The number of persons, young and old, employ ed in our hardware manufactories, is reckoned be tween 800,000 and 400,000. In no branch of in dustry is the from war to peace more sensibly felt ; government, the great customer for arms and artillery, withdraws entirely from the market; while the stagnation of commerce, the postponement of new buildings and new machin ery, in short, the various evils inseparable from a sudden and general change, which have been so cruelly felt throughout Britain since the peace, all operate most materially against the sale of the heavier and more useful articles. Similar causes cast a damp over the purchase of ornamental and fancy; so that, in no department of our popu lation the sufferings of the labouring classes or the augmentation of the poor's rate been greater. But there is happily a point beyond which depres sion cannot go, the reduced price of a commodity rendering it applicable to more extended uses, and adapting it to the means of humbler customers. Iron has not been found suitable as a substitute for stone in paving the streets of the metropolis; but, if its price continue low, it is likely to supplant timber for a variety of purposes, of which the public at large are not as yet aware. Reduction of price will lead also to a demand from the Continent for our hardware; the article in which of all others the French and Germans are most behind us. Their mines of iron are seldom adjacent to their mines of coal, and, with the exception of a few places, such as Liege in the Netherlands, and St Etienne near Lyons, the hardware workmen are not collected in such large associations as to admit of the necessary subdivision of labour. As improvement advances, and a taste for comfort becomes diffused, the inha bitants of the Continent will extend their purchases ; they will see in the keys, the locks, and other neat and convenient articles of English fabric, a substi tute for the bolts, the latches, and other coarse con trivances, with which they have hitherto been oblig ed to content themselves. In the United States, iron and coal are found, it is said (Mellish's Travels in America, chap. 67), in abundance, in a quarter (Pittsburgh in where land and pro visions are certainly much cheaper than in Britain ; but the scattered state of American population must, during several ages, oppose serious obstacles to the division of employment necessary in all the nicer branches of the hardware manufacture ; particularly as the ease with which the Mississippi and Ohio are navigated by steam, opens even the western states to the import of British goods. On the whole, there fore, 's look on our hardware manufactures, not withstanding their present depression, as resting on a solid basis, because in them we combine seve ral advantages ;—the raw material, the command of cheap fuel, and the use of machinery, which, the more it is adopted, will bring a greater proportion of the work within the compass of women and boys, and thus lesson the proportion borne in the cost of the finished article by wages.
Linen has never formed one of the stable manu factures of England, flax having been less cultivated among us than on the opposite shore of the Nether lands; a country which, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, supplied the rest of Europe both with the finest linens and woollens. When England subse quently advanced in manufacturing arts, the abund ant supply of wool pointed out the most suitable branch ; and we were contented to continue our im ports of linen from the Netherlands, from France and from Germany, or to favour the manufacture of the sister island in a department which did not excite our jealousy. In Ireland, the linen manufacture dates about two centuries back, and it is said to have owed much of its extension to the measures of the unfortunate Wentworth in the reign of Charles I.
The annual consumption of linen in England a cen tury ago, was probably not far below that of her double population at present; owing to the very general substitution in our time of cotton articles. Then, as at present, the linen manufacture of Eng. land was established chiefly in Lancashire, in Cum berland, and in a county very remote from these Dorsetshire. In 1745 government, apprised of the extension of the manufacture of coarse linen in Si lesia and other parts of Germany, and actuated by the fallacious notion of making a monopoly of all kinds of productive industry, granted a bounty of 1 Id. per yard on the export of all British linen of a value from 6d. to 18d. per yard; in other words, a premium of 20 or 25 per cent. on the prime cost of all inferior qualities exported. So large a grant soon augmented the manufacture of Osnaburgs and other coarse cloths, particularly in Scotland, although the ratio of increase was infinitely smaller than in the case of cotton, where there was no premium but a rapid improvement of machinery. The demand for i bounty, in the ten years ending in 1785, was about L.38,000 annually. Since that time these tic issues have greatly increased, and of late years . above L.100,000 has been paid for bounty on linen and canvas exported from England and Scotland.
The following returns from the Customhouse books show the extent to which we are dependant oh fo reign countries for a supply of the raw material; and on countries too which have linen manufactures of their own : that part of the kingdom, particularly on the east coast. The average value of the linen of all kinds made in England hardly exceeds a million a year; and if we wish to contemplate this fabric in a state of extension and prosperity, our view must be rested to Ireland, where, without any aid from go. vernment, the manufacture of fine linen has continu ed progressively to augment, and has obtained the command of the market of England, reducing out imports from the Continent to a very small compara tive proportion.
Yards.
Average import of Irish linen into England for home consumption in the 12 years from 1800 to the end of 1812, 32,800,000 Ditto from Germany, also for home consumption, about . . 2,000,000 Ditto from Russia, nearly . . 2,0043,000 A similar superiority in favour of Ireland is proved by the Customhouse returns for years of peace.
Plain linen of Germany and Silesia retained for home consumption, about . 600, 300,000 Russia, . . . 2,300, 330,000 Ireland, . . . 29,864, 31,026,000 Having thus shown the anode of supplying the home consumption in the only great article of ma nufacture which England does not make for herself, we are next to convey an idea of our exports. This will be best done by two extracts from the Custom. house returns, the first for the linens of England and Scotland, exclusive of those of Ireland.
Into Ireland, on the other hand, the importation of foreign flax is almost nameless, seldom amount. ant{ to 100 tons.
The late war gave considerable vigour to our sail-cloth and cordage manufactures at Bridport, Lancaster, Workington, &c. the great source of sup. ply was from the manufacture of canvas for the navy having been carried on extensively in (See CUitonshowse Returns, 5th April 1816.) To these is to be added an export of canvas to the amount of about a million of ells annually, which goes chiefly to out North American and West India Colonies. The finer linens exported, vitt those above 10d. per yard, are not entitled to bounty. We come next to a more comprehensive table.-to our linen exports generally.