Straw Hats.

Attention has been called in the Legislature to the large quantity of straw hats imported annually. Last year 566 packages, valued at .£11,365, came into the colony, notwithstanding the fact that straw, of the same nature as and of equal goodness to the Tuscan, .Leghorn, or Dunstable kinds, can be easily enough produced in New Zealand. Those who have seen, the working of this important, pleasing, and healthful industry in the Counties of Bedford, Buckingham, and Herts, and have seen the old people and children plaiting their straw at the cottage doors, afterwards carrying their goods to the "plait" market in the nearest town, cannot but wonder that such an industry has never occurred to the minds of the agricultural classes in New Zealand. Straw hat and bonnet factories, such, as exist in Luton, Dunstable, and St. Albans would follow, and the manufacturer, with abundant raw material, and with sufficient female or boy labour, would soon hold his own with the imported article. The Government could aid the industry, not only by maintaining the present import duty, but by offering a bonus for the first five hundred bonnets or hats, or first thousand yards of straw plait.