Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1890 — IRISH LINEN MANUFACTURERS PREPARING TO COKE TO THIS COUNTRY. [ARTICLE]

IRISH LINEN MANUFACTURERS PREPARING TO COKE TO THIS COUNTRY.

The following is from a letter signed •‘Flaxman.” in the current Cumber of the Dry Goods Chronicle: “The cost of labor in the linen trade of Ireland is about one-third of the whole cost of production. Hence, it needs from 25 to 35 per -cent, above the present protective duty on rawmater i?l hereto enable us to equalize the wages between factory operatives In Ireland and in this country. A duty of S3O per ton on flax is equal to about 25 per cent, duty on linens, but, as proposed in the bill before Congress. 60 per cent, and 65 per cent is placed on manufactured linens, in which case we would be able to compete successfully with imported linens. At present raw silk is admitted free of duty, with 50 per cent- on manufactured silks, while flax pays a duty of S3O per ton, which makes the duty on manu. faetured linens less than on silks. The McKinley bill proposes to rectify this unjust discrimination in favor of one article of textile manufacture against the other. Under the proposed duty adjustment on linens we have the assurance from practical Irish linen manufacturers that they will no longer Be able to supply our wants unless they transplant their business to this side o’ the water, audit is no secret that some of them have been here for some time with the view of negotiating for good sites on which to erect linen mills the moment the McKinley bill is passed. It is important for them to secure sites convenient to where the flax grows, and no doubt Minneapolis, Minn., will be chosen as the iavored "spot for the first linen mill that will be erected under the new regime. But if we are to import flax, to push business at once on a large scale, it is not unlikely that mills will be erected within ten or fifteen miles of New York on the Jersey coast or wherever good soft water can be obtained adapted to retting the flax. This retting process and cutting system have been two great stumbling blocks hitherto toward the establishment of the linen industry here. and. if we are rightly informed, modern science has discovered a way of retting flax more expeditiously (without in.any way injuring the fiber,) and with greater economy than is required by the old process, and if it is found to work well in practice then we shall have made a long stride forward. “We know that objections have often been raised against our hot summers and cold winters as impediments to the successful growth of flax and of gathering it at an opportune season, blit we also know that Russia is a great flax growing country, and that in the same latitude heat and cold prevail as intensely as in the United States. “It takes 20,000 ’‘looms to produce the linens that are at present consumed in the United States, and yet we believe that there are only 400. or at best, 500 looms, actually working or making goods of this class in Ireland now. If this trade could be kept at home it would employ between 30,000 and 40,000 people and be a source of great wealth to our country.”