and joined the dominant sect in freeing their common country from alien legislation. This object being effected, Catholic aid was no longer courted, and subsequent events proved that party spirit had been laid aside but for a season. The young nation had hitherto grown and thriven apace, but it was yet a child," and thought as a child." However, even in its childhood symptoms of approaching maturity evinced themselves: the principles of religious equality were widely promulgated, concessions were being made, and the majority of the people already felt that they too had rights as well as duties. The crisis of nationhood was evidently at hand, and the enemies of Irish freedom, seeing that the last opportunity for a successful struggle was passing away, set all their energies to the work of hate, and so effectually succeeded in exciting the worst passions of the dominant party, that liberty of conscience yet remained an ungranted boon. Faith was still the measure of political freedom, and sectarian animosity again showed itself in all its wonted virulence. Again disunited, we fell an easy prey to the common enemy; and in the day of our unhappy dissensions we were deprived of the right of self-rule, which eighteen years before "no power on earth" dared to dispute. Our young hopes were thus blighted as in the early bud, and we once more sank into a province-helpless and dependant on the encouragement of England. The royal speech no longer commended the linen trade of Ireland to the care of the legislative body. Imperial legislators required not, forsooth, to have their attention specially called to Ireland-now an integral portion of the British empire! That giant stride prosperity" did not result from the new constitution, none will now dispute. We were promised that increase of trade, commerce, and manufactures, would flow as the necessary consequence of united-wisdom legislation. As regards this trade, at least, a comparison of the progressive increase during the few years of liberty which followed '82, and the years during which the act of 1800 was carried into more perfect operation, would lead to no very favourable opinion of a measure which united in council men who had no unity of interest. We intended entering at some length on the details of the proceedings of the Linen Board-we however are precluded by our limits, which we the less regret, as there are very few who have not within their reach ample information on that point. They liberally encouraged by premiums and loans, all improvements in machinery, and every excellence either in culture or manufacture. No pains were spared to encourage and create linen markets in the different rural districts; having first created a supply, they then erected the market; thus taking the most effectual means of encouraging industry among the masses of the people. The Linen Board did not long survive the Irish Parliament. The terms of the Act of Union bound the Imperial legislature to continue the annual grant to the Board. The committee of '25 recommended its continuance, though appointed with the full intention of giving a different counsel. the advice wished for, though not given, was followed: half the grant was immediately withdrawn, and the remainder shared the same fate in the following year. But Let us now enquire into the present condition of the trade, and that of the operatives who are engaged in it. To us, the latter appears to be the most important part of the question; for what does it profit the nation if an extensive manufacturer engaged in a trade in this country, and, it may be, preparing to retire to, if not already residing in, another, can by means of the ill paid labour of the artizan, realise a considerable fortune-if the men whom he employs, and the families who depend on them for support, be in a state little removed from beggary. The accumulation of capital is a good thing for the individual who accumulates; but when that capital ceases to be a circulating capital, its benefit to the community is lost. Our politico-economical creed applied to manufacturers, would teach us that the prosperity of a manufacture, and its claims to be The effect of fifteen years' independence accounted as a national one, should be meawas to increase the manufactured exports to sured not so much by the quantity of the one-fourth more than double their former fabric produced, as by the amount of remuamount. Let us place in juxtaposition the nerative employment it afforded, and that effect of twenty-three years of Westminster le- its profit to the nation should be counted gislation, and we will perceive that the exports great, rather because it afforded the neceshave not increased since 1800 in the im-saries and comforts of life to a multitude of artizans, than that it poured luxury into the lap of a few employers.. Owing to the trade between Ireland and England having been placed on the footing of coasting trade since the year 1825, there has been no registry kept of the quantity of linen exported to England since that time. We will, therefore, not be able to place before our readers the state of the export trade from that period to the present, with the same arithmetical precision as we have its prior condition. We can, however, produce authentic statements in attestation of the well known fact that it has been rapidly declining; for though the high sounding appellation of "transition state" may be applied by some political economists to its present condition; we, simpler folk, not being furnished with these imperial patent specs, such as Commissioners wear, can see in that transition nothing but the forerunner of dissolution and decay. the linen hall, says that the linen hall is now turned to other purposes; it belongs to the hotel keeper. I am eighteen years here; when I first came there were from 400 to 500 webs sold here every week. There was also a linen market in Colloony, (five miles from this,) and 100 to 150 webs sold weekly; there is not a single web brought for sale there now. The number of webs sold here has been progressively falling off for the last fifteen years. On last Saturday there was only one web offered for sale. This market is gone."