No Increase Of Imports Can Be Expected Until The General Advance Of Internal Prosperity Shall Enable The Population To Extend Their Demand For Foreign Manufactures.

We have seen that the peasantry are contented with the home-made cotton stuffs which they produce without an expenditure of money; and the habits of the agricultural classes are simple, and independent of external aid.

It will require many years before the customs of the Cypriotes shall be changed by the intercourse with strangers, and the increase of their wealth, commencing from the zero of poverty, must be the base of future expectations. We generally remark in the advancing desires of communities that women exert a powerful influence in the development of manufactures. The wholesome, and to a certain extent civilising, attention to personal appearance, creates a demand for articles of dress and other little vanities which encourage trade, and by degrees the improvement in every household expands into a new birth of external relations with foreign countries, which induces an increase of imports. The women of Cyprus are completely subjugated to their husbands, and although exempt from the cruelty unfortunately so prevalent among a similar class in England, they are seldom indulged in the love of finery which in our own country is carried to an excess. The baggy trousers and the high hob-nailed boots of the Cyprian Venus will hardly excite the ambition of British manufacturers, and for many years the females will remain in their present position. There are already soap manufactories in the island, and the first groundwork for improvements in personal habits will be ensured by their extension, before the exterior fineries of more civilised communities shall be introduced.

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