was employed. Sardinian coral commands from £3 to £4 per kilogramme (2.204 ℔), and is much more valuable than the Sicilian coral. The Sciacca reefs were again closed for three winters by a decree of 1904. The fishing is largely carried on by boats from Torre del Greco, in the Gulf of Naples, where the best coral beds are now exhausted. In 1879 4000 men were employed; in 1902 only just over 1000. In 1902 there were 48 tunny fisheries, employing 3006 men, and 5116 tons of fish worth £80,000 were caught. The main fisheries are in Sardinia, Sicily and Elba. Anchovy and sardine fishing (the products of which are reckoned among the general total) are also of considerable importance, especially along the Ligurian and Tuscan coasts. The lagoon fisheries are also of great importance, more especially those of Comacchio, the lagoon of Orbetello and the Mare Piccolo at Taranto &c. The deep-sea fishing boats in 1902 numbered 1368, with a total tonnage of 16,149; 100 of these were coral-fishing boats and 111 sponge-fishing boats.
Industrial Progress.—The industrial progress of Italy has been great since 1880. Many articles formerly imported are now made at home, and some Italian manufactures have begun to compete in foreign markets. Italy has only unimportant lignite and anthracite mines, but water power is abundant and has been largely applied to industry, especially in generating electricity. The electric power required for the tramways and the illumination of Rome is entirely supplied by turbines situated at Tivoli, and this is the case elsewhere, and the harnessing of this water-power is capable of very considerable extension. A sign of industrial development is to be found in the growing number of manufacturing companies, both Italian and foreign.
The chief development has taken place in mechanical industries, though it has also been marked in metallurgy. Sulphur mining supplies large industries of sulphur-refining and grinding, in spite of American competition. Very little pig iron is made, most of the iron ore being exported, and iron Mechanical industries. manufactured consists of old iron resmelted. For steel-making foreign pig iron is chiefly used. The manufacture of steel rails, carried on first at Terni and afterwards at Savona, began in Italy in 1886. Tin has been manufactured since 1892. Lead, antimony, mercury and copper are also produced. The total salt production in 1902 was 458,497 tons, of which 248,215 were produced in the government salt factories and the rest in the free salt-works of Sicily. Great progress has been made in the manufacture of machinery; locomotives, railway carriages, electric tram-cars, &c., and machinery of all kinds, are now largely made in Italy itself, especially in the north and in the neighbourhood of Naples. At Turin the manufacture of motor-cars has attained great importance and the F.I.A.T. (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) factory employs 2000 workmen, while eight others employ 2780 amongst them.
The textile industries, some of which are of ancient date, are among those that have most rapidly developed. Handlooms and small spinning establishments have, in the silk industry, given place to large establishments with steam looms. The production of raw silk at least tripled itself between 1875 and 1900, and the value Textiles. of the silks woven in Italy, estimated in 1890 to be £2,200,000, is now, on account of the development of the export trade, calculated to be almost £4,000,000. Lombardy (especially Como, Milan and Bergamo), Piedmont and Venetia are the chief silk-producing regions. There are several public assay offices in Italy for silk; the first in the world was established in Turin in 1750. The cotton industry has also rapidly developed. Home products not only supply the Italian market in increasing degree, but find their way into foreign markets. While importation of raw cotton increases importations of cotton thread and of cotton stuffs have rapidly decreased. The value of the annual produce of the various branches of the cotton industry, which in 1885 was calculated to be £7,200,000, was in 1900, notwithstanding the fall in prices, about £12,000,000. The industry is chiefly developed in Lombardy, Piedmont and Liguria; to some extent also in Campania, Venetia and Tuscany, and to a less extent in Lazio (Rome), Apulia, Emilia, the Marches, Umbria, the Abruzzi and Sicily. A government weaving school was established in Naples in 1906. As in the case of cotton, Italian woollen fabrics are conquering the home market in increasing degree. The industry centres chiefly in Piedmont (province of Novara), Venetia (province of Vicenza), Tuscany (Florence), Lombardy (Brescia), Campania (Caserta), Genoa, Umbria, the Marches and Rome. To some extent the industry also exists in Emilia, Calabria, Basilicata, the Abruzzi, Sardinia and Sicily. It has, however, a comparatively small export trade.
The other textile industries (flax, jute, &c.) have made notable progress. The jute industry is concentrated in a few large factories, which from 1887 onwards have more than supplied the home market, and have begun considerably to export.
