Note 120 — Chapter IV

"English in Ireland," vol. i., p. 502. In these pages I have designedly refrained from referring to the Penal Code. I have confined myself entirely to a recital of the leading features of the restrictions imposed by England on Irish trade. It is, in my opinion, impossible to estimate, in distinct scales, the evils done by these terrible agencies. They acted and re-acted on each other, and affected not merely the special objects of legislation, but more or less directly every interest in the community. The able writer of a pamphlet, "Irish Wool and Woollens," to which I have frequently referred, says:—"Possibly the laws that annihilated the wool trade wrought more destruction than the legislation that aimed at stamping out the Catholic faith, for the trade Acts snatched bread from the mouth, filched hope from the heart, and wrenched power from the hands of the industrial sections of the community." (p. 43.) From this opinion I am constrained to differ. Speaking as a Protestant, I have no hesitation in saying that the injuries inflicted on Ireland by the Penal Code exceeded the injuries inflicted on her by the trade regulations. "Well," says the Rev. Canon MacColl, "may Mr. Matthew Arnold speak of that Penal Code, of which the monstrosity is not half known to Englishmen, and may be studied by them with profit." ("Arguments For and Against Home Rule," p. 60.)