By careful management the salt might exhibit an increase, but on the
other hand, the wine, if relieved from the present extreme taxation,
would for the first two or three years ensure a considerable reduction.
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.
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