Chemical industries show an output worth £2,640,000 in 1902 as against £1,040,000 in 1893. The chief products are sulphuric acid; sulphate of copper, employed chiefly as a preventive of certain maladies of the vine; carbonate of lead, hyperphosphates and chemical manures; calcium carbide; explosive Chemicals. powder; dynamite and other explosives. Pharmaceutical industries, as distinguished from those above mentioned, have kept pace with the general development of Italian activity. The principal product is quinine, the manufacture of which has acquired great importance, owing to its use as a specific against malaria. Milan and Genoa are the principal centres, and also the government military pharmaceutical factory at Turin. Other industries of a semi-chemical character are candle-, soap-, glue-, and perfume-making, and the preparation of india-rubber. The last named has succeeded, by means of the large establishments at Milan in supplying not only the whole Italian market but an export trade.
The match-making industry is subject to special fiscal conditions. In 1902–1903 there were 219 match factories scattered throughout Italy, but especially in Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia. The number has been reduced to less than half since 1897 by the suppression of smaller factories, while the production has increased from 47,690 millions to 59,741 millions.
The beetroot-sugar industry has attained considerable proportions in Umbria, the Marches, Lazio, Venetia and Piedmont since 1890. In 1898–1899, 5972 tons were produced, while in 1905 the figure had risen to 93,916. The rise of the industry has been favoured by protective tariffs and by a system of excise which allows a considerable premium to manufacturers.
Alcohol has undergone various oscillations, according to the legislation governing distilleries. In 1871 only 20 hectolitres were produced, but in 1881 the output was 318,000 hectolitres, the maximum hitherto attained. Since then special laws have hampered development, some provinces, as for instance Sardinia, being allowed to manufacture for their own consumption but not for export. In other parts the industry is subjected to an almost prohibitive excise-duty. The average production is about 180,000 hectolitres per annum. The greatest quantity is produced in Lombardy, Piedmont, Venetia and Tuscany. The quantity of beer is about the same, the greater part of the beer drunk being imported from Germany, while the production of artificial mineral waters has somewhat decreased. There is a considerable trade (not very large for export, however) in natural mineral waters, which are often excellent.
Paper-making is highly developed in the provinces of Novara, Caserta, Milan, Vicenza, Turin, Como, Lucca, Ancona, Genoa, Brescia, Cuneo, Macerata and Salerno. The hand-made paper of Fabriano is especially good.
Furniture-making in different styles is carried on all over Italy, especially as a result of the establishment of industrial schools. Each region produces a special type, Venetia turning out imitations of 16th- and 17th-century styles, Tuscany the 15th-century or cinquecento style, and the Neapolitan provinces the Pompeian style. Furniture and cabinet-making in great factories are carried on particularly in Lombardy and Piedmont. Bent-wood factories have been established in Venetia and Liguria.
A characteristic Italian industry is that of straw-plaiting for hat-making, which is carried on principally in Tuscany, in the district of Fermo, in the Alpine villages of the province of Vicenza, and in some communes of the province of Messina. The plaiting is done by country women, while the hats are made up in factories. Both plaits and hats are largely exported.
Tobacco is entirely a government monopoly; the total amount manufactured in 1902–1903 was 16,599 tons—a fairly constant figure.
The finest glass is made in Tuscany and Venetia; Venetian glass is often coloured and of artistic form.
In the various ceramic arts Italy was once unrivalled, but the ancient tradition for a long time lost its primeval impulse. The works at Vinovo, which had fame in the 18th century, came to an untimely end in 1820; those of Castelli (in the Abruzzi), which have been revived, were supplanted by Charles III.’s Artistic industries. establishment at Capodimonte, 1750, which after producing articles of surprising execution was closed before the end of the century. The first place now belongs to the Della Doccia works at Florence. Founded in 1735 by the marquis Carlo Ginori, they maintained a reputation of the very highest kind down to about 1860; but since then they have not kept pace with their younger rivals in other lands. They still, however, are commercially successful. Other cities where the ceramic industries keep their ground are Pesaro, Gubbio, Faenza (whose name long ago became the distinctive term for the finer kind of potter’s work in France, faïence), Savona and Albissola, Turin, Mondovi, Cuneo, Castellamonte, Milan, Brescia, Sassuolo, Imola, Rimini, Perugia, Castelli, &c. In all these the older styles, by which these places became famous in the 16th–18th centuries, have been revived. It is estimated that the total production of the finer wares amounts on the average to £400,000 per annum. The ruder branches of the art—the making of tiles and common wares—are pretty generally diffused.
The jeweller’s art received large encouragement in a country which had so many independent courts; but nowhere has it attained a fuller development than at Rome. A vast variety of trinkets—in coral, glass, lava, &c.—is exported from Italy, or carried away by the annual host of tourists. The copying of the paintings of the old masters is becoming an art industry of no small mercantile importance in some of the larger cities.
The production of mosaics is an industry still carried on with much success in Italy, which indeed ranks exceedingly high in the