* Is this, then, the state in which we should expect to find the linen markets of Cork, Clare, Limerick, Kerry, Galway, Mayo, and Leitrim? The annual value of linen alone sold in these markets in the year 1817, was Cork, £46,736; Clare, £2,080; Limerick, £3,640; Kerry, £10,400; Sligo, £31,200; Galway, £10,254; Mayo, £81,640; Leitrim, £4,680?+ But who received all these sums?-the proprietors of a few large manufactories, who sent their quarterly profits to the young misses at some English boarding That we do not exaggerate the evils we deplore, will be seen by examining seriatim the different localities once famous for the extent to which this trade was carried on-school, or supplied from them the extravaand comparing their past and present condition, with reference to the quantity of linens manufactured, and the prosperity, we were about to say, of those engaged in the manufacture, for the recollection of by-gone days is still fresh in our memory. But the prosperity of the linen weaver is no more, and if the word were now applied to his condition, it would but seem as if used in scornful derision to remind him of what he once had been. The report of the hand-loom weavers' commissioners says, that "the state of the linen trade in the west and south of Ireland, where it had been established, is not in general dissimilar from the state of the trade in the county of Sligo;" and on refering to their report from Sligo, we find not only that the "transition" state has set in, but that the change has already been perfected. The state in which the trade exists in this county, being given as a fair specimen of its condition in the southern and western districts, is of too much importance to be omitted. "Here I 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 was presented for sale. On what were the linen market days a few spinners still hawk hand-spun yarn through the streets, but both the quantity and quality of the yarn offered for sale is utterly insignificant. Mr. Roger O'Hara, Seal Master, and keeper of part of what was gant expenditure of a roué son, whose life was spent in Continental dissipation? No; it was received by "the independent class of weavers, who formerly made up linen 'on their own account, but who may now be said to be extinct." But it did not remain long with them; within one hour the greater part was laid out in the purchase of yarn for the next week's web; the spinner purchased a fresh supply of flax, and the cottier's family, who prepared that flax, having received the reward of their industry, returned home with blithsome and merry hearts to renew their toil, well knowing that the "next market day" would bring with it a similar reward. You proud and haughty ones, who taunt our people with being frequenters of fair and market, why so ignorant of your own nature? or think you that with riches the Creator has given you feelings and affections other than those which we also possess? Know you not that, with a sort of instinctive desire, we all love to resort to those places, where happiness was wont to be found, even though the cause of that happiness has fled. Why then rebuke us, if idle, because bereft of our employment, it delights us to visit and revisit that village, that town, that market-place, where we were accustomed again and again to reap the fruit of honest toil, and have our hearts cheered by the assurance that we laboured not in vain. While we write of these things, the busy scene of a linen market in a country town seems as if re-enacted before us; the inhabitants of the surrounding neighbourhood assembled, all dressed in their best clothes; the independent weaver carrying his web to the hall the farmer's wife waiting his return to sell her yarn the farmer himself awaiting the close of the market, well knowing his commodities would in their turn meet purchasers; each and all occupied in some traffic, and at the close of the day returning to their homes, having purchased, with the profits of the past week's labour, the necessaries for the ensuing week, and some few of the luxuries too. The recent publication of the poor law reports, has made the distressed condition of the poor in the west of Ireland a matter of such public notoriety, that we thought it incumbent on us to make more minute enquiry into the state of this trade in that locality. We, accordingly, lay before our readers, the information which has been kindly afforded us, by mercantile gentlemen of the first respectability and rank, in the principal market towns of that district. who work very hard and live miserably. There is not one web sold in Claremorris throughout the year; the few made by the weavers before mentioned are sent to Castlebar for sale. At one period there used to be 200 hhds. of flaxseed sold in the season in this market, now there are not more than 50 to 55." From a communication with which we have been favoured, by one of the most respectable and extensive merchants in Westport, whose family has been intimately connected with the trade of that town for the last fifty years, and to whose enterprizing spirit much of its present commercial importance