Linen Board and Mumftctur 12? 



array may be exonerated from a service as re- 

 pugnant to their martial characters as to their 

 domestic feelings. 



We were not able to reach the establishment 

 of the Linen Hoard. This society yearly dis- 

 tributes among the working classes a number 

 of spinning wheels and looms ; and the society 

 also charges itself with the importation of 

 foreign flax or linseed, that which is raised m 

 Ireland being supposed to produce inferior 

 plants. The linen trade has decreased of late 

 years more than a million and half in value. 

 This in some measure has been attributed to a 

 defective manufacture. Great complaints are 

 made of the interference of German cloth with 

 the Irish market, arising, most probably, from 

 some superiority in those fabrics ; but as the 

 linen business from the growth of the flax plant, 

 through all its stages, to the perfect manu- 

 facture of the linen, has been so long pursued 

 in Ireland as to become the principal occupa- 

 tion of the people, it would be extremely im- 

 politic indeed, in a country where employment 

 is so scarce and so desirable, to suffer a rivalry 

 in its staple commodity by the introduction of 

 foreign productions. If the German linens be 

 entitled to a preference, the cause of such pre- 

 ference ought to be ascertained, and no pains 

 1 



