One Irish Summer

by William Eleroy Curtis

The advantages of Belfast for the manufacture of linen goods, the very damp climate which softens the thread so that it does not snap in the spindles or the looms and enables the fabric to be woven closer and softer, and the purity of the water for bleaching, were recognized long ago; and, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685, when six hundred thousand Protestants fled from France, a party of Huguenot refugees under Louis Crommelin were invited to come over and introduce that industry. Crommelin belonged to a family that had woven linen for four hundred years. He was a man of great business ability, common sense, energy, and perseverance, and they called him “Crommelin the Great.” Belfast certainly owes him a heavy debt, and it has not been paid. Although the Irish parliament passed a resolution thanking him for his services in 1707, his grave in the little churchyard at Lisburn, a suburban village, is marked only by an ordinary slab of stone. There is no monument to remind the people of the north of Ireland what they owe to his ability and devotion.

The business grew rapidly for the first century and a half, and as early as 1833 Belfast had eighty mills and was producing $25,000,000 worth of linen fabrics annually. In 1840 there were 250,000 spindles buzzing about this town, but the trade reached its maximum in the ’70s, and has not increased much since. There are in all of Ireland about 35,000 looms and 900,000 spindles, all of them in this immediate vicinity, except two factories at Dublin, one at Cork, and one at Drogheda.

These are divided among about two hundred factories with about one hundred and twenty thousand operatives, of whom two-thirds are women. Their wages range from three to four dollars a week, and for men from six to seven dollars a week, the week’s work under normal circumstances being fifty-five hours the year around, beginning at six o’clock in the morning, with an hour off for breakfast from eight to nine; another hour from one to two for lunch, and then they remain at work until six o’clock. An act of parliament does not permit operatives in textile factories to remain in the buildings where they work during the breakfast and lunch hours for any purpose whatever. If they bring their meals with them, they must eat them outside of the factory, for the purpose is to give them a change of air and require them to take a certain amount of exercise. Many of the companies here feed their hands in dining-halls connected with, but apart from, the workrooms.

Even these small wages have been increased from ten to twenty per cent within the last five years, and it is remarkable how people can live and support families upon such limited incomes. The wages are paid on Saturday noon—when a half-holiday is allowed, and the money is given to the hands in tin boxes. Each operative has his own number. As they pass the paymaster’s window they call out their number, receive their box, take out the change, and throw the empty tin into a bin that is placed near the door for that purpose.

There are not less than 78,000 persons employed in the linen trade and its allied industries in the city of Belfast, and not less than 130,000 people are dependent directly or indirectly upon that industry for support. The situation is quite different there from many cities, because the fathers and husbands can find work in the shipyards and foundries, and thus the whole family is able to get employment. The law does not allow children under fourteen years of age to work in the factories, but a large number of boys and girls between fourteen and seventeen are engaged at wages from one dollar to two dollars a week, and much is done in the way of embroidery, hemstitching, and other forms of finishing in the households. The patterns are stamped on the cloth and the pieces are given out to women and girls to finish in their homes.

The employers exercise personal interest and have a paternal policy for the treatment of their employees, which does not occur often in the United States and other countries. This is largely due to the fact that generations have worked in the same mills for the same companies. Our manufacturing industries are not old enough for such an experience. Labor is not migratory as it is in the United States. It is customary for sons to follow the trades of their fathers, and when the daughters are old enough to go into the mill, the mothers leave it. The workmen there are satisfied with small wages; their standard of living is so much lower than in the United States that they can get along very well, as their fathers and ancestors have done for generations, upon their scanty earnings. Very few of them save any part of their wages. Not five per cent of the wage-earners of Belfast patronize the savings banks. They live from hand to mouth, and, knowing this fact, their employers are compelled to look after them in hard times. If they did not, the operatives who are out of employment would scatter and when work was resumed it would be difficult to fill their places.

The work of the operatives in linen factories is very trying on the health, because the atmosphere of the rooms is kept as damp as possible in order to soften the threads and make them more pliable. Few of the operatives live past middle life unless they have unusually strong constitutions.

More than half of the flax used in Belfast comes from Russia. Only about twelve thousand tons is raised in Ireland, and that entirely in Ulster Province, where fifty-five thousand acres are devoted to its cultivation. An average of forty thousand tons a year is imported from Holland, Belgium, and other countries, as well as Russia. S.S. Knabenshue of Toledo, the American consul, attempted to induce farmers in the Northwest of the United States, who grow flax for the seed, to ship over here the straw they throw away, but he has not succeeded in arousing any interest, although they might find a permanent and profitable market.

Until recently the spinning of the flax into thread was done by separate companies and the thread was sold to the weavers, but several years ago a combine was organized and many of the spinning plants went into a trust, which has enabled them to command better prices and be more independent. The linen manufacturers, however, are practically dependent upon the United States. We take more than half the products of Irish linen. The average for the last forty years has been 51.1 per cent sold to the United States, 19.3 to the British possessions, and 29.6 per cent to other foreign countries.

In 1907 the value of the linen shipped to the United States was $14,970,051 out of a total export of $26,895,014. In 1906 our purchases were about $1,000,000 less, but the proportion remains about the same, and American buyers may be always found at the Belfast hotels, although most of the big manufacturers have their agencies in New York.