Volume 65: Macarthur-Onslow correspondence, 1846-1929: No. 404

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Page [404]
9

  Oh, that our wealthy, with their tenderly-guarded daughters, could realise what the life of these homeless women really is.  Can nothing be done? It can.  Co-operative, productive enterprise will meet the difficulty.
 
THE SILK INDUSTRY.  ITS POSSIBILITIES.
 
  To begin with the Silk Industry, what are its possibilities?  The return in Italy alone from the land devoted to silk culture - an area which would be contained in one of our electorates - is about £6,000,000 annually.  In Piedmont 240 tons of cocoons find their way weekly to the markets during the silk season, grown chiefly in small quantities by cottagers each with only a few trees. 
  The return per acre from the land under mulberry in Europe, at lowest all round estimates, averages £24 10s.  It will hardly be credited, in contrast to this, that all the return from our 100,000,000 acres devoted to wool-growing in New South Wales, worked with over £100,000,000 of capital, is only, on the most liberal estimate, 1s 9d per acre, but such is actually the case.  Wheat returns an average of £2 10s to the acre; maize, £5 5s the acre; and sugar-cane £7 10s to £10 the acre.

  From the Board of Trade returns we learn that in Hungary the Government has advanced, since 1880, about £700,000 for the encouragement of this industry.
 

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