Appendix (C.)'
Part I.
Leinster.
County of the Town of Drogheda.
G.
G.
Lewis, Esq.,
A.
P.
Aylraer, Esq.
46 APPENDIX to FIRST REPORT of COMMISSIONERS for inquiring operated in a two-fold way,-—first, the increased demand raised the price of foreign yarns in Britain; and secondly, it enabled the manufacturers here to obtain cheaper-weft yarns than they could have got at home, and so to produce cheaper cloths."
Other causes likewise conspired to raise the linen trade in England and Scotland to the pre¬ judice of the Irish manufacturer.
The great command of capital possessed by the English and Scotch manufacturers, by which they have been enabled to extend their operations to per¬ fect the mode of production, and to command distant markets, from which tho small capitalist • could not wait for returns; the skill in machinery, which enabled them almost entirely to supersede the tedious and expensive process of hand-spinning by which the Irish yarns had been produced; and probably the more settled and secure state of tho country, which offered a favourable opportunity to the investment of largo masses of capital in buildings extremely liable to destruction.
These circumstances contributed to favour the spinning and weaving of linen in Great Britain, and to produce a corresponding depression in Ireland.—(Evidence
of Mr.
J.
Oates, manufacturer of linen and cotton goods.)
Other improvements likewise introduced elsewhere in the treatment of the linen cloth were not successfully imitated by the Irish manufacturer.
"I heard it staled by a large Manchester importer, (says Mr.
Whitworth, who some time ago resided in Manchester,) thaMlio decline of the linen trade in this town about 20 years ago was owing lo the ignorance of Ihe persons concerned in bleaching the yarn at the time when the chemical process was introduced.
They spoiled the yarn in the process so that the Drogheda mark made the cloth unsaleable."
The introduction of cheap substitutes for linen cloth, as the species of cloth called unions, which were webs with a linen warp and a cotton weft, and the unparalleled declension in the price of calicoes, caused by the improved machinery invented and employed in Lancashire, likewise assisted in accelerating the contraction of the linen weaving trade in Drogheda.—>
(Evidence of Mr.
Hen,y Smith, general merchant and bank agent.)
Several large capitalists in Drogheda were also, we are assured, induced to leave the linen trade by disagreements with the weavers, who made unfair demands upon them for an advance of wages.—(Evidence
of Mr.
George Smith, general merchant.)
One of those capitalists, Mr.
Ternan (now engaged in the farming trade, and also manager and part owner of the Drog¬ heda and Liverpool steam-packets) gives the following account of the motives which induced him to withdraw his capital from the linen manufacture into other branches of ihe trade:— " About 20 years ago I was engaged in the linen trade, I was induced to quit if in 1815 by the unfavourable prospects of the trade, and the injudicious regulations of the linen board.
At last, the combination of the sheeting and dowlas weavers, who principally came hero from the North of Ireland, decided me.
They were a restless, keen, and clever set of person".
The number of these weavers then employed here was about 2,000, all of whom turned out for an advance of wages; the trade was fair at the time, and they were earning from 15.V.
to 18.v.
a-week; the payment was 3^.
a-yard and they demanded 4d.
As soon after this turn-out as I got tho yarn on my hands worked off, I quitted the trade.
I think there arc not now 200 weavers of this kind in Drogheda.
The weavers of the town employed in other branches of the linen manufacture did not join in this combination."
At one time, moreover, a considerable quantity of plain calicoes was woven by hand in Drogheda; but that manufacture has now almost entirely ceased, chiefly, no doubt, in consequence of the competition of the power doom, which has so much depressed the hand-weavers of plain cotton goods in Lancashire and the western part of Scotland; but its original decline, and its total extinction, were stated to us by a gentleman once engaged in this trade, and who had personally inquired into the subject, to be owing to the abusive administration of the poor laws in Lancashire.
" It was the poor laws in England (says Mm.
Ennis) that ruined the cotton weaving here.
The hand-weavers in Lancashire got allowances from the parish, which enabled I hem to work at a lower rate than the weavers here who had no such advantage; and the English manu¬ facturer was thus enabled to undersell us in the Dublin market.
I made inquiries at Preston, and ascertained this to be the fact.
The earnings of weavers were the same in Lan¬ cashire and Drogheda, but the Lancashire weaver received an additional payment from the parish.
The power-loom, doubtless, affected the hand-weaving in Droghoda, but at that time we were undersold by hand-wove goods."
Many of the cotton weavers, thrown out of work by these causes, have, within the last few years, employed their looms in linen weaving, since the suppression of the linen board has given fresh facilities to the extension of the trade which it was intended to foster.
Others preferred altogether to abandon the unprofitable profession of weaving, and have taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by the establishment of steam-vessels to engage in the provision trade with Liverpool, as we shall presently have occasion to mention.
Many of the Drogheda weavers, however, both of cotton and linen cloth, have, at different times since the decline of the trade, emigrated to England and Scotland; chiefly to Wigan, Manchester, and Barnsley, in the former, and to Dundee in the latter, country.
The population of Drogheda is stated to have been much relieved by those emigrations which have been sufiicient, notwithstanding the power of propagation, to prevent an increase of its numbers in the last 36 years; and, as it appears, to keep the working population on a level with tho demand for labour, although m part at a very low rate of wages.
This effect has, doubtless, in a great measure, been owing to the migratory habits of the weavers; many of whom, we were informed, are in the habit of passing the winter in Lancashire and Cheshire on account of the greater comfort of the dwellings and the lower price of coal on the English side of the channel, and of returning to their own cabins in spring where they have more space and a purer air.—
(Evidence of Mr.
J, Oates.)
Other towns in the same coast, where a similar lack of employ¬ ment exists, do not appear to show any tendency to relieve themselves in a similar manner.
But
