Belfast was a great centre of
spinning, but not of weaving ; it was the great emporium of the
linen trade of Ireland, and the centre to which the linens, not only
of the Northern Ireland counties, but also of the linen-weaving
districts of the west of Ireland, were sent for sale. Large
quantities of linen were directly exported from Belfast to foreign
countries ; but the greater quantity was sent through Liverpool.
Belfast was also the great linen yarn market of Ireland, where the
principal manufacturers obtained their supply of either Scotch,
English, Irish, or foreign yarn. The amount of the value of the
hand-spun yarn sold per annum in Belfast was stated to be £100,000.
Extensive mills, to the number of fifteen in the town, besides four
others in the neighbourhood
for the spinning of linen yarn, were established ; and the yarn they
produced was equal in quality to any made in the United
Kingdom. One-fourth of the flax for their consumption was imported.
There were at the same time about six or eight hundred hand-loom
weavers in Belfast. Hand-loom weaving factories had recently been
introduced and were rapidly extending. The weavers in these
factories were principally employed on
canvas, sacking, damasks and coarse linens. The weavers greatly
objected to the introduction of the factory system, as it put them
too much in the power of their employers, and prevented them from
the free exercise of their labour. The advantages, however, of the
factories were so great and so obvious as to overrule all
objections. The linen industry was widely spread throughout the
counties of Down and Armagh. The old custom of a linen weaver owning
a patch of land and supplementing his earnings by means of farming
was gradually dying out. This change, while undoubtedly beneficial
to the agriculture of the
northern counties, operated to make the weavers absolutely dependent
on the manufacture for a living. In some remote parts of County Down
the old system still prevailed, and where it did, the wages paid for
weaving were very low. Banbridge was the principal seat of the
manufacture in the north of Ireland. It was in this neighbourhood
that some of the first manufacturers who invested large capital in
the linen trade established themselves, and here the great
experiment of placing the linen trade of Ireland on a new foundation
was tried. The great subdivision of the capital invested in the
linen trade, the want of a proper division of labour being applied
to it, and a direct market for the disposal of the produce year by
year, rendered it more apparent that it could
be no longer continued on its former system. On the repeal of the
protecting duties, and the introduction of mill-spun yarn into
England and Scotland, it became evident to the capitalists in the
north of Ireland either that the linen trade should be placed on a
new foundation, and conducted on the improved principles that were
being applied to its manufacture in the other portions of the United
Kingdom, or that Ireland should lose its linen trade altogether. The
result was that the
linen manufacture was placed on a new foundation, and men of
extensive capital and skill became engaged in it. In the
neighbourhood of Lurgan, Tandragee, and Dungannon much linen
continued to be manufactured on the old system, which however was
gradually being superseded from the necessities of the case. The
independent weavers found a difficulty in obtaining sufficiently
small quantities of machine- spun yarn, and hand-spun yarn was no
longer of any use.
Outside the counties of Down and Armagh the linen manufacture was
rapidly disappearing. " From Dungannon," says Mr. Otway, " I
proceeded to Strabane, at one period the great yarn market of the
counties of Tyrone, Donegal, parts of Armagh, Deny, and Down, and
the place to which the yarn produced in Fermanagh, Cavan, Monaghan,
Leitrim, and Sligo was sent for sale. The trade is almost at an end,
the introduction of mill-spun yarn having limited the market
and the profit of hand-spun yarn." In the County Donegal weaving was
principally confined to those who wove for the immediate wants of
the farmers, or
for sale in the county fairs and markets. These weavers had full
employment only from the first of May to the first of January in
each year, with the omission of a month at harvest time, and for the
remainder of the year only had halftime time employment. The
continuance of the old system of double occupations was thus
rendered a necessity. In County Sligo Mr. Otway found " merely the
traces of a linen manufacture ; the linen hall of considerable
extent was
hired out as a general warehouse, and hardly a single web presented
for sale. On what were the linen market days a few spinners still
hawk hand-spun linen through the streets, but both the quality and
the quantity of the yarn offered for sale is utterly insignificant."
Mr. Otway considered what he saw in Sligo to be " a decided proof of
the correctness of the statement that the linen trade in Ireland
could not be preserved on the old system on which it was conducted.
The
old system," he proceeds, "died a natural death, and the new system
was not introduced. The small portion of linen now made up for the
use of the peasantry continues to exist solely from the want of
ready money amongst the people." The linen manufacture in Drogheda
had experienced a particularly rapid decay, and the condition of the
weavers in 1840 was terrible. About 1,900 persons were still able to
obtain occasional employment, but the wages which they could earn
were deplorably low. The lowest wages paid in the trade were in
Drogheda, where the weavers were in a most distressed condition. The
average
wage earned during periods of employment, which were very
intermittent, was about four shillings a week, and the average
number of persons dependent on each weaver was six. The manner in
which this wretched income was supplemented so as to provide
subsistence for the weaver and his family is
thus described by Mr. Otway : " The poor weavers supply themselves
with the lowest species of vegetable food, and provide a place of
shelter, if shelter it can be called, to live and weave in, so as to
keep off actual destitution. The poor weaver collects manure, and is
then able to plant potatoes, enough to last from three to four
months, on ground obtained gratis from some neighbouring farmer, who
is glad to give the \ potato crop for the sake of the corn crop,
which the manure will enable him to obtain the next year. Now there
is wanting about half an acre more to supply potatoes for the
remainder of the year, and this ground is taken in conacre, from
some farmer who has manured or rich grass land to let which will
give a good crop of potatoes. For this he agrees to pay about £
4. Thus provision being made for the main food of his family, it
devolves on his industry to procure clothing, and to pay the rent of
his conacre ground and cabin. The industry of his wife and children,
by the fattening of a pig, or in some cases the sale of eggs and
poultry, or by begging through the district, enable the family to
procure a little milk or ' kitchen ' as it is called. How the
weavers who live in the centre of the towns manage it is impossible
to imagine.
