SEEING IT THROUGH

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9618, 26 March 1917, Page 6

SEEING IT THROUGH

RESOURCEFUL VENICE REVIVING OLD CRAFTS IN CITY OF THE DOGES. “It may interest your readers who know Venice as a city of splendid art and pleasure, of lagoons and gondolas and mandolins and magic moonlight—in Venice they don’t like Hho moonlight any more, it breeds aeroplanes—bo hear some dry facta about the way in which the war has been and is being met,” says a correspondent in the' “Spectator.” ■ “With the outbreak of; war in Europe the Adriatic was instantly closed on account of mines; the port of Venice ceased to operate. The gradual strangulation of all commerce and transport business, on which 16,000 of the population depended, the cessation of tne fishery, the absence of tourists and the closing of hotels —-all this sudden shrinkage of resources, entailing great hardships on the poor and lower middle classes, .coupled with the dread that their men might hare to fight with and for their secular enemy, Austria, induced u. ferment among the population which ended in ugly riots in the Piazza and at the Bragora. The situation was alarming, and the prospect of one-half of the population living on the other through the approaching winter intolerable.

SAVING THE SITUATION. ' “Fresh Industries, toy-making, bas-ket-making, regimental badges, and, after Italy went to war, military clothing of every kind, were set agoing, and now these Laboratory Municipal! are employing well over 5000 hands, and have largely helped to tide Venice over the most dangerous period of distress. “Inquiries among the small industrials of Venice led to the surprising discovery that, hidden away in garrets and up rickety stairs, there still existed craftsmen capable of beautiful and artistic work in the traditional industries of the city, such as fine leather, brocades, ironwork—men, artists in the true significance of the term, inspired by the old guild-sense of craftsmanship, but who, for lack of capita], organisation, and the opportu-

nity to reach a market, were now dragging out a precarious existence. The old spirit Is not dead in Venice. It is to rescue and re-establish such artificers, and at the same time to co-ordi-nate and give impulse to the more prosperous Venotian industries such as lace, glass, and furniture, that another society has been formed. So far it has met with encouraging success. It is paying its way and slowly acquiring the confidence of the craits. “The general outcome of this fine endeavour is that, in spite of great hardships, the people of Venice are facing the war with a kind of philosophical endurance not untempered by a just pride in the part they are playing.”