72 THE DECENTRALISATION 



extension that home supplies of raw silk became 

 insufficient, and raw silk was imported from 

 Italy, Spain and Southern Austria, Asia Minor, 

 the Caucasus and Japan, to the amount of from 

 9,000,000 to 11,000,000 in 1875 and 1876, 

 while France had only 800,000 worth of her own 

 silk. Thousands of peasant boys and girls were 

 attracted by high wages to Lyons and the neigh- 

 bouring district ; the industry was prosperous. 



However, by-and-by new centres of silk trade 

 grew up at Basel and in the peasant houses 

 round Ziirich. French emigrants imported the 

 trade into Switzerland, and it developed there, 

 especially after the civil war of 1871. Then the 

 Caucasus Administration invited French work- 

 men and women from Lyons and Marseilles to 

 teach the Georgians and the Russians the best 

 means of rearing the silkworm, as well as the 

 whole of the silk trade ; and Stavropol became 

 a new centre for silk weaving. Austria and the 

 United States did the same ; and what are now 

 the results ? 



During the years 1872 to 1881 Switzerland 

 more than doubled the produce of her silk in- 

 dustry ; Italy and Germany increased it by one- 

 third ; and the Lyons region, which formerly 

 manufactured to the value of 454 million francs 

 a year, showed in 1887 a return of only 378 

 millions. The exports of Lyons silks, which 



