TEXTILE FABRICS:

FLAX, HEMP, WOOL, SILK, AND COTTON.

THE cultivation and manufacture of the four great materials, Flax, Wool, Silk, and Cotton have ever been the chief means of industrial employment, and their products the principal articles of traffic among nations. It is only very recently, however, that the manufacture of the three last mentioned have made much progress in Western Europe. In the present century, the supply of these three materials has been greatly increased and the qualities have been greatly improved, while machinery has been largely employed in their manufacture. Linen, on the other hand, has been of very remote and general use, yet has comparatively defied the powers of machinery and the attempts made to improve its manufacture. It has therefore been and continues to be more dependent upon the slow and costly process of hand labor than the other three articles. It is, however, one of the most general productions of the European peasant, and is afforded at comparatively low cost.. Belgium and Holland have been the most remarkable for linen industry; the culture and manufacture of flax were well developed among the Belgi when the Roman power first dominated the Rhine country. At that remote period the blouse was already the national costume, and Italy derived a new commerce in the importation of the linen fabrics of Flanders. The pre-eminence in this trade then possessed by the Low Countries was held for many centuries. As to its origin, many writers trace it back three centuries before CHRIST. It is certain that in the 13th century Belgium had a monopoly of the linen manufacture in Europe. Nivelles was then the seat of the manufacture, which, however, soon spread to Brabant, Hainau, and Journai. In the latter part of the 15th century, ALBERT and ISABEL, on visiting Courtrai, were presented with damask cloths of great delicacy, and in the 16th century the growing India trade had introduced cottons, and silks had grown into more general use. The cultivation of cocoons in Italy had begun at this time to be quite extensive, and when HENRY IV. of France' displayed the first pair of silk stockings, which were imported, an impulse was given to the manufacture which laid the foundation of the prosperity of Rouen, Lyons, etc. The linen manufacture also spread through Germany, England, and Spain. These circumstances caused a decline in the Belgium trade, and a government commission was ordered to investigate the matter. As a result of this commission the exportation of flax was prohibited and also the importation of cottons. These enactments did not help the matter much. The general growth of wealth and population, however, kept up a certain demand for Belgium linen, notwithstanding the growth of manufacture elsewhere. In the beginning of the 18th century there were sold annually in the Flemish markets 100,000 pieces of linen of 80 yards each, and this did not comprise the large quantity made in the cottages of the peasantry for their household use. The steady progress of the trade during the 18th century will be gathered from the statistics contained in public documents of the quantities sold in the market of Ghent alone. In 1735, there were 65,849 pieces; in 1775, 79,040;

in 1760, 83,305; and in 1764, 86,315. The other chief markets were Courtrai, Audenarde, Alost, Renaix, Lokeren, and Bruges.

When Belgium fell under the rule of France, in the year IX. of the French republic, Flanders alone was estimated to produce 282,793 pieces of linen-say 22,623,440 yards, valued at $3,675,282. The manufacture. continued to extend in Belgium up to 1838, at which period the competition of Great Britain and Ireland in the European and foreign markets checked its progress. In 1840, the entire quantity manufactured in Belgium was estimated at 400,000 pieces, or 32,000,000 yards, valued at $12,000,000.

The manufacture of flax had, at this time, progressed in England greatly, and the growth of flax in Ireland, under the auspices of the Royal Society, increased in ten years ending 1851, 100,000 acres, and has been annually as follows:

The increase of sowing in 1863 is nearly 45 per cent as compared with 1862; and, as compared with any of the years 1855, 1856, 1857, and 1858, the increase is more than 100 per cent. The quality of the fiax and its price are all that could be desired. Of the whole number of acres in 1863, 207,345 were in Ulster. The import of flax into Great Britain in forty years to 1860, increased 115,000,000 lbs. In France the trade had also become well developed. In all this time, however, linen had to contend against not only the growth of the other materials, but their adaptedness to the same purposes.

The use of wool throughout Europe, particularly in France and Great Britain, had been confined to coarse textures, as well from the nature of the wool itself as from the want of proper machinery for its mandfacture. The Spanish breed of sheep alone furnished the proper material for cloths, and it was not until the First Consul, at the close of the 18th century, caused the transfer of some 7,000 Spanish rams to France that the breed began to improve. When Spain was occupied, the great conqueror, ever mindful of material interests, caused a great importation of merinos into France, from which the greatest results were derived; for when France, in 1815, was overrun by the allies, the fine rams were carried off to Germany. Fine wools have since been of more general growth, and have greatly aided in the spinning of fine woolen yarns. In England the improved breed of sheep produced the long, brilliant combing wools for which that country is famous. The export of these wools was prohibited until 1828, and since that time, by the aid of machinery, wools have grown to rival cotton and linen in the fineness and brightness of the fabrics that may be wrought from them.

The manufacture of silk, at the same time, has spread wonderfully in France and England, and the silk industry of Italy has become one of the most important for the supply of the raw material, which has not only contributed the costly fabrics worn by the wealthy, but in its mixture with the other materials has diversified and extended the use of all.

