of the system of regulation by which it has been governed, they still hold it to be their duty to this House, as well as to those who are engaged in the linen trade of Ireland, to state unreservedly their own opinions upon this most important subject.

The system of conducting the linen manufacture in England and Scotland, as described to your Committee by the witnesses from those countries, appears to be in many instances preferable to that which is pursued in Ireland. The different branches of the trade in Great Britain are divided among different persons, each of those branches becoming a separate business in itself; and this division of labour necessarily leads to a better economy of time, and the production of more and even better fabrics, all which advantages might be gradually introduced into Ireland; and it is only by gradual measures these improvements can be obtained.

Your Committee abstain from offering any opinion on the policy of collecting the peasantry into towns or villages, or disturbing their present habits of mixing agricultural with manufacturing occupation.

With a view to the introduction of this improved division of business, your Committee would chiefly direct the attention of the Linen Board to forward, by every means in their power, all possible improvement in the cultivation and the dressing of the flax. The efforts which the Board have already made towards encouraging the erection of flax-mills, should therefore be followed up with increased anxiety, so as to have the flax brought to market in the cleanest condition and at the cheapest rate.

Your Committee are disposed to dwell upon this subject, as it is of considerable importance, not merely to the interests of Ireland, but to those of the empire at large; for so long as

we are obliged to import from foreign countries this elementary part of the linen manufacture, so long must those countries who engage in that manufacture themselves possess an advantage over our own; and there is every reason to believe that Ireland, by an extended cultivation and improved treatment of her flax, might, without at all encroaching upon the quantity necessary for her home consumption, supply the demands of the British market.

Next in importance to the dressing of the flax, is the spinning and sale of the yarn, which, from the evidence before your Committee, are carried on in Ireland in a way very capable of improvement. It has been stated to your Committee, that the Irish spinner too often endeavours to get the greatest possible length of thread out of a given quantity of flax, without any regard to what may be the quality of that thread when produced. Thus, four to five hanks of yarn are often spun out of that quantity of flax, which, to make good cloth, ought not to have been spun into more than two. A poor raw thread, incapable of producing a good stout fabric, is thereby sent among the weavers, to the great injury of the manufacture. But the evils of this branch of the trade do not end here. Almost the whole of the spinning is carried on by poor people, who naturally look with anxiety to the time the market-day comes round, for which they seek to provide themselves with as much yarn as they are able, gathering it up from every member of their own families, sometimes from those of their neighbours, and always more anxious about the bulk of their bunches, than desirous of sorting them according to the different grists of the different yarns that compose them. Thus the two things essentially necessary to enable a weaver to make good linen are too often denied to him;

namely, good and even yarns well assorted. Towards accomplishing these important objects, your Committee look forward to the introduction of the spinning by machinery, and the establishment of yarn greens, to be kept by persons who would buy up the yarn from the hand spinners, and bleach and assort it, and prepare it for the weavers, so that each man who came to buy from them might be able at once to provide himself with as much as he wanted of that particular kind of yarn, unmixed with any other, that was suitable to the particular quality of linen he was preparing to weave. It appears from the evidence before your Committee, that considerable improvements have been made in the last 20 years in Great Britain in the machinery for spinning yarn. Mill-spun yarn, about twenty years ago, could not be made finer than fifteen cuts to the pound; but within that time it has been raised to near fifty, and very considerable advance in the fineness of mill-spun yarn is still further expected.

In recommending the establishing of the spinning mill, your Committee do not apprehend any injury to the hand spinners. Everything that tends to improve and cheapen the manufacture, will increase the demand for it; and therefore, instead of fearing any want of employment for them, an increased consumption of their yarn is rather to be looked for; and the more So, if greens for the bleaching of yarn shall be established.

With respect to the business of weaving, your Committee are of opinion, that it is now carried on more beneficially in England and Scotland for the weaver than in Ireland, who is generally the owner of the cloth he makes, mostly performing all those previous processes in his own imperfect way, each of which would be better executed if made a separate business in itself, and carried on with better means

and more intelligence than the weaver is found to possess. It will, however, be the duty of the Linen Board, so long as the present system lasts, to assist the weaver, by procuring information for him upon every improvement adopted in Great Britain; such as models of the newest fly shuttles and most approved looms, with which he ought to be made familiar.

Your Committee do not, however, recommend the weaving business in Ireland to be assimilated to the better system of Great Britain by any interference of the Legislature, which never should concern itself, except when it is absolutely necessary, with the internal management of any manufac ture. This system has already begun in the North, and it is chiefly through that intelligent portion of the country that we can hope to establish any great improvement of this kind. A very well-informed witness, who carried on the linen trade in Scotland, says, "The best sheeting that I have ever seen made in Ireland, is made by a manufacturer who employs a number of weavers, and which cloth never came to the brown market, but was sold directly to the bleachers." This is by no means a single case, as there are extensive manufacturers who buy and give out the yarn to weavers to be woven into cloth, and have become a numerous class of persons in the North ;. and the more they increase, the more it will be for the benefit of Ireland. The weaver, who works for another, must save all that time which he now consumes in going to and returning from market; and all those fluctuations in the price of linen, which now fall upon himself, would in that case fall upon the person who employed him. Thus the situation of the working weavers would be improved without necessitating any change in their numbers, or in their dispersed residences throughout the country