Even in the coarser silk fabrics where weaving machinery was successfully applied at an early date, the slow progress in "throwing" greatly retarded the expansion of the trade, and after the repeal of the duty on imported silk in 1826 the number of throwing mills was still quite inadequate to keep pace with the demands of the weavers.[76] Subsequent improvements in throwing mills, and the application of the ingenious weaving machinery of Jacquard and later improvers, have given a great expansion to many branches of the trade in the last fifty years.
But the following statistics of the consumption of raw and thrown silk from 1765 to 1844 indicate how slight and irregular was the expansion of the trade in England during the era of the great inventions and the application of the steam-motor, and how disastrously the duties upon raw and thrown silks weighed upon this branch of manufacture.
lbs. lbs. 1765 } | 1823 2,468,121 1766 } 715,000 | 1824 4,011,048[78] 1767 } | 1825 3,604,058 1785 } | 1826 2,253,513 1786 } 881,000 | 1827 4,213,153 1787 } | 1828 4,547,812 1801 } | 1829 2,892,201 to } 1,110,000 | 1830 4,693,517 1812 } | 1831 4,312,330 1814 2,119,974 | 1832 4,373,247 1815 1,475,389 | 1833 4,761,543 1816 1,088,334 | 1834 4,522,451 1817 1,686,659 | 1835 5,788,458 1818 1,922,987 | 1836 6,058,423 1819 1,848,553 | 1837 4,598,859 1820 2,027,635 | 1838 4,790,256 1821 2,329,808 | 1839 4,665,944 1822 2,441,563 | 1840 4,819,262
In the linen industry the artificial encouragement given to the Irish trade, which, bounty-fed and endowed with a monopoly of the British markets, was naturally slow to adopt new methods of production, and the uncertain condition of the English trade, owing to the strong rivalry of cotton, prevented the early adoption of the new machine methods. Although Adam Smith regarded linen as a promising industry, it was still in a primitive condition. Not until the very end of the eighteenth century were flax spinning mills established in England and Scotland, and not until after 1830 was power-loom weaving introduced, while the introduction of spinning machinery into Ireland upon a scale adequate to supply the looms of that country took place a good deal later.