All these articles, however, (silk, flax, and wool,) have found in cotton.

their most powerful competitor; for, since 1800, cotton has been so developed as to form two-thirds of the whole material used for modern clothing. The immense and rapid increase in the culture of cotton, and its successful application to purposes of wearing apparel, come so obtrusively upon the public, that all are aware of the progress so made; but it is not generally borne in mind that the aggregates of the four other prime raw materials, including hemp, increase nearly as fast in supply as does cotton, and that the price of each is materially influenced by the supply of each of the others. During the first half of the present century, England has been the work-shop of the world, and although in other countries the development of manufactures has, in the last forty years, very rapidly increased, the production in England has maintained its supremacy. Hence, if we take a total of the quantities of each of the five great raw materials imported into England, for the use of her manufactories, we shall have results as follow:

It will be observed that England was a large wool-producing country, and gradually her trade so increased as to use up all her own produce, and require annually increasing supplies; but her trade did not increase rapidly until in 1827, when the prohibition of the export of wool was removed. The supplies since then have been large. In 1825 the silk trade was thrown open, and the quantity of raw silk required by the manufacturers tripled in twenty years.

If now we regard England as the great work-shop of the world, and make a table of the imports of the five great materials, we shall have an indication of the relative supply of each of the five materials to the whole :

IMPORTS OF RAW MATERIALS FOR TEXTILE FABRICS INTO GREAT BRITAIN.

Price Upland in Liv

Cotton, lbs. erp'ol.

Total four

Hemp. lbs.

1835

72,352,200

Flax, lbs.
81,916,100

Silk, lbs. Wool, lbs. articles, lbs.

41,718,514 160,014,463

326,407,692 104d

1840

82,971,700 139,801,600

50,002,976 276,137,256

1845

76,813,855 344,258,785

1850

531,197,817 6 721,979,953 4 714,502,600 41

1855

1856

6

4,027,649
3,860,980
103,416,400 159,562,300 4,866,528
119,462,100 204,928,900 5,411,934 74,326,778 404,137,912
186,270,912 145.511,437 7,548,659 99,300,446 388,631,454 291,751,963
142,613,525 189,792,112 8,236,685 116,211,392 456,863,714 1,023,886,304
169,004,562 209,953,125 12,718,867 129,749,898 521,426,452 969,318,896
184,316,000 144,439,332 6,635,845 127,216,973 462,608,150 1,076,519,800
241,917,760 160.388,144 12,578,849 133.284,634 548,169,387 1,225,989,072
140,910,600 128,176,000 10,811,204 148,396,597 428,293,301 1,086,670,900
150,802,800 116,696,00 0,671,208 164,200,637 442,371,445 982,068,670
170,720,700 157,354,500 13,095,268 192,058,241 533,228,709 526,313,700

Thus, each of all the great raw materials has increased in the quantity consumed; and the weight of the four first, wrought up in England, has doubled in quantity in the fifteen years up to 1850, or increased in the same ratio as cotton. The influence of gold discovery was now apparent

upon the supplies of the articles named, and in 1857, the year of the panic, the imports of flax and silk were very large, carrying the aggregate of the four materials to nearly 60 per cent of cotton. Since that year there seems to have been no material increase in their receipts in the United States. From 1840 to 1850 the cotton culture did not materially increase, that is, in ten years it only increased 3 per cent per annum. The culture of linen, and its employment throughout Europe, has been very large, quite as large, in proportion, as in England. Taking Europe and England together, therefore, it may well be questioned whether the actual weight of the four minor raw materials had not increased faster than that of cotton up to 1850. The events of the last quarter of a century have tended to promote supply, more particularly in the last fifteen years, in which time the Chinese trade has become more regular in the supply of silk for European use, and Australia has become the great wool country, while the United States cotton power has been immensely developed. In the same period, also, the industry of Russia has received a more intelligent development, causing a greater supply of hemp and flax at cheaper rates. All these sources enhanced the supply of raw material for textile fabrics fifty per cent in ten years to 1850, and perhaps somewhat faster than the demand for the goods produced would take them up. The influence of one material upon the other has been continually made more effective by the ingenious combinations of the cheapest among them into the new fabrics. Thus, fabrics of silk and wool, wool and cotton, silk and cotton, silk, cotton and wool, have all assumed different textures, and different proportions of each material, according to the relative cheapness of each. Consequently, the price of any one has always been checked by that of the others, and the value of all has been influenced by collateral circumstances.

The above table gives in pounds' weight the quantities of raw material imported into Great Britain from all countries in each year. It does not include the wool used of home growth, or the increasing supply of Irish flax, but it indicates the demand that England has annually made upon the countries that produce raw materials for the means of supplying the large demands made upon her factories for goods. The stimulus everywhere given to the production of exchangeable values, and the diminished cost of transportation, as well as the more liberal policy of governments, have left to the producer a larger share of the products of his own industry, and this has shown itself in a demand for clothing. It is to be observed in the table that up to 1850 the proportion of the four other articles increased faster than cotton. Those articles, worked more and more into fabrics, that before had been exclusively of cotton, the result was cheaper fabrics that gradually glutted the markets, and the price of cotton fell from 104 cents in 1835, almost year by year, to 44 cents in 1848, the extreme low price being the effect of the famine. In that period of time, however, the purchases of cotton had doubled in England, and of the other four articles they had tripled. These are the receipts of raw materials into the work-shops of England only. Those of the continent have received similarly increased quantities. Since 1850-that is to say, since the discovery of gold-a change has, as we before stated, taken place. The supply of raw materials has increase in magnitude, but the demand for clothing has apparently increased in a greater degree, since an aggregate quantity of raw materials in 1857, 50 per cent greater