viceroy.
(Pranstated from the Universal Gazette.)
Tu 1897 Your Excellency was pleased to take into favourable consideration my sug-questions for remedying the decay of the Tea Trade. In that letter I alluded to the serious harm done to the Silk Industry through the. rapid extension of various Udiseases among the silkworms. In 1889 an endeavour was molle to deal with t!
ion under Mr. Commissioner Klein-of healthy moths only; a healthy. moth will produce healthy eas, and healthy eggs will produce healthy silkworms and, in turn, gued cocoons. This principle applies to all things—plants as well as animals. A healthy man will have healthy children, a_sick man will have sickly children. Similarly a healthy man, if overtaken by disease, will often successfully pull through it, whereas x weak, sickly man will succumb at once. This applies to silkworms also; healthy worms resist the disease, sickly Ones die before making their cocoons.
Now it may be said that almost all the worms are diseased and this is the immediate danger that threatens the Chinese Silk Industry. Whereas formerly three piculs of cocoons sufficed to make one of silk, last year five piculs were reguired and this year six and s-halfpieuls wing therefore to bad and short crops the cocoons were, this year, dear and very inferior. Consequently many foreign filntures found it absolutely impossible to carry on their work, and closed. Your Excellency knows that China no longer commands the markets of the world and that, consequently, if through bad crops and excessive taxation the price of silk rises above the market rates, foreign countries will go to Japan, France, and Italy for their silk, and China will thus lose a great source of wealth. This, however, can be averted if the Government. ant Provinces take timely action, Present taxation on silk is heavy and must not be increased, int by stopping the disease the Goverment can ut. once double "the silk erous and at, the same time double the revenue, enrich the Provinees, and defy foreign competition by lowering the price of China silk; and with ch aper silk, the demand will increase and with it the pro. duction, These are simple economical facts, Now what would be the best of dealing with the disease? The harm done already is 50 intense and so widespread that adequate steps must be taken under skilled supervision. In France forty years ago the Pasteur system checked disease in a few years and saved that nation's silk industry from utter ruin. In China it will do the june. What it is now proposed to do is firstly, to study the extent of the disease, and secondly to teach Chinese breeders how''o select healthy eggs. The Chekiang and Kiangsu Provinces ure equally affected and equally interested in arresting thy disease; therefore, in devising remedial measures, joint assistance and joint action are, necessary. My proposal now is as follows: that a nursery be established in the most convenient part of Kiangsu, and one in Chekiang, each station to be under the direct change of one Foreign assistant and both stations to be under a Foreign director, whose duty it shall be to direct studies, Expensive hulllings need not be erected. 'Temples in suitable localities would—with slight alterations—answer the purpose, Tt i aewl that in thres years' time the and native breed. ing from below th of the al stern-post, and it has also a large extending forward of the rudder-stock. Of her deck fittings we would draw attention to the unique arrangement for the awnings. Spread over the derricks in the usual manner, they are carried out, not to ridge chains rove through stanchions, but to hanks on a_ traveller which runs along the bulwarks fore and aft. In the centre-castle on the main-deck is space for the carting of a Inrge number of pilgrims or coolies, there being special facilities for the convenience of same. The engines (4,500 ih.p.), which are by the same builders, are triple-expansion, with cylinders of29, 50, and 82inches dim. and a60-in. stroke.' Steam is supplied from two double-ended boilers working at 180 Ibs. pressure, and fitted with Howden's forced draught, circulated by a jnicly free irom diser others were only partially con. laminated. Since then the disease has made enormous progress and it may now be ssid that all the districts are affected, and unless action is taken at once to check the disease one of China's most important industries will he lost for ever, and the Government and will lose a large revenue, while Kiangsu and Chekiang Provinces, hit made rich and prosperous through the Industry, will become poorer and poorer every year. Your Excellency is aware that, forty years ago, the same condition of affairs existed in France and that the Silk T dustry there was on the point of being ruined for ever, when Pasteur found means of checking the disease and gradually eradicating it, and the simple plan. is—by help of the micrasgope—to make use fers te goon by themselves, require! is that each Pro nee shh guarantee for three years the sum of 6,000, and if this support is promised the Commissioner will then move the Inspector General to assist also, and appoint the necessary men. Tt ig a case of help yourself and God will help you.' Before the Inspector-General and the Yanién will again consent to act and assist, the Provinces must first of all show their willingness and readiness to deal with the matter in an earnest spirit. The reports that the Commissioner has received this year from the various merchants engaged in the trade are very bad, and it is because he foresees ruin for the Silk Industry of these two Provinces that he now makes this earnest appeal.
China is now passing through a very serious crisis. She is oppressed because
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.