170 



DICKSON ON THE 



reduction of rates, to which holders refused to submit.' 



As there is a total increase of 87,843 acres of Flax 

 this year over that of last, and the prices are Is. per stone 

 higher than last year for hand-scutched Flax, as it sold at 

 5s. 9d. the year round ; why should the Standard advise and 

 discourage the owners of Irish property, especially those who 

 are living in London, who may, being absentees believe in its 

 warning voice, that the demand must end even before the war 

 in America, (which has caused cotton to get up to such an 

 exhorbitant price as that of 2s. to 2s. 8d. per lb., in place of 

 6d. to 8d.), has any appearance of being brought to an end. 

 The delusion and want of knowledge on the part of the writer, 

 respecting the increased demand for Irish linen cloth for 

 the last three years, and also the increased demand for 

 Dundee linens, even the coarse article of manufacture which 

 has so increased the wealth of spinners and manufacturers, 

 must only account for such stupid denunciations of the Flax 

 movement in Ireland, a movement made by the people in 

 the provinces of Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, which 

 has caused them to grow 16,936 acres this year, in place of 

 growing, as they did last year, 6,752 acres. The writer has 

 been blind to the fact, that want of mills in these provinces 

 caused the farmers to regret the growing of Flax, and no 

 man would speculate in building mills, or go to the expense 

 of erecting machinery, until there was a certainty of a 

 supply of Flax to employ their mills and machinery, but 

 now they have been stirred up by the fact of the linen trade 

 of Ulster coming more and more into competition again 

 with cotton, and hearing of the continued prosperity of 

 Ulster farmers by growing Flax, which even at the low 

 price of 5d. to 6d. per lb. has paid them better than a crop 

 of oats. As the best Flax has been latterly produced after 

 a crop of .wheat or barley, they have ventured to treble 

 their former growing, and now that there really is a stock 