The cabins that the weavers live and work in are fearful specimens
of what habit will enable a human being to endure ; it is impossible
that any good description of work could be woven in such sinks of
filth ; but the very dirt is their principal means of support. That
a corporate town, entrusted with public property for the benefit of
its inhabitants, should have permitted such a state of things is to
me inexplicable ; I am persuaded that no part of Europe, or I might
add, of
the world, presents such a spectacle of dwellings for human beings
as part of Drogheda." The decline of the linen manufacture in
Drogheda was caused by the English and Scotch competition in the
manufacture of coarse linens. The fine linen manufacturers were not
affected by this competition, but they migrated one by one to Down,
Antrim, and Derry, as they found that the manufacture could be more
economically and profitably conducted in those counties. The
hand-loom weavers, however, did not migrate at the same time, and
were left without employment. The introduction of mill-spun yarn
administered the final
blow to the industry in Drogheda. The condition of the industry in
other parts of the south and west was the same as in Sligo and
Drogheda. It had generally
disappeared, except for the making up of some coarse linen for the
peasantry, except in a few isolated districts where the almost total
absence of any employment for the great mass of the people had
rendered hand-loom labour so cheap as to enable some webs of coarse
cloth to be occasionally made up.
The quality of the linen produced was deteriorating ; looms were
generally in disrepair ; and in some districts the hand was used
instead of a fly shuttle. It was Mr. Otway's opinion that it was "
only a matter of time until the linen industry was totally extinct.'
' The industry had also almost disappeared in Dublin, Where
it was restricted within very narrow limits, and confined to one or
two manufacturers, of whom Crosthwaites werethe principal, with the
exception of one or two coarse canvas and sail-cloth manufacturers.
The rate of wages in Dublin was from eight to twelve shillings a
week, and the working day from twelve to fifteen hours. Thus in the
early years of the nineteenth century the linen manufacture
disappeared from three-fourths of Ireland, but succeeded in
developing in the north. The extent of the manufacture, however,
even in Ulster, was really not very great when compared with the
English and Scotch manufactures, and it derived its importance in
the industrial life of the country from the absence of other
industries. This is well put in Kane's Industrial Resources of
Ireland : " The extent of this manufacture stands in such relief
from the usual absence of all manufacturing industry in Ireland that
we frequently attach to it a degree of importance and an idea of
absolute magnitude that it does not really possess. In reality
Ireland is almost as much behind in this as in every other branch of
industry. The town of Dundee alone is considered to manufacture as
much linen as all Ireland, and the relation which the manufacture of
flax bears in the three kingdoms is exactly shown in the following
figures, which are extracted from the report of the factory
inspector for 1839, since which period no sensible alteration has
taken place. " In England there were 169 mills worked by 4,260
horsepower and employing 16,573 persons. " In Scotland there were
183 mills worked by 4,845 horsepower and employing 17,897 persons. "
In Ireland there were 40 mills worked by 1,980 horsepower and
employing 9,017 persons." The silk industry was completely suspended
during the rebellion of 1798, and it did not ever really recover its
former prosperity. Undoubtedly the Union, by causing the emigration
of a great number of the Irish nobility and gentry to London,
seriously diminished the demand for silk goods in Dublin. Still more
serious was the competition now beginning to be offered by the
English industry, which was rapidly extending in Macclesfield and
Manchester. Before 1821 the
Irish industry was to some extent protected against British goods by
the ten per cent protecting duty, retained by the Act of Union ; but
in spite of the duty the British manufacturers were by their
increased command of capital able to undersell the Dublin
manufacturers even in the Irish market.
In 1821 the protecting duties on importation from England expired ;
and a few years later foreign silks were allowed to be imported into
the United Kingdom. The opening up of steam communication between
Great Britain and Ireland still further increased the competition ;
and in the panic of 1825 the Irish market was inundated with goods
at a price less than the cost of the raw material. "From that date,"
says Mr. Otway, " the loss of the silk trade was rendered
inevitable." " In 1825," we read in the evidence before the Poor Law
Commission of 1833, " the removal of the protecting duties took
place, and the regulations of the Dublin Society were done away
with. At that time the low price of labour in England enabled the
English manufacturers to sell their goods at a much less price than
they could get them prepared here. . . . Our trade rapidly
declined." From the date of the removal of the protecting duties the
silk trade gradually sunk out of existence ; it dwindled into a mere
court luxury, dependent on the capricious smile of viceregal
patronage, or the uncertain support of charity balls. The number of
silk weavers remaining in Dublin in 1840 was about 400, and
employment was very irregular. The rate of wages per week was higher
than in Manchester, but the irregularity of employment was so great
that the English weavers earned much more in the year.
It has been very generally stated that the downfall of the silk
industry in Ireland was hastened by combinations. Otway said : "It
cannot be doubted that illegal and dangerous combinations among the
workmen have operated most injuriously on the trade, driving many of
the most extensive manufacturers out of it, and deterring others
from directing their capital and intelligence towards it. If not
checked the system will speedily drive away the remaining
portion of the trade." It is impossible, however, to help feeling
that the combinations were rather the effect than the cause of the
decay of the trade.
Edward J. Riordan, George
Augustine Thomas O'Brien |
