In 1800 there were 1000 flannel looms in
County Wicklow; in 1840 there was not one. In 1800 there were 2500
looms at work in Dublin for the manufacture of silk and poplin; in
1840 there were only 250. In 1800 there were 27,000 cotton workers
in Belfast and around it; in 1840 there were only 12,000. In 1800
there were 61,075 tradesmen in Dublin for the woollen, silk, and
cotton industries; in 1834 there were only 14,446, and of these
4412 were idle, showing a decrease of 51,041 in the employed."
There was, we must add, an increase in other directions. For instance,
whereas there had been only seven bankruptcies decreed in Dublin in 1799
there were 125 in 1810. The number of insolvent houses grew in seven
years from 880 to 4719. These figures are not random but symptomatic. Mr
Pitt had promised to blend Ireland with the capital and industry of
Great Britain; he blended them as the edge of a tomahawk is blended with
the spattered brains of its victim. We have glanced at the condition of
manufacture. Lest it should be assumed that the tiller of land at least
had profited by the Napoleonic Wars, with their consequent high prices,
let me hasten to add that the Grey Commission, reporting in 1836, had to
inform the Government that 2,385,000 persons, nearly one-third of the
population, were "in great need of food.
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