Book IV: Chapter 8 - Page 2

part of
our other commercial regulations. They are, however, perfectly
just and reasonable; and if, consistently with the necessities of
the state, they could be extended to all the other materials of
manufacture, the public would certainly be a gainer.

The avidity of our great manufacturers, however, has in some
cases extended these exemptions a good deal beyond what can
justly be considered as the rude materials of their work. By the
24th Geo. II. chap. 46, a small duty of only 1d. the pound was
imposed upon the importation of foreign brown linen yarn, instead
of much higher duties, to which it had been subjected before,
viz. of 6d. the pound upon sail yarn, of 1s. the pound upon all
French and Dutch yarn, and of £2:13:4 upon the hundred weight of
all spruce or Muscovia yarn. But our manufacturers were not long
satisfied with this reduction: by the 29th of the same king,
chap. 15, the same law which gave a bounty upon the exportation
of British and Irish linen, of which the price did not exceed
18d. the yard, even this small duty upon the importation of brown
linen yarn was taken away. In the different operations, however,
which are necessary for the preparation of linen yarn, a good
deal more industry is employed, than in the subsequent operation
of preparing linen cloth from linen yarn. To say nothing of the
industry of the flax-growers and flaxdressers, three or four
spinners at least are necessary in order to keep one weaver in
constant employment; and more than four-fifths of the whole
quantity of labour necessary for the preparation of linen cloth,
is employed in that of linen yarn ; but our spinners are poor
people; women commonly scattered about in all different parts of
the country, without support or protection. It is not by the sale
of their work, but by that of the complete work of the weavers,
that our great master manufacturers make their profits. As it is
their interest to sell the complete manufacture as dear, so it is
to buy the materials as cheap as possible. By extorting from the
legislature bounties upon the exportation of their own linen,
high duties upon the importation of all foreign linen, and a
total prohibition of the home consumption of some sorts of French
linen, they endeavour to sell their own goods as dear as
possible. By encouraging the importation of foreign linen yarn,
and thereby bringing it into competition with that which is made
by our own people, they endeavour to buy the work of the poor
spinners as cheap as possible. They are as intent to keep down
the wages of their own weavers, as the earnings of the poor
spinners ; and it is by no means for the benefit of the workmen
that they endeavour either to raise the price of the complete