The following is the state of the silk manufacture of this country at present, in the principal places where it is carried on :—At Derby, there are 12 twist mills, on the model of those brought over by Sir Thomas Lombe, which give employment to about 1000 people, mostly women and children. At Macclesfield, between 20 and 30 silk mills are generally at work for the throwing of silk, and making of sewing silk, most of which are turn ed by water ; waste silk is also spun for the making of stockings and silk handkerchiefs, ribbons, tape, Ste. ma nufactured. At Leek, ribbons, sewing silk, silk twist, and buttons : this place and Coventry have taken away a considerable part of the silk trade from Spittalfields, consequence, it is supposed, of the effects of the act of Parliament for regulating wages at the latter place. Co ventry and Atherstone in the same county arc the prin cipal places for the manufacture of ribbons. At St Al bans and Watford, in Hertfordshire, there are silk mills on a new and improved construction, which give employ ment to a considerable number of people. There are likewise silk mills at Sheffield; Bruton, in Somerset shire; Sherbourne and Stalbridge in Dorsetshire ; Not tingham, Chesterfield, Congleton, where silk is spun for the ribbon manufacture at Coventry, and several other places. Silk goods, of valious descriptions, are manu factured at Oakingham and Colchester; silk handker chiefs at Manchester, &c.; and at Towcester in North amptonshire, the chief manufacture is silk wrought by machinery. We have already mentioned, that part of the Spittalfields manufactures have been transferred to Coventry and Leek, in consequence of the act for regu lating wages: this act has also induced some master manufacturers of gauze, who used to make that article in Spittalfields, to remove their trade to Reading, in Berkshire, where it is rather in a flourishing state. Spit talfields, however, must still be regarded as the princi pal seat of the silk trade of this country : in that district, there are upwards of 20,000 looms employed, principally in the manufacture of light silks, which arc exported to America when the trade is open. As there is less of the raw material in them, the English silk manufacturer can compete, in the American market, with the French manufacturer ; but it is otherwise with heavy silks, in which the proportion of the raw material is greater. Be sides America, the West Indies take off a considerable part of their goods; and it is calculated that one third are used for home consumption. The slight articles are made almost entirely by women and children. There are three persons to two looms, besides windsters and warpers; from this, and from the circumstance men tioned before, that when the trade was so bad in the year 1793, that 4500 looms were shut up, and 10,000 people were thrown out of employ, we may safely reckon the total number of people employed in the silk manufacture in Spittalfields at between 25,000 and 30,000.
Mr Grellier has attempted to estimate the value of this manufacture in the following manner : The ave rage quantity of raw and thrown silk imported in three years preceding the 5th of January 1797, was 883,438 lb. the value of which when manufactured is about 2,700,0001. The cost of silk to the manufacturer, if raw and thrown are taken together at only 28s. per pound, amounts to I,260,000/.; and the profits of the manufacturer 245,4541., at the rate of 10 per cent. on the cost when manufactured." He adds, that the number of persons employed in this manufacture has been stated at 200,000, but there appears no reason to believe that it exceeds 65,000 of all descriptions. This estimate seems to he manifestly wrong in one important particular. Mr Greiner takes the profit of the manufacturer at the rate of 10 per cent. on the cost of the article when manufac tured ; but the value according to hint is 2,700,0001.: ten per cent. on this is evidently 270,0001., and not 215,4541.. The imports of silk from Italy in 20 years, from 1781 to 1800 inclusive, were on the average per annum about 4200 bales. The imports from 1800 to 1805 were rather greater, amounting to 672,409 pounds. The average annual imports of silk from Bengal, from 1775 to 1794, amounted to 5240 hales; and from 1795 to ;804,. the average import from Bengal was about 2128 bales. From this it will appear, that the annual cos • sumption of silk is about 6328 bales, or nearly 950,000 pounds. Assuming the price to be 30s. per pound, the value of the raw material will be 1,425,0001.; and sup posing that the average increased value of all silk goody when manufactured is three times that of the raw mate rial, the value of the whole silk manufactured will be 4,275,0001.; deducting from this the sum of 1,425,0001., it will give us 3,250,0001., as the sum out of which the interest of capital, manufacturing profit, and labourers wages are to be taken. If we reckon 20 per cent. on
