Note 103 — IRELAND.

Monck Mason has an elaborate note on this subject ("Hist. of St. Patrick's Cathedral," pp. 320-321, ed. 1819), which is well worth reprinting here, since it is an excellent statement of facts, and is fully borne out by Hely Hutchinson's account in his "Commercial Restraints of Ireland," to which reference has already been made:

"In the year 1698 a bill was introduced into the English Parliament, grounded upon complaints, that the woollen manufacture in Ireland prejudiced the staple trade of England; the matter terminated at last in an address to the King, wherein the commons 'implored his majesty's protection and favour on this matter, and that he would make it his royal care, and enjoin all those whom he employed in Ireland, to use their utmost diligence, to hinder the exportation of wool from Ireland (except it be imported into England), and for the discouraging the woollen manufacture, and increasing the linen manufacture of Ireland.' Accordingly, on the 16th July, the King wrote a letter of instructions to the Earl of Galway, in which the following passage appears: 'The chief thing that must be tried to be prevented, is, that the Irish parliament takes no notice of what has passed in this here, and that you make effectual laws for the linen manufacture, and discourage as far as possible the woollen.'—The Earl of Galway and the other justices convened the parliament on the 27th of September; in their speech, they recommended a bill for the encouragement of the manufactures of linen and hemp, 'which,' say they, 'will be found more advantageous to this kingdom than the woollen manufacture, which, being the settled trade of England from whence all foreign markets are supplied, can never be encouraged here.' The house of commons so far concurred with the lords justices' sentiments as to say, in their address of thanks, that they would heartily endeavour to establish the linen manufacture, and to render the same useful to England, and 'we hope,' they add, 'to find such a temperament, with respect to the woollen trade here, that the same may not be injurious to England' ('Cont. Rapin's Hist.,' p. 376). 'And they did,' says Mr. Smith, 'so far come into a temperament in this case, as, hoping it would be accepted by way of compromise, to lay a high duty of ... upon all their woollen manufacture exported; under which, had England acquiesced, I am persuaded it would have been better for the kingdom in general. But the false notion of a possible monopoly, made the English deaf to all other terms of accommodation; by which means they lost the horse rather than quit the stable' ('Memoirs of Wool,' vol. ii., p. 30). The duties imposed by the Irish parliament, at this time, upon the export of manufactured wool, was four shillings on the value of twenty shillings of the old drapery, and two shillings upon the like value of the new, except friezes. But this concurrence of the people of Ireland seemed rather to heighten the jealousy between the two nations, by making the people of England imagine the manufactures of Ireland were arrived at a dangerous pitch of improvement, since they could be supposed capable of bearing so extravagant a duty: accordingly, in the next following year, the English parliament passed an Act (10-11 William III: cap. 10), that no person should export from Ireland wool or woollen goods, except to England or Wales, under high penalties, such goods to be shipped only from certain ports in Ireland, and to certain ports in England: But this was not the whole grievance; the old duties upon the import of those commodities, whether raw or manufactured, into Great Britain, were left in the same state as before, which amounted nearly to a prohibition; thus did the English, although they had not themselves any occasion for those commodities, prohibit, nevertheless, their being sent to any other nation.

"The discouragement of the woollen manufacture of Ireland, affected particularly the English settlers there, for the linen was entirely in the hands of the Scotch, who were established in Ulster, and the Irish natives had no share in either. It is stated in a pamphlet, entitled, 'A Discourse concerning Ireland, etc. in answer to the Exon and Barnstaple petitions,' printed 1697-8, that there were then, in the city and suburbs of Dublin, 12,000 English families, and throughout the nation, 50,000, who were bred to trades connected with the manufacture of wool, 'who could no more get their bread in the linen manufacture, than a London taylor by shoe-making.'

"Mr. Walter Scott says ('Life of Swift,' p. 278) that the Irish woollen manufacture produced an annual million, but this is not the fact; Mr. Dobbs in his 'Essay on the Trade of Ireland,' informs us, from the custom-house books, that in the year 1697 (which immediately preceded the year in which the address above-mentioned was transmitted to the king) the total value of Irish woollen exports, of all sorts, was only £23,614 9s. 6d., and in 1687, when they were at the highest, they did not exceed £70,521 14s. 0d. It moreover appears, that the greater part of these exports were of a sort which did not interfere with the trade of England, £56,415 16s. 0d. was in friezes, and £2,520 18s. 0d. coarse stockings, the rest consisted in serges and other stuffs of the new drapery, which affected not the trade of England generally, but only the particular interests of Exeter and its neighbourhood, and a very few other inconsiderable towns.

"But, whatever injury was intended, little prejudice was done to Ireland, except what followed immediately after the passing of this Act. It appears from Mr. Dobbs's pamphlet, that, a few years after, four times the quantity of woollen goods were shipped in each year, clandestinely, than had ever been exported, legally, before: moreover, the Irish vastly increased their manufactures for home consumption, and learned to make fine cloth from Spanish wool: it was only to England itself that any disadvantage redounded; many manufacturers who were unsettled by this measure, passed over to Germany, Spain, and to Rouen and other parts of France, 'from these beginnings they have, in many branches, so much improved the woollen manufactures of France, as to vie with the English in foreign markets.—Upon the whole, those nations may be justly said to have deprived Britain of millions since that time, instead of the thousands Ireland might possibly have made.'—What Mr. Dobbs has here asserted, relative to the removal of the manufacturers, has been confirmed by another tract, 'Letter from a Clothier a Member of Parliament,' printed in 1731, which informs us that, for some years after, the English seemed to engross all the woollen trade, 'but this appearance of benefit abated, as the foreign factories, raised on the ruin of the Irish, acquired strength': he shows too, that the importation of unmanufactured wool from Ireland to England had been gradually decreasing since that time, which was probably on account of the increase of the illicit trade to foreign parts, towards the encouragement of which the duties, or legal transportation, served to act as a bounty of 36 per cent. 'So true it is, that England can never fall into measures for unreasonably cramping the industry of the people of Ireland, without doing herself the greatest prejudice.'" (Note g, pp. 320-321). [T. S.]