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ENGLISH INTERFERENCE WITH IRISH INDUSTRIES.

The interference of the English Government with Irish trade before 1782 was twofold, direct and indirect. The direct interference arose from statutes passed in the English Parliament in restraint of Irish commerce. The indirect interference arose from the influence of the English Government over the legislation of the Irish Parliament, under the provisions of the statute known as Poynings' Act.

"From the admitted dependence," says Mr. Butt, "of the Crown of Ireland upon that of England, arose the claim of the English Parliament to legislate for Ireland. Over all the colonies and dependencies of the British Crown, the British Parliament had exercised the right of legislation. Over Ireland they asserted the same right. I need not tell you how fiercely it was contested, and that it was finally abandoned in 1782. But, up to 1782, the right was asserted, and occasionally exercised."

We see, accordingly, that England claimed or exercised direct legislative control in her own Parliament over Ireland; while no Irish bills could become law or, indeed, in strictness, be introduced into the Irish Parliament without the sanction of the English Privy Council.

"Ireland," says Mr. Froude, "was regarded as a colony to be administered, not for her own benefit, but for the convenience of the mother country."

FOOTNOTES:

"Proceedings of the Home Rule Conference," 1873, p. 8.

"Report of the Discussion in the Dublin Corporation on Repeal of the Union," 1843, p. 23.

"Proceedings of the Home Rule Conference," 1873, pp. 8, 9.

For further account of the constitution and powers of the Irish Parliament, see "The Irish Parliament: What it Was, and What it Did," by J. G. Swift MacNeill, published by Cassell & Company, Limited.

"English in Ireland," vol. i., p. 178.

Persons familiar with the relative economic conditions of Great Britain and Ireland at the present time, will find it difficult to realise that at one period Ireland enjoyed natural advantages in no respect inferior to those of the sister country. This, before the development of steam-power, was undoubtedly the fact. This would be still the case were it not for the dearth of coal in Ireland. The evidence of public men of the last century, who were well acquainted with the circumstances of both countries, is on this point conclusive. "Ireland," writes Edmund Burke in 1778, "is a country in the same climate and of the same natural qualities and productions with this ." "In Ireland," writes Hely Hutchinson in 1779, "the climate, soil, growth, and productions are the same as in England." Plunket, in his speech against the Union, delivered in the Irish Parliament on the 15th of January, 1800, draws a comparison between England and Ireland, in which he describes England as "another happy little island placed beside her in the bosom of the Atlantic, of little more than double her territory and population, and possessing resources not nearly so superior to her wants." Mr. Froude's researches lead him to a similar conclusion: "Before the days of coal and steam, the unlimited water-power of Ireland gave her natural advantages in the race of manufactures, which, if she had received fair play, would have attracted thither thousands of skilled immigrants."

I do not propose to furnish an exhaustive statement of the various laws passed by the English Parliament for the avowed purpose of destroying Irish trade and manufactures. I will deal only with the salient features of that system whose effects are, at the present day, sadly apparent.

"There are," says Lord North, "anecdotes still extant relative to the real causes of those harsh and restrictive laws. They were supposed to have originated in a dislike or jealousy of the growing power of the then Duke of Ormonde, who, from his great estate and possessions in Ireland, was supposed to have a personal interest in the prosperity of that kingdom. Indeed, so far was this spirit carried, whether from personal enmity to the Duke of Ormonde, from narrow prejudices, or a blind policy, that the Parliament of England passed a law to prohibit the importation of Irish lean cattle."

An extensive and profitable cattle trade which Ireland had established with Bristol, Milford, and Liverpool was annihilated by this legislation. With the restriction of her chief exports, her shipping trade suffered a simultaneous eclipse. Such direct trade as she retained was with France, Spain, and Portugal, as if England wished to force her, in spite of herself, to feel the Catholic countries to be her best friends. Till 1663 the Irish had, according to Carte, no commerce but with England, and scarcely entertained a thought of trafficking with other countries. This writer gives melancholy evidence as to the immediate effect of that restrictive legislation. "The people," he says, "had no money to pay the subsidies granted by Parliament, and their cattle was grown such a drug, that horses that used to be sold for 30s. were now sold for dogs' meat at 12d. apiece, and beeves that brought before 50s. were now sold for ten."

