PREPARING FLAX BY HIS PATENTS. 



203 



finding a market, if the home-trade in cultivating Flax be 

 encouraged in Great Britain and Ireland. The best answer 

 that can be given to parties who fear that the consumption 

 will decrease, is the following article, taken from the Belfast 

 Banner of Ulster, Dec. 29th, 1855, to which I call your 

 attention ; — 



" Our imports of Cotton and Flax during the last thirty- 

 five years have risen in a most remarkable ratio. Since the 

 advent of that era, steam has pursued its giant course, and 

 swept on its way with almost irresistible impetus. Our vast 

 system of railways, the introduction of Flax-spinning by 

 machinery, ocean steam navigation, and all the lesser projects 

 of which the Archimedean power is the chief mover, have 

 given manufacturing industry the most wonderful degree 

 of advancement. During the intervening period from 1820 

 to 1854, the imports of the articles named averaged as 

 follows :— 



Cotton. Flax, 

 lbs. cwts. 

 1820 - - 108,000,000 - - - 382,500 

 1840 - - 470,500,000 - - - 1,002,360 

 1854 - - 860,000,000 - - - 1,303,250 

 " The cotton manufacture of Lancashire creates a weekly 

 circulation of wages, which in amount exceeds the total pro- 

 ceeds of the gold mines in both hemispheres. We have 

 frequently referred to the wide-spread demand for labour 

 which has been created in the north of Ireland by the opera- 

 tions of the cotton trade. When the protection duties, which 

 existed between this country and Great Britain, were repealed 

 in 1824, only about 9,000 hands found employment at the 

 cotton looms. At present the number of weavers would 

 amount to 50,000, and in the working of sewed muslins there 

 are probably six times that number regularly employed in the 

 several provinces. This fact is hardly known, or we should 



