Linen industry

“ Williams says, for he himself admits that the decline which has taken place since the ’sixties is largely due to a change in fashion, jute and cotton goods taking the place of linen. In the last decade, however, as will be seen from the above table, the linen industry has held its own. With regard to silk, the figures show that there is no cause for serious alarm. ”

“ The modern manufacture of linen divides itself into two branches, spinning and weaving, to which may be added the bleaching and various finishing processes, which, in the case of many linen textures, are laborious undertakings and important branches of industry. The flax fibre is received in bundles from the scutch mill, and after having been classed into various grades, according to the quality of the material, it is labelled and placed in the store ready for the flax mill. The whole operations in yarn manufacture comprise (1) hackling, (2) preparing and (3) spinning. ”

“ It is the seat of considerable manufactures, which throve amazingly under the imperial government, in consequence of the exclusion of the English commodities during the revolutionary wars. The linen manufacture is the staple branch of industry, and affords employment to the peasantry in their own houses, in every direction in the surrounding country, which is probably the cause of the thriving prosperous appearance by which they are distinguished. ”

“ In a general way it may be said regarding the British industry that the heavy linen trade centres in Dundee; medium goods are made in most linen manufacturing districts; damasks are chiefly produced in Belfast, Dunfermline and Perth; and the fine linen manufactures have their seat in Belfast and the north of Ireland. Leeds and Barnsley are the centres of the linen trade in England.
Linen fabrics have several advantages over cotton, resulting principally from the microscopic structure and length of the flax fibre. The cloth is much smoother and more lustrous than cotton cloth ”

“ Thus, though Belfast may be said to owe its linen industry primarily to local supplies of flax, it is noticeable that the local supply is very limited, and several towns on the east coast of Scotland, as Dunfermline, Montrose, Arbroath, etc., have a flourishing linen industry maintained entirely by imported raw material. A whole host of facts of this kind emphasise the importance of power in the case of a modern industry, as contrasted with the supreme importance of abundant raw material in the old days when man himself chiefly supplied the motive force. ”

“ From the earliest periods of human history till almost the close of the 18th century the linen manufacture was one of the most extensive and widely disseminated of the domestic industries of European countries. The industry was most largely developed in Russia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium, the northern provinces of France, and certain parts of England, in the north of Ireland, and throughout Scotland ”

“ The paralysis of the industry had hit more than the women of Le Velay. It had affected the colporteurs who brought to the market of Le Puy the linen thread out of which the lace was made. It is remarkable that at a time when roads were execrable, and means of communication faulty, the lacemakers were dependent on Holland for the material with which they worked. The linen of the district was too coarse to serve, and all that was used by them was derived from the Low Countries.
Lacemaking continues to be the main industry of the country. ”

“ Richardson’s Flax-spinning Mills at Bessbrook, a model town near Newry, and not far from the headquarters of Ireland’s principal source of wealth, the linen trade.
A few words as to this trade may not be out of place here. The art of weaving is of great antiquity. In Ireland for many years attention has been paid to this branch of industry. Its linen manufacture has existed from the earliest period. ”

“ The movement to bring expert linen makers from Belgium to western Canada, which raises an exceedingly good grade of flax, is gaining big momentum, and a Belgian priest is now on his way to Europe after conferring with the Canadian Northern Railway. The making of linen had been a large and important industry in Belgium before the war, but now every factory is closed. ”

“ The linen manufacture by degrees ceased to be a domestic industry, and began to centre in and become the characteristic factory employment of special localities, which depended, however, for their supply of raw material primarily on the operations of small growers, working, for the most part, on the poorer districts of remote thinly populated countries. ”

“ Although the larger part of the linen manufactured in England was still produced under the conditions of domestic industry, the demand for thread for trade purposes was steady enough to suggest to Parish Authorities the value of spinning as a means of reducing the poor rates. It did not occur to them, however, that if the wages paid for spinning were higher the poor would have been as eager to learn spinning as to gain apprenticeship in the skilled trades, and thus the problem of an adequate supply of yarn might have been solved at one stroke with the problem of poverty itself ”

“ I proceed to another visible increase of trade, which spreads daily among us, and affects not England only, but Scotland and Ireland also, though the consumption depends wholly upon England, and that is, the printing or painting of linen. The late Acts prohibiting the use and weaving of painted callicoes either in clothes, equipages, or house furniture, were without question aimed at improving the consumption of our woollen manufacture, and in part it had an effect that way. ”

“ The importance of the linen branch to agriculture, its precious effects upon household industry, the ease with which the materials can be produced at home to any requisite extent, the great advances which have been already made in the coarser fabrics of them, especially in the family way, constitute claims of peculiar force to the patronage of Government. ”

“ As early as the twelfth century the manufacture of linen and woollen cloth had grown to be a very important industry that had resulted in the rapid growth of population. The older cities grew rapidly, and new ones sprang up wherever the commodities of trade were gathered, manufactured, or distributed. ”

“ Fabrics in jute range from the roughest sacking to carpets of almost Oriental beauty. Another staple industry is the linen manufacture, which is also one of the oldest, although it was not till the introduction of steam power that headway was made. ”

“ It would not be possible for hand labour to supply the amount of linen now turned out by the aid of machinery. It would require three times the entire population of Ireland to spin and weave, by the old spinning-wheel and hand-loom methods, the amount of linen cloth now annually manufactured by the operatives of Belfast alone. There are now forty large spinning-mills in Belfast and the neighbourhood, which furnish employment to a very large number of working people. ”

