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History of the Commercial and Financial Relations between England and Ireland from the Period of the Restoration (Author: Alice Effie Murray)
Chapter 4
The Revolution and the Period of Restriction.
Ireland after the Revolution — Peculiar Reasons for Restrictive Policy adopted towards Ireland — Destruction of the Irish Foreign Trade in Woollen Goods — Effects of the Measure.
From one point of view the Revolution may be regarded as the final conquest of Ireland by the English. It was, from the standpoint of the Irish, not so much a struggle between two dynasties or between loyalists and rebels, as the last desperate fight between two hostile races and religions. Legally speaking, the Irish were supporting their rightful sovereign; practically, they were striking a blow for national freedom. But the English conquest was complete, and once more Ireland was compelled to yield to the superior force of England.
Now this final conquest of Ireland gave to England a unique opportunity. It