Vii.—: Millinery and Artificial Flowers.

This manufacture employs some 100,000 persons; and it stands tenth in the list of French exports at £54,400,000. Dependent altogether on the protected industries, it pays duty on the flour used for making paste, on the wire on which the flowers are fixed which are made of dutiable paper. In the Seine Department there is a falling off in the number of employés; 18,207 in 1896, it was only 16,865 in 1901. From the above statistics the conclusion can be drawn that Protection, restricting the choice of materials, injures these industries. They need free scope, and their expansion is hindered by Protection to those textiles on which they depend.