20 Sir William Crawford on 



,-^7,030,000 in plant alone ; in addition to which the stocks of raw 

 material and of goods in the process of manufacture, and in a 

 finished state would be value for ^^5, 000,000 or ;^6,ooo,ooo. 



Then there was the further amount of capital employed in giving 

 credit to buyers, and whether this be in the form of discountable 

 bills or of open accounts, capital to the extent of over ^^2, 000,000 

 was required to do it. The grand total of capital employed would 

 thus amount to at least ;^i4,ooo,ooo. One might estimate the 

 amount paid in wages to the operatives as follows: — 67,027 men, 

 women, and young persons at an average of 12s 6d per week, 

 ^2. 178,377 ; bleachers, printers, and finishers, ^400,000; em- 

 broiderers, hemstitchers, and warehouse hands, including lappers, 

 ornatnentors, and boxmakers, ;/^4oo,ooo ; hand-loom weavers, 

 ;^5 5,000. Besides all these there were clerks, managers, and other 

 officials whose salaries would amount to ;^25o,ooo, and if 5 per 

 cent, on capital, ;^7oo,ooo, be included, it would show a grand 

 total of ;i^3,983,377, Thus, besides the large sum paid for flax the 

 linen trade was the means of distributing in the province of Ulster 

 about ^4,000,000, and three-quarters or more of it was drawn from 

 foreign countries, as much the greater portion of Irish linen 

 products was sold outside the United Kingdom. As compared 

 with linen, the cotten industry, its great and formidable rival, was 

 a juvenile. Among the reasons why cotton was so formidable a 

 competitor of linen the following might be mentioned : — Although 

 the cost of flax and of raw cotton did not differ very much, cotton 

 had a great advantage over flax in the ease and cheapness with 

 which it was manufactured. In the first place the hard and in- 

 elastic nature of the flax fibre made a much more expensive type of 

 machinery necessary for its spinning. A cotton mill could be erected 

 complete for about 27s 6d per spindle, whereas a flax-spinning mill 

 would cost from ;^6 to ;^8 a spindle. Then the great variations 

 produced in any one field of flax necessitated elaborate and costly 

 hackling and sorting, in which about 50 per cent, of it became tow 

 of comparatively low value, raising the cost of dressed flax. fully 50 



