SUGGESTIONS FOR ITS IMPROVEMENT. 



183 



wretched existence^ mainly depending upon inadequate rates 

 and uncertain charity. The branches of trade in which these 

 unfortunate men were engaged, flourished only with the fashion 

 of the day. Hence the extinction of their means of support. I 

 am not speaking of an idle rabble, but of the genuine Norwich 

 operative, to whose skill and ingenuity the whole world bears 

 testimony — for what quarter of the globe is unacquainted with 

 the admirable productions of the Norwich factories ? 



Seeing, then, that a return of agricultural prosperity to the 

 county of Norfolk would not produce the desired relief to the 

 artisans of Norwich; and seeing that the interests of Man- 

 chester, Birmingham, and Sheffield are advanced when success 

 attends the plough ; it must, unquestionably, be of paramount 

 importance to Norwich to establish within her walls a trade 

 that would produce a reciprocity of commerce between the city 

 and the county. Undoubtedly the establishment of factories 

 in Norwich to supply the country with those things to which I 

 have alluded, would, eventually, be of great benefit to the city. 

 But as other places would be injured by the transfer, and no 

 real benefit conferred upon the community at large, I aim not 

 at removing the trades of one town to another. My desire is 

 to see established in the city of Norwich, a new, lucrative, and 

 permanent branch of business. And, if there is one branch 

 more suited than another to the genius, habits, and present 

 circumstances of the citizens, that branch is the linen trade — a 

 trade for the introduction of which peculiar facilities abound, 

 in unemployed capital, machinery, and men ; a trade that 

 would quickly render her citizens famed for their exquisite in- 

 genuity, as unrivalled in the splendour of their damask linen, 

 as they now are in the elegance of their shawls ; a trade among 

 the numerous ramifications of which, the business of bleaching 

 is not the least profitable, and for the conducting of which the 

 atmosphere and meadows around the city are singularly 

 adapted ; a trade that would jeceive a constant supply of the 

 raw material, not from foreign resources, to the profit of foreign 

 farmers, and to the employment of foreign labourers, but from 

 her own county, to the profit of Norfolk farmers, and to the 

 employment of Norfolk labourers. Thus would money flow 

 from the city to the country, and from the country to the city. 



