179*' *>" '^^ cotton tnanufactures. 169 



or spinning that is known and used any where else. 

 I must observe, however, that the present seems to 

 be the fittest time for the undertaking. While the 

 profits are higher than on any other branch of busi- 

 nefs, there is wherewithal to compensate the expence 

 of so new an undertaking, and to allow for the blun- 

 ders and *wkwardnefs of our artificers, weavers, and 

 spinners. By and by this will not be the case. It 

 is hardly to be doubted the profits will be gradually 

 lefsened by competition. Mr Arkwright has lower- 

 ed his yarn 20 per cent, within this month. It will 

 at last be reduced to the general average of the pro- 

 fits of trade in a free country, which, ifnecefsary, it 

 would be easy to prove to be equal in every branch 

 of trade, where novelty and monopoly are excluded. 

 The adoption of the cotton trade is not, therefore, 

 proposed as a meRns which wilV long produce supe- 

 rior and extraordinary profits to those concerned in 

 it ; but as a resource for the inhabitants of a coun- 

 try who are likely to be deprived of their present 

 means of earning their livelihood; and as a businefs 

 which will not only secure to the present linen ma- 

 nufacturers certain bread, even when the linen ma- 

 nufacture {hall be extinguiflied, but promises fair to 

 be of a more durable and extensive nature than ever 

 the linen manufacture has hitherto been. It is also 

 certain of more and better encouragement from par- 

 liament, whicli, on account of the woollen trade, has 

 treated foreign linens with more gentlenefs than any 

 ether manufacture that stood in comptition with our 

 own; besides, the Irifli cannot import it as they do their 

 Jinen into Great Britain. It would be a matter of 

 vor- X. Y \ 