this sum for the two former, it will give 641,000, and the remainder, 2,609,0001., will be the amount of the la bourers wages. As a very large proportion of these live in London, we cannot reckon their wages on an average of town and country, and men, women, and children, at less than 15s. a week, or about 401. a year. If, therefore, we divide the sum of 2,609,0001. by 40, we shall proba bly come near the number of people employed in this manufacture : this will give us 65,250, and this number of people seems much more probable than the number stated by Mr Grellier, when we consider that in Spittal fields there are about 25,000 or 30,000, and that in Co ventry the ribbon trade occupies a considerable propor tion of the inhabitants. • The linen manufacture of England is one of very small importance, though formerly it appears to have been of greater extent and value. This article was made in this country so early as the year 1189, but at that time by far the greatest quantity used, as well as that of the finest quality, was imported from Flanders. About the middle of the 16th century, Norfolk engaged in this manufacture, and a particular privilege was granted to this county, of manufacturing a kind then called Dorneck in it. About a century afterwards, Irish linen yarn was much imported, and manufactured into linen in Manchester; and it is rather singular, that notwithstanding the almost overwhelming influ ence of the cotton trade, this manufacture still keeps its ground in Lancashire nearly to as great an extent as in any other district of England. Ttiwards the end of the seventeenth century, our importations of linen from France were very large. Mr King, in his.British Mer chant, rates them at the annual value of 900,0001.; at the same time he gives rather a favourable view of the increase of this manufacture in England. In Lanca shire and Cheshire alone, lie says there was an increase to the amount of 240.0001. per annum : and that in these counties there were 10,000 looms, and 60,000 people wholly employed and subsisted by that manufacture. The increase in Dorsetshire and Somersetshire (y. here this manufacture still subsists) he estimates at 100.0001., and in the other English counties at 40,0001. The im portation of linen appears at this time (1702) to have been recent ; for he reckons the whole amount of it 80,0001. under the head of increase. Besides linen of our own manufacture, we procured it from Scotland to the amount of 106.00U, from Holland to the amount of upwards of 200.0001 , and from Germany to the amount of upwards of half a million. The annual consumption of linen he rates at 1,750,0001., of which he says that the English manufacturer supplied 746,5611 Os. Id. Such, according to him, was the state of this manufacture in England at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Parliament seems to have been early anxious to en courage and extend this manufacture. By the act of tonnage and poundage, passed in the 12th of Charles II. duties were imposed on foreign linens ; but in con sequence of their not being duly proportioned and levi ed, and of the decrease in the value of the money duty, as well as the improvements in the fabric of German linens, they were not so beneficial as was expected and intended. In the year 1743, a bounty was first granted on the exportation of British linens ; and in 1745, this bounty was augmented. It appears by the custom house books, that, prior to the year 1746, British linen was so small an article of export trade, that the whole quantity exported from England never amounted in any one year to 200,000 yards ; and it may be remarked, as forming a striking contrast between the state of this manufacture in England and Scotland at that time and at this, that the whole export from the latter country did not reach 90,000 yards. The increase of the manu facture in England will appear from the following facts. In the year 1743, the year when the bounty took place, the quantity exported from England drawing bounty was 52,779 yards ; in 1753, 641,510 yards ; in 1763, 2,308,310 yards ; in 1773, 5,868,233 yards ; and in 1783, 8,867,915 yards. On an average of 10 years, from the 5th January 1776 to the 5th January 1786, the linen drawing bounty exported from England was 5,315,354 yards ; and the total average quantity of what was ex ported and what was consumed in England, was in 1786 about 30,000,000 yards, in value nearly 1,600,0001. per annum, and employing and supporting about 200,000 people. It ought also to be remarked, that the increase in the exportation of the finer linens not entitled to bounty, between 1743 and 1783, was nearly as great in value, though not in quantity.