ABSTRACT
Whatever may be said of the slothfulness of the inhabitants of the south and west of Ireland, no want of energy can be charged against the people of the north, for they went earnestly to work at their peculiar industry, so soon as an extra profit was tolerably certain to follow their exertions. The following table, contributed by the Belfast chamber of commerce, will show the progress of flax cultivation during the last three years:—
During the same period the imports of scutched flax and codilla of flax, into the United Kingdom were as follow :—
The economy of labour in the production of linen yarns appears to have made great progress during the last decade. Ten years ago, nine or ten leas per spindle per week of No. 30's yarn was considered good work ; but in 1865 eighteen leas per week of the same number were produced. The bundle is made up of two hundred leas. In linen, as in woollen, the spindles were not equal to the work to be done; and foreign countries were called upon for increasing quantities of yarn, the imports being in-
I t is not in these islands alone that linen has taken the place of calico, for our Irish neighbours have very considerably increased their foreign trade, and are making the luxury of linen more widely known, and probably creating an enlarged permanent demand for the fruits of their industry; an operation which will be much more
Sir Eobert Kane, at the the Society of Arts, 14th December, 1864, stated that in Dublin, in Cork, and in Waterford, woollen and worsted mills that had been abandoned, had resumed work, that mills already in action had augmented their numbers of looms and spindles, and new mills were being erected. Where there existed nine mills in 1851 there were forty-three in 1863.
