SILK IN TURKEY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1932, Page 6

SILK IN TURKEY

WELL-DRESSED WOMEN

Tha Turks are fast developing into competent industrialists (states the "Manchester, Guardian* 1). Under the Sultans the nation could almost be divided into functionaries ■: and peasantry. Now it can ba divided into functionaries (still too large a class), bankers, traders, industrialists, and peasantry. While the agricultural interests have hardly moved , forward lately in spite of efforts, industry, previously non-existent, has been brought to importance and efficiency by means o£ national capital and national initiative. '■•■ i- ;■ ': ■•■■.'.

The> best example of this is the sUkl indnstry. Ten years ago there were only fifteen looms in the country j now there are eight hundred, many of them in Constantinople itself. The output of all kinds' of luxury silks^ is enormous, and the annual turnover about a quarter of a-million sterling. The Turkish women .now almost exclusively use (home-produced stuffs, and are becoming among the best-dressed women in •Europe. The quality of the silks manufactured is high, and imported silks can no longer compete. The manufacture of stockings, also for women, has become an equally important industry, and iwoollen manufactures' and leather, goods, including boots and shoes, are developing fast and are ousting foreign imports. ' ■.'"''■ ,: •;•'