“ The weather being warm, many of the farmers removed their coats, depositing them on the back of their seats, and seemed much to enjoy the additional coolness, while they thus disclosed the snowy whiteness of their coarse, homemade linen; that now almost obsolete branch of manufacture, which had such close affinity with habits of domestic industry and comfort. Their wives were evidently inured to toil, nor of that toil ashamed. A few of the mothers bore in their arms healthful and ruddy infants, leaving probably no person at home, with whom they could safely intrust so precious a charge. ”

“ Napkins, quilts, bedspreads, and sheets, as well as large-flowered damask table-cloths and linen covers testify to the industry of the women of the family. The good wife lost her long gowns and short gowns, her "shifts of 500 linen," handkerchiefs of gauze, lawn, and linen, aprons of new flowered lawn, fine linen and homespun, 3 caps of cambric and lawn, all new, and even two bibs for a child. ”

“ Germany produce considerable amounts, and a small quantity is grown in the United States.
The prepared flax is used in the manufacture of linen cloth, and the latter is almost exclusively used for table-cloths, napkins, shirt-bosoms, collars, cuffs, and handkerchiefs. France is noted for the manufacture of linen lawns and cambrics, and Belfast, Ireland, for table-cloths and napkins. Nearly the whole linen product is consumed in the United States, Canada, and western Europe; indeed, linen is a mark of western civilization. Great Britain handles the greater part of the linen textiles. ”

“ There is nothing now left to support your complaint but the printed linen; which, though it is become a general wear, yet is our own product and growth, and the labour of our own poor; for the Scots and Irish, by whom the linen is manufactured, are our own subjects, and ought as much to be in our concern as any of the rest, and that linen is as much our own manufacture as the silk and the wool. ”

“ The increase of consumption, all over the world, is produced by the inventions which diminish the cost of production. We now make linen cloth here cheaper than it is sent to us from abroad; and the result is that in 1853 we exported our linen manufactures to the extent of six million pounds sterling; and employed a hundred thousand persons in the manufacture. In the flax-mill of Messrs. Marshall, at Leeds, where all the operations of spinning are carried on in one enormous room, five times as large as Westminster-hall, seventy thousand lbs. of flax are worked up weekly into yarn. ”

“ The following figures exhibit the progressive increase of this trade:—The importation of flax in 1790 was 2,700 tons; in 1850, 55,000 tons. The export of linen in 1790 was 8 millions of yards; in 1850, 85 millions of yards. The yarns thus manufactured are generally sent from the mills direct to the bleach-fields, or to the wash-mill, where they are scoured or whitened, and prepared for the loom. In weaving sail-cloth, and other heavy goods, men only are employed; but, in the lighter fabrics, women perform the work as well as the men. ”

“ If the store keeper sells it for union, it [198] is honest; if he calls it linen, and you pay linen price, it is dishonest. Ravel and untwist the ends of the warp and filling thread. Cotton will be fuzzy, linen should be long and lustrous. Round threads of linen are best. The linen threads appear pointed at the ends when separated. The all linens made from the tow (you have learned what that is) are cheaper than those made from the line. Why? They will not last quite so well.
Wet the linen. Water spreads more rapidly on linen than on cotton. ”

“ The celebrated Irish linen is the most valuable staple in the market, and on account of its fineness and strength, and particularly its bright color, it attains an unapproachable excellence because the best processes are used throughout the entire manufacture. Linen is less elastic and pliable than cotton and bleaches and dyes readily.
Flax from all countries is woven into table linen, [Pg 197] though very fine linen must have carefully prepared fiber. Linen should be soft, yielding, and elastic, with almost a leathery feel. Fineness of linen does not always determine good wearing qualities. ”

“ In the first place she determined to buy none but hand-made linen, partly because weaving linen by hand provides a fuller and more fruitful life for the worker than weaving it by machine, partly because it is cheaper in the end to buy what is more expensive in the beginning. ”

“ Until recently the spinning of the flax into thread was done by separate companies and the thread was sold to the weavers, but several years ago a combine was organized and many of the spinning plants went into a trust, which has enabled them to command better prices and be more independent. The linen manufacturers, however, are practically dependent upon the United States. We take more than half the products of Irish linen. The average for the last forty years has been 51.1 per cent sold to the United States, 19.3 to the British possessions, and 29.6 per cent to other foreign countries. ”

“ Their ability to enter into competition with England in the production of either yarn or linen cloth, arises solely from the fortunate circumstance to which I have just alluded, that not only do they themselves produce the raw material for their own manufactures, but it is they, who, likewise, supply it to their competitors, almost at their own price. ”

“ The coarser thread is used to make bags for holding the legumes, corn, &c.; the finer for making sheets, napkins, and shirts. The peasants in this district use no other kind of linen, not being acquainted with the culture either of flax or hemp. The ground is too dry and unproductive to suit these plants. The linen made [Pg 206] of the Spanish Broom is as supple as that made from hemp; it might be even as beautiful as real linen, if more pains were taken with it. It becomes whiter, the oftener it is washed. It is rarely sold, each family making it for its own use. ”

“ Weaving.—The difficulties in the way of power-loom linen weaving, combined with the obstinate competition of hand-loom weavers, delayed the introduction of factory weaving of linen fabrics for many years after the system was fully applied to other textiles. ”

“ To make any perceptible difference in the population for this purpose, it would take a quarter of a century and a great revolution in habits of life, trade, and agriculture. And if the supply of linen rags is not enough to meet one-half nor one-third of the demand, some cheaper material than linen rags must be found for cheap paper. This deduction is based on facts that came under my knowledge here. The Angouleme paper-makers, the last to use pure linen rags, say that the proportion of cotton in the pulp has increased to a frightful extent of late years. ”