I 5 2 LINEN MANUFACTURE. 



Exportation, 1,54.1,200 



And for home confumption, 658,906 



* 2,2oo,ic6 



The latter article muft be a mere guefs ; the firft we find 

 contradicted in the preceding table, unlefs he meant cloth 

 only. 



This ample table calls for feveral obfervations. It firft ap- 

 pears that the manufacture has gone on in a regular increafe, 

 until it has arrived in the laft feven years to be an object of 

 prodigious confequence. The averages of each period of fe- 

 vcn years are of particular importance ; as there is one poli- 

 tical lefTon to be deduced from them which may be of great 

 ufe hereafter : they prove in the cleared manner that no judg- 

 ment is ever to be formed of the ftate of the manufacture 

 from one or two years, but on the contrary from feven years 

 alone. In 1774 it appears that the export was lower than it 

 had been for nine years before, and we very well recollect the 

 noife which this fall made in England. I was repeatedly in 

 the gallery of the Englifh houfe of commons when they fat 

 in a committee for months together upon the ftate of the linen 

 trade, and from the evidence I heard at the bar I thought 

 Ireland was finking to nothing, and that all her fabrics were 

 tumbling to pieces : the aflertion of the linen fabrics de- 

 .clining a third was repeated violently, and it was very true. 

 But they drew this comparifon from 177 i, when we find from 

 the preceding table that it was at it's zenith, to appearance 

 a very unnatural one, for it rofe at once five millions of "yards 

 which was unparalleled. It was ridiculous to draw a fudden 

 ilart into precedent, for what manufacture in the world 

 but experiences moments of uncommon profperity, the con- 

 tinuance of which is never to be expected ; this fall of a third 

 therefore though true /'// fact was utterly falfe In argument. In 

 truth the fall was exceedingly trivial, for the only comparifon 

 that ought to have been made was with the average of the, 

 preceding feven years, the decline then would have appeared 

 only feven or eight hundred thouland yards, that is, not a 

 twentieth inftead of a third. But becaufe the trade had run 

 to a mod extraordinary height in '771, the manufacturers 

 and merchants felt the fall the more, and were outrageoufty 

 clamorous becaufe every year was not a jubilee one. It fuck 

 were to be the coniequences of an unufual demand, minilters 

 and legiflatures would have reafon (o curie any extraordinary 

 profperity, and to prevent it if they could, under the con- 

 viction' that the grafping avarice of commercial folly, would 

 be growling and dunning them with complaints when the 

 trade returned to its ufaal and natural courfe. In the year 

 1773 and 4, all Ireland was undone; the linen manufacture 



was 

 * 'Jturnals ff the commons , vol. 1 6. page 368. 



