NEW ZEALAND FLAX. 



367 



they are paid indirectly the year round, an additional price 

 for every other article produced and sold off their farms by 

 their neighbours, whose spindles and looms engaged on such 

 Flax gives constant employment to the consumers of farm 

 production. 



"As I look upon this part of the subject as being one of 

 great national importance, as my county man Swift says in his 

 writings, I consider his remarks are at this moment deserving 

 of being again in print. 



' 1 Swift said— * ' The first cause of a kingdom's thriving is the 

 fruitfulness of the soil to produce the necessaries and con- 

 veniences of life, not only sufficient for the inhabitants, but 

 for exportation into other countries. 



' 1 The second, is the history of the people in working up 

 all the native commodities to the last degree of manufacturers. 



' ' The third is a disposition on the part of a country, to 

 wear their own. produce and manufactures, and import as 

 little in clothes, furniture, food, or drink, as they possibly can 

 live conveniently without." 



" Such was the teaching of one of the greatest and wisest 

 men, and truest patriots known to modem history, just as if 

 he had anticipated the American war, that has placed 

 Lancashire cotton-spinners the reverse of being in a "bright" 

 position, from their depending chiefly on the slave-grown 

 cotton of America. Had the witty Quaker M.P. got a 

 lesson in early life on patriotic independence, from such a 

 teacher as Swift, he would have thought more on Flax and 

 sheep's wool than he did when he recommended the 

 substitute of thatch and blue paint, as the alternative of the 

 paste and gypsum cotton rags of Lancashire, and overlooking 

 as he did the value of the fine cambric and linen cloth of 

 Irish manufacture, as if all mankind had gone naked until 

 within the last forty or fifty years ; but his selfishness made 

 him forget that. The efficacious agency of the "hand 