is due; we extract the following:"In the year 1821 there were 500 webs sold weekly in this market; in 1823, from 500 to 600 weekly; in 1824 and 1825, the same; there are not now more than 150 sold weekly. With respect to the sale of flaxseed: in 1821 there were 2000 hhds. sold; in 1823, 1824 hhds.; in 1826, 2514 hhds.; these sales have been by two houses in the trade at the time-our sales this year have not exceeded 500 hhds." The statistics received from Castlebar are of the last importance, when viewed in connection with the fact, that it has been for the last six or seven years the principal linen market of Mayo. "The average number of webs sold weekly, from 1833 to 1837, was about 500; the average number sold from '37 to '40, was about 300." "The number of webs sold in Ballinrobe weekly about twenty years ago, was from 80 to 100: the number sold at present is from 4 to 6 per week. The quantity of flaxseed sold in the season was from 140 to 150 But it is not alone in the South and West hhds. about twenty years ago, at present from that the linen trade has decreased. In the 8 to 10." The correspondent, from whose North of Ireland, which was its cradle, and letter we extract the above, confined himself where in its decline it appears to have retired, to the period referred to in our queries. The as we hope, not to expire, but to recruit its statistical tables of Moreau, however, show strength-the decrease is too well marked. that for the four or five years immediately At Dungannon, which was one of the first succeeding 1820, the linen trade of Ballin- Brown Markets in the province, and where robe increased very rapidly. From them the finest description of cloth was produced, we find, that during the year ending 1825, we find, in the language of the report, that the sum of £38,576 was expended in that" the linen trade had greatly declined, and town, in the purchase of Brown Linens.* "In the town of Ballina the number of webs sold weekly in the year 1825, was about 350, and the quantity of yarn about 3000 spangles. The average number of webs now sold (1840) is 8, and the number of spangles of yarn is reduced to 300." In the year 1825, there were £15,472 expended in the purchase of linens in the village of Claremorris.+ There were then 40 weavers residing in the town, exclusive of those in the neighbourhood-"there are now only two, * Moreau's Tables, p. 37-38 † Ibid. VOL. III. NO. XVII. that while the old system had been passing away, the new mode of manufacture had not been proportionally introduced, and that a great number of the linen weavers had turned their attention to other pursuits."+ Of Strabane, which was celebrated as the yarn market for the counties of Tyrone and Donegal, and to which a great quantity was sent from Down, Armagh, Derry, Fermanagh, Cavan, Monaghan, &c. &c. it is said "this trade is almost at an end." The quantity of linen sold in it has also greatly Date Nov. 4th, 1840. † Report, p. 648. N decreased. Strabane had its 800 independent weavers, who brought their 1,000 webs, weekly, for sale. But," from 1830 the trade among the weavers as manufacturers, began rapidly to decrease, and they were forced in a great measure to go out of the trade, and there is not now more than one tenth the number of webs made up by the weavers, for the Brown Market, that used to be." The state of the linen weavers of Drogheda presents a spectacle of human misery, which to those unacquainted with the privations, which the wreck of a manufacture is sure to bring upon the operatives engaged in it, is beyond conception. The large manufacturers, who employed from 100 to 200 weavers each, were obliged to lower their wages to meet the competition of the English and Scotch, and eventually left the trade. The small manufacturers were obliged to lower them still further, for not being able to make such extensive sales, they could not take the same rate of profit. The effect of this competition, which resulted from the "assimilation" system, is that "the wives and children of the weavers endeavour to add to their means by begging contributions of potatoes or meal." The cabins that they live and work in are described as "fearful specimens of what habit will enable a human being to endure."+ Banbridge forms an exception to the many towns from which we have seen reports. Here the trade appears not to have diminished in the same proportion as it has in other parts of the country. Mr. Dunbar, an extensive employer, says, "I have seen the linen trade brisker, but never in a more healthy and promising condition, considering it is only recovering." In this district, however, the trade has passed into the hands of large capitalists. D. Lindsay, J. P. says, "I commenced to manufacture ten years ago, in place of buying up linen, because I thought it would be more profitable: I found it so, and have inade much more money by manufacturing than I did by buying and bleaching. There is not one weaver now in a hundred in this district, who weaves on his own account. In the early part of my life, almost all the linen was made up by weavers on their own account. The introduction of millspun yarn, and the system of credit and banking accommodation, drove the trade out of the hands of the weavers and small manufacturers, and placed it in the hands of Report, p. 649, Evtdence of Mr. Guynne. † Report, pp. 627, 628. large manufacturers and capitalists. There were fewer inferior weavers then than there are at present. The superior weavers are not as well paid as they were when they worked for themselves; but there is vastly more weaving than there was." This, then, is the state of the trade in Banbridge, where it