THE RAVAGES OF UNIONISM (2) If the reader cares to push forward the line of thought suggested in the preceding pages and to submit it to a concrete test he can do so without difficulty.

He has but to compare the post-Union history of linen with that of cotton.

Linen in Ireland had been a perfect type of the State-created, spoon-fed industry characteristic of the period of mercantilism.

Within certain limits--such as the steady resolve to confine it, in point of religion, to Protestants, and, in point of geography, to Ulster--it had behind it at the Union a century of encouragement.

It is calculated that between 1700 and 1800 it had received bounties, English and Irish, totalling more than,L2,500,000.