export soon declined most rapidly." Mr. Foster, the Speaker of the Commons, and formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer, stated in his laboured attack on the Union proposals of 1799 that the export of woollen cloth from Ireland in the preceding year amounted only to the value of £12,500, and that in the same year she imported British woollens to the value of £580,723, although " she exported no unmanufactured wool, and worked up all she had ".?

The compact of 1698 was the best bargain Ireland ever made. She gave up a trifling exportation of woollens, amounting to £23,000 a year, for an encouragement which rendered her insignificant linen manufacture a great trade. Irish linen was admitted into England free of duty, while a tax of 25 per cent. was imposed on foreign linen. In addition, a bounty was given on the exportation of Irish linen from England, and all the articles necessary for the Irish manufacture were sent to Ireland duty free. In consequence of these favours, the export of linen cloth from Ireland-not to speak of the home consumption—rose from 759,020 yards in 1705 to 25,000,000 yards in 1779, and 39,000,000 in 1797.5 This protection cost Great Britain an immense sum annually. In 1799, Pitt put the annual loss to the British revenue at between £700,000 and £800,000 in

4

1 Newenham, Population, etc., p. 206.

2 Speech of the Speaker, 11th April, 1799.

3 The effect of this English bounty on Irish linen is described by Lord North: "The number of yards manufactured for foreign consumption, or exported in 1751, was twelve millions; the next year, the British bounty was discontinued, and it fell to ten millions; in 1756, it was no higher than eleven millions; and in the next year, when the bounties were again granted, the number of yards entered for exportation suddenly rose to fifteen millions, and so continued to increase for several years so high as to twenty-five millions of yards" (Parliamentary History, xx.,

....

1275).

4 Commercial Restrictions, Appendix, p. 3.

5 Political etc., State of Ireland, by Dr. Clarke. At this time the exportation to all foreign countries amounted to about four millions.

foregoing the duty which might have been levied on all linens, or, on the other hand, as sacrificing at least a million in the higher price paid by the people of Great Britain, leaving entirely out of consideration the damage done to the British woollen trade by the high duties laid on it by foreign Governments in return for those placed on their linen. Notwithstanding these advantages, the Irish were never able to exclude foreign linen from the British market,1 a sure proof that if there had been no bounties and duties in their favour, there would have been no market for Irish linens in Great Britain. And as protection was then, as now, the policy of foreign Governments, it would have been impossible to find a market abroad for Irish linens.

For many years after 1698, the Irish considered the encouragement of their linen trade a full compensation for the loss of their small woollen exportation. Arthur Dobbs, who wrote in 1729, says: "In my opinion they have given us a full equivalent for it in the manufacture of linen and hemp, in which they have so much encouraged us, that I hope they will in a little time be fully supplied by us ".2 And Madden in 1738 declared that Great Britain had made "full amends" for the loss. But as the folly and dishonesty of her Parliament plunged Ireland deeper and deeper in distress and poverty, as will be seen later on, the feeling changed, and her condition was attributed to the restrictions on her woollen exportation.

3

An Irish Parliamentary return throws light upon the amount of Irish woollens sold in a single warehouse in Dublin. A ready money establishment was opened in

1 Pitt said, in 1799, that Great Britain imported foreign linen to an amount equal to a seventh part of all that Ireland was able to send (Speech, 31st January, 1799).

2 Essay Upon the Trade of Ireland, p. 388.

3

Reflections and Resolutions for the Gentlemen of Ireland, p. 157.

that city under the auspices of the Dublin Society on the 29th of May, 1773. The first year, the sales amounted to £4,039 6s. 24d.; in the second, to £17,657 7s. 71⁄2d.; in the third to £18,870 Os. 5d.; in the fourth to £21,850 19s. 1d.; and in the year Hutchinson wrote his book, ignoring the existence of a flourishing woollen manufacture in Ireland, to £25,144 3s. 54d. It must be remembered that all the sales in the shop were for ready money, and sales for ready money represent but a small portion of the transactions in any trade. "Fortunately for the kingdom," says Arthur Young, who objected to this interference with the natural course of trade, "it is at Dublin as in other cities, the ready money trade is by no means equal to that of credit; consequently the pernicious tendency of this measure cannot fully be seen. The drapers and mercers do, and will support their trade." 2

