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neglected their work, or struck for higher wages, the whole process 
was brought to a standstill. Spinning and weaving machines were 
stopped for want of material; hands thrown out of employment ; 
and masters could not fulfil the orders for goods. Flax-dressing 
machines were then invented, by means of which six girls can do 
as much work as ten or twelve men could perform by hand. 
Since their invention, these machines have been much improved. 
The flax dresser’s labour was therefore no longer required, while 
the employers could execute more work, and even a better quality 
of work, by the machine than was done by hand labour. Flax- 
dressing was a hard and unhealthy employment ; and in this case 
good may be said to have come out of evil. Man is better fitted 
to be employed making and superintending the working of 
machines than to be working as a machine himself. 
Ireland is the largest linen producing country in the world. 
There are now nearly one million spindles in Ireland. Each 
spindle will produce as much yarn as ten or twelve persons could 
spin by hand. It would therefore require double the population 
of Ireland at the present time to produce as much work, suppose 
all were employed in hand spinning. ‘There are besides, upwards 
of 20,000 power-looms, each loom capable of doing as much work 
as four or five men, and in some kinds of work one woman can 
attend two looms. ‘The linen trade has thus far overstepped the ~ 
capabilities of the country, so far as hand labour is concerned ; 
and yet there are foolish people who exclaim against the increase 
of machinery, and sigh for the good old times of Queen Bess. 
Very little of an authentic character is known respecting the 
cultivation of flax, and of the linen manufacture in Ireland in 
ancient times. ‘Tradition credits a colony of Phcenicians, who are 
said to have settled in Ireland before the Christian era, with 
having taught the native Irish the art of flax culture, and the after 
process of manufacture. There can, however, have been very 
little linen made or exported before the latter end of the 17th 
century.. In 1673, England imported from France linen of the 
value of upwards of half a million, which she would not have done 
if Ireland could have supplied it. About the year 1680, the linen 
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