is said par excellence, to flourish. But, if we analyse its condition, instead of resting satisfied with a superficial glance; in what do we find the prosperity to consist? Why, 'tis simply this :-the hundred small manufacfacturers, who once employed their tens and twentys, or it might be their two or three "superior weavers," have given place to the few large capitalists, who employ their hundreds of " inferior weavers." And that while the small capitalists are crushed and beggared-the artizan is ill paid-and his dependents but one degree removed from starvation. The large capitalist is amassing still larger snms, that he may aristocratize his family by that wealth, which in a more healthy state of the trade, would have spread itself over a more extended surface, and established an independent middle class. The remuneration received by the operative has fallen with his independence. In Drogheda "the net receipt of the weaver averages from 3s. 4d. to 5s. a week." The evidence from Derry draws a contrast between the former and present state of the weaver, which we copy for its forcible simplicity. "There is a great difference in respect of the appearance of the weavers who come to market, now and formerly: they are not so well drest, nor nearly so comfortable looking-the men are older-looking-the fine sturdy young men who once came to market, have now gone out of the trade, and many have emigrated to America. I remember when it was the best occupation in Ireland; now it is gone to nothing."* The appearance (as well as the condition) of the linen weaver is indeed altered; he is no longer distinguished from the unemployed labourer, by the respectability of his dress. The air of comfort which once surrounded his dwelling has passed away, and no longer does the white-washed cottage, with its neatly trimmed thatch, announce to the tourist that he is passing through a linen district. It may be said in reply to all these evidences of decay, that large manufactories have sprung up, and that thereby the decline Report, p, 725. of the country markets is fully compensated for: we would answer that the moral condition of the people, as well as their physical state, was involved in the change; and even had large manufactories produced an equal or even greater quantity, the moral detriment which necessarily follows the destruction of a domestic manufacture, which, like the one under consideration, had given occupation for the otherwise unemployed time of the agricultural peasant, would not be compensated by any amount of increase. But it yet remains to be proved that the amount manufactured has increased. The total amount of exports of late years has not been ascertained; but if we judge from the amount exported to foreign parts, we should conclude that the export trade was not increasing. Irish Linen exported to foreign parts in 4,126,340 1820 The amount of bounty paid on the export of Irish and British linens gives a proportionate value to the Irish trade, by no means showing an increase in favour of Ireland. The latest return we have been able to refer to while preparing for the press, was that of 1831, which gave the amount paid on Irish linens, as £29,738 1 0; whereas that on British was £123,382 0 24.* We are aware that many other causes have combined to produce decay in this trade of late years. To those we will more particularly refer at some future period; at present, we only desire to draw attention to the fact of the trade having undergone a complete revolution. The causes of that change, and the best means of counteracting the evils, and profiting by the good which has ensued, form an important subject for the future consideration of the Citizen. * Tables of Revenue, Population and Commerce of the United Kingdom. Part iii. Page 318, 1834. THE MEED OF THE MINSTREL. Land of my home and heart, my finger falls Thy beauty, near the haunts of men; and where And if of martial glories thou hast less Than lands less formed for happiness,-'tis time And ask if men of any age or clime, Had e'er awaited Right so long delayed, Or e'er such thraldom borne with virtue undismayed? I notice not th' indignant throbs that broke Or him whose cause is not writ on his tomb, Land of my fathers, unrefined or sage, Ne'er make thee seem less beautiful to me; Thou ever art a temple which appears New-hewn; or some old treasure of the sea, Which daily at the ebb shines forth immortally. Boast not the past-but struggle for thy right Amongst the nations; and when thou hast gained The place they owe to thee, and when-despite Of interested hate, and malice strained, And slander bought, from sire to son sustained For many a generation,-thou hast shewn The libel false on which thou art arraigned; Then may the hearts that claim thee as their ownAnd not till then-with pride recur to glories flown. Slave of base tyrants! let thy voice arise Till truth makes silent thy inveterate foc, Who, tho' the chain hath burst, doth yet devise Toils for thy lion heart, and laboureth so With bigotry, that thy best friends scarce know Thy justice. My soul's life! Land of my sires! Shall they still tread thee down, and thou not show The lucre which their paltry breasts inspires, And that thy beauty is the spring of their desires? And they who do malign thee, my loved land! Beautiful Mother!-have they not the gold The spoiler wrenches from thee in their hand? But tyranny is bowed, and gray and old, And 'gainst the wolf have we built up a fold, And for the vulture we have laid a snare, And from us we do spurn the false and cold; And thus we shall new guard thee everywhere, Sure that full triumph yet will crown our filial care. **D. 2 N |