All through his treatise Hutchinson studiously confuses exportation and the home manufacture, and speaks as if there were restrictions on both. Of the latter, which was perfectly free, he makes no mention, though there was legislative provision for its protection and encouragement;3 nor of its great increase subsequently to 1698. He was not always so reticent about the domestic manufacture. It is interesting to compare his opinions when he was Prime Sergeant, with those expressed when he thought Great Britain was declining, and wished to be reconciled to the Opposition. "There was not a kingdom in the world that. had less reason to complain of public taxes, and its disadvantages with respect to trade arose rather from the extravagance and folly of its inhabitants than from any restraints that were imposed by Government. No check

1 Commons' Journals, x., Appendix, p. 443.

2 Tour in Ireland, ii., pp. 132-4.

37 Geo. II., cc. 9 and 14; 31 Geo. II., c. 10.

could be pretended except upon the manufacture of woollens and silk; and this would be attended with no national disadvantage, if the natives would contribute to the home consumption of these manufactures by wearing them themselves, which a senseless vanity prevented them from doing." 1

It is needless to say that the anti-English writers accept implicitly the statements of Hutchinson. Mr. Lecky informs us that "the English utterly suppressed the existing woollen manufacture in Ireland, in order to reserve that industry entirely to themselves". Thus is history, without any research into authorities, compiled from a political pamphlet, and a manufacture which was actually greater and more beneficial than that of linen, is represented as "utterly suppressed." 3

1 Caldwell's Parliamentary Debates, p. 392.

2 Vol. ii., p. 212.

3 In November, 1783, the woollen manufacturers of the town and neighbourhood of Carrick-on-Suir presented a petition to the Irish Commons, stating that they and their ancestors had carried on this business successfully for more than a century; that the trade had been begun by settlers about the time of the Restoration, and that they made considerable quantities of fine goods which were consumed by the nobility, gentry and better sort of people; "by which means these settlers and their descendants, for many years after, made good properties, improved the town and neighbourhood, and gave subsistence to great numbers of industrious poor ". But that for "several years past" the woollen trade had declined (Commons' Journals, xi., p. 108). Several of the woollen manufacturers, who deposed before the Committee appointed in 1784 to examine into the state of Irish manufactures, spoke of the former prosperity of their trade. One of them stated that in 1784 the number of looms in Dublin was only a third of those employed in 1773 or 1774. Another said that in 1775 there were 370 looms in Dublin, and in 1784 "about 135, but not one-half employed, the rest totally unemployed" (Commons' Journals, xi., Appendix, pp. 142, 143).

262

CHAPTER XIII.

THE APPELLATE JURISDICTION CLAIMED BY THE IRISH LORDS. THE SACRIFICE OF TILLAGE TO PASTURE.

IN 1719, the British Parliament passed a short Act1 declaring that the King, with assent of the Lords and Commons of Great Britain, had power to make laws to bind the people of Ireland; and that the House of Lords of that country had not any jurisdiction to judge of, affirm or reverse any judgment, sentence or decree given or made in any Court of that kingdom. The former of these propositions was a truth the Irish Parliament was too prone to forget; the latter has been represented as a case of might against right. But before we accept this opinion, it is necessary to enquire whether the Irish Lords had any title whatever to act as a final court of appeal, or whether this claim was merely a portion of the assumption of the Irish Parliament to be in all respects the equal of the British.

The immediate cause of this statute was the action of the Irish Lords in a suit between Wester Sherlock and Maurice Annesley in the Irish Exchequer on its equity side. Annesley was successful in the court below; whereupon Sherlock appealed to the House of Lords, which reversed the decision of the Exchequer. From this decree Annesley appealed to the Lords of Great Britain, and urged that the Irish Lords had no jurisdiction. Sherlock,

16 Geo. I., c. 5.