more profitable woollen and cotton industries, and it became impossible for British manufacturers to compete in the production of cheap dress silks with continental looms employing labour at less than half the rate of wages in England. The rate of decline is clearly shown by the numbers of the workers in the manufacture in England and Wales in successive decades, which were as follow : 1907 . 29,278 I85I . 130.723 I88I • 64,835 I86I . 116,320 1891 52,027 I87I . 82,963 1901 • 39,035 The manufacture of cheap dress silks has gone to Svvitzerland and Italy, where labour is much cheaper, and that of thrown silk to the latter country (Sir Frank Warner, in Journ. Soc. Arts, 52 (1904), p. 124 and 60 (1911-12), p. 393). Many of the weavers emigrated from Macclesfield (where the number of looms had by 1904 fallen to 1,250) to Patterson, in New Jersey, the centre of American silk-weaving ; and the concluding figures of the above table would have shown a still steeper decline if the manufactures of net ^ silk had not, especially after the inventions of the late Lord Masham, been to some extent replaced by the growth of the spun silk industry. Though mercerised cotton and artificial silk have to some extent taken away the market for some Chinese silk, and the schappe process (which is not permitted in England) enables continental spinners to produce from short cheap material a fairly even yarn with which we cannot compete in price, English spun yarns, made from " waste " silk 1 Silk reeled from the cocoon. 90 THE SILK TRADE OF THE WORLD (upon which 10,000 workers are employed at Brighouse alone) cannot be surpassed in quality. The small remnant of silk manufacture in England has also maintained a very high standard of excellence in those high-priced brocades, velvets and other silks which can bear a high rate of wages ; and, especially at Macclesfield, Bradford and Leek, fully equipped technical courses of education have been maintained, in spinning, dyeing, design and weaving, which are most beneficial to other textile industries, as well as to the silk manufactures of the world. The imports and re-exports of raw, thrown and waste silk into the United Kingdom between 1857 and 19 14 are summarised in Rawlley's Economics of the Silk Industry, p. 277 ; the imports and countries of origin of the raw silk are given in detail in the official Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom ; and the exports of manufactured silk from 1901 to 1914 in the Encyclopcedia Britannica (ed. 11), vol. xxv, p. 105. During 1920 the position of the raw silk trade has changed very much, the demand having ceased to advance, so that large stocks of raw material are accumulating in all silk-producing countries, and particularly in Japan. Pfinted by Hattll, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and AyUsbury, England. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINe"0F 25 CENTS OVERDUE. WOV 27 1933 ___acaLl2-lS3i :,m-2^-^^ -^-^^^AzySTCE ^m, "^1^1^ LD 21-100m-7,'33 "(C 8' 236 ^BTJTfys / UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY •'•..' i BULLBTIN OF THE IMPERIAL INSTITUTE A QUARTERLY RECORD OF PROGRESS TROPICAL AGRICULTURE AND INF. TRIES AND THE COMMERCIAL UTILIS Tu>N OF THE NATURAL RESOURCES t TFU^^ nOMlNIONS, COLONIES AND IN , IN £DiTP:D BY THE IDTRECTOR AND PREPARED ^HE sciE>'T:rFjr ^d technical staff THE IMPEPIAf .iNoxITUTE AND BY OTHi.R CONTRIBUTORS Price 3s. 6d. act. Aiinual Stbscnption, 14s. net (p'k . and Technical I nvestignr ns 01 he r^minions, Colonies, a-j :a tlie i;lilisation or their ii^vlurr SpfciaJ Articles relating 10 l-o^.^ss in/rroi>ical Agiicuiture I rnercial Utiils:^.^ * Raw Alaterials (vegetable and mineral) i^??''ces of recciii: bouksj Reports, Journals, and other Fubh . deal ng -.Viii T-^.>r:--:ii AgncuUiire and the Developri^e"'- •'' Natur '. 1 sources. 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