In 1697 a bill was introduced into the English House of Commons, forbidding all export from Ireland of her woollen manufactures. It reached the House of Lords, but Parliament was dissolved before it passed its final stage in that assembly.

The destruction of the woollen trade is one of the most disastrous chapters of Irish history. The circumstances attending this transaction are detailed in an Appendix to the "Report from the Select Committee on the Linen Trade of Ireland," which was printed on the 6th of June, 1825, by order of the House of Commons. This paper was prepared by Lord Oriel, who, as Mr. Foster, was Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer and afterwards Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He was one of the greatest authorities of his time on trade and finance. The Report thus describes an incident which is, I believe, without parallel.

"This export was supposed to interfere, and very probably did, with the export from Britain, and a plan was in consequence undertaken there to annihilate the woollen trade of Ireland, and to confine us to the linen manufacture in its place.

"Accordingly an Act was passed in England, 1696 , for inviting foreign Protestants to settle in Ireland, as the preamble recites, and with that view enacting that the imports of all sorts of hemp and flax, and all the productions thereof, should from thenceforth be admitted duty free from Ireland into England, giving a preference by that exemption from duty to the linen manufacture of Ireland over the foreign, estimated at the time, as a report of the Irish House of Commons, on the 11th February, 1774, states, to be equal to 25 per cent.

"This happened in 1696, and in pursuance of the foregoing plan both Houses of the English Parliament addressed King William on the 9th June, 1698.

Ireland's woollen manufacture was thus sacrificed to England's commercial jealousy. I will give hereafter some account of the widespread misery this industrial calamity entailed. It might have been expected that the solemn compact for the encouragement of the linen trade would have been scrupulously observed. This, however, was not the case. The English Parliament deliberately broke faith with the Irish people. This charge I will substantiate by quotations from the speeches of public men in the English Parliament, the words of the English statute book, and the admissions of English writers.

"Ireland," says Lord North when Prime Minister of England, in the speech from which I have previously quoted, "gave up her woollen trade by compact. The compact was an exclusive linen trade, rather a fair competition with England. Ireland, of her own accord, gave up the woollen trade by an Act of her own Legislature, which, when it expired, was made perpetual by an Act of the British Parliament. But this compact was no sooner made than it was violated by England, for, instead of prohibiting foreign linens, duties were laid on and necessarily collected, so far from amounting to a prohibition on the import of the Dutch, German, and East Country linen manufactures, that those manufactures have been able, after having the duties imposed on them by the British Parliament, to meet, and in some instances to undersell, Ireland both in Great Britain and the West Indies, and several other parts of the British Empire."

In the year 1750 heavy taxes were laid on the import to England of sail-cloth made of Irish hemp, contrary, of course, to the express stipulation of 1698. An address presented in 1774 to Lord Harcourt, the Viceroy, by the Irish House of Commons thus describes the effect of this measure: "They had been confined by law to the manufacture of flax and hemp. They had submitted to their condition, and had manufactured these articles to such good purpose that at one time they had supplied sails for the whole British navy. Their English rivals had now crippled them by laying a disabling duty on their sail-cloths, in the hope of taking the trade out of their hands, but they had injured Ireland without benefiting themselves. The British market was now supplied from Holland and Germany and Russia, while to the Empire the result was only the ruin of Ulster and the flight of the Protestant population to America."

I have dwelt thus at length on the chief commercial restraints laid on Ireland by the direct legislation of England. This interference was, however, carried to almost every branch of Irish trade. To take a few examples. Lord North in the English Parliament gives the following account of England's dealings with the Irish glass trade:--

The raw material for silk came to Ireland through England. The original import duty in England was 12d. in the pound, of which 3d. in the pound was retained there.

Irish beer and malt, too, were excluded from England, whereas English beer and malt were imported into Ireland at a nominal duty. "Hats, gunpowder, coals, bar-iron, iron-ware, and several other matters, some of which Ireland had not to export, and others of which she had very little, were at different times the objects of English restrictions, whenever it was fancied that English interests were at all threatened by them."

It was this legislation that caused Edmund Burke to ask, "Is Ireland united to the Crown of Great Britain for no other purpose than that we should counteract the bounty of Providence in her favour, and in proportion as that bounty has been liberal that we are to regard it as an evil which is to be met with in every sort of corrective?"

"England," says Mr. Froude, "governed Ireland for what she deemed her own interest, making her calculation on the gross balance of her trade ledgers, and leaving her moral obligations to accumulate, as if right and wrong had been blotted out of the statute book of the universe."

"One by one of each of our nascent industries," observes Lord Dufferin, "was either strangled in its birth, or handed over gagged and bound to the jealous custody of the rival interest of England, until at last every fountain of wealth was hermetically sealed, and even the traditions of commercial enterprise have perished through desuetude."

This sketch of English legislation for Irish trade would leave the impression that the Parliaments of Great Britain were as lavish in their efforts to suppress industrial enterprise in that country as any British trader could reasonably desire. It will surprise us to find that this atrocious code was not regarded as sufficiently thorough.

FOOTNOTES:

Ireland, however, has natural advantages which must not be forgotten in any estimate of her economical position, and which, although they do not compensate her for the want of coal, would under proper application do much to promote her prosperity. Thus Mr. O'Connell, towards the conclusion of his speech in his own defence, in the State Trials of 1844, says: "The country is intersected with noble estuaries. Ships of 500 tons' burthen ride into the heart of the country, safe from every wind that blows. No country possesses such advantages for commerce; the machinery of the world might be turned by the water-power of Ireland. Take the map and dissect it, and you will find that a good harbour is not more remote from any spot in Ireland than thirty miles." Mr. Chaplin, in the speech to which I have referred, remarks: "No doubt Ireland does possess exceptional advantages in water-power which might be turned to great advantage." Ireland is not, however, absolutely devoid of coal. "Though," says Mr. C. Dawson, "we make no boast of our mineral treasures, they are, according to competent authority, well worthy of development. According to Professor Hull, the Leinster coal-basin contains 118 million tons, only outputting 83,000 tons per annum. In the North, especially in Tyrone, at Coal Island, there are 17,000 acres of coal-bed , which the Professor says are by far the most valuable in Ireland. In the other districts in Ireland there are over 70,000,000 tons. Sir R. Kane supports the suggestion that borings should be made by the Government in this district to ascertain if the mineral wealth existed to the extent computed by Professor Hull, and he adds that when the panic arose in England about the duration of its coal supply, coal was looked for then outside the limits of the recognised coal-fields, and following them down into the Chalk in Kent and other places, of which Ireland was one."

"Burke on Irish Affairs," by M. Arnold, p. 101.

"Commercial Restraints," p. 156. Mr. Secretary Orde, in introducing in the Irish House of Commons, in 1785, the Commercial Propositions, said: "Great Britain was aware of the preferable commercial situation of Ireland."

"Life and Speeches of Lord Plunket," by the Right Hon. D. Plunket, vol. i., pp. 173, 174.

"English in Ireland," vol. i., p. 178.

"Parliamentary Debates," xv., p. 175.

"Commercial Restraints," p. 164.

"Irish Debates," iii., p. 123. Henry, Archbishop of Dublin, is mentioned in Magna Charta as one of the barons whose "advice" led to the signing of that instrument by John. This prelate, Henry de Loundres, or "the Londoner," erected St. Patrick's Church, Dublin, into a cathedral, and created the offices of Precentor, Chancellor, Treasurer, and Dean--the last a post destined to be rendered famous five centuries later by the incumbency of Swift. Strange that at far-distant periods of time St. Patrick's Cathedral should be associated with the names of two illustrious assertors of liberty!

These enactments are mentioned in the "Commercial Restraints," pp. 164-169.

"Commercial Restraints," p. 169.

"English in Ireland," i., p. 179.

Except victuals, servants, horses, and salt, for the fisheries of New England and Newfoundland.

"Parliamentary Debates," xv., p. 176.

"English in Ireland," i. 180.

Carte's "Ormonde," ii. 357.

Carte's "Ormonde," ii. 329.

"Life and Death of the Irish Parliament," p. 69.

"Irish Commons' Journals," ii. 577.

"Commercial Restraints," p. 20.

"Irish Wool and Woollens," by S. A., p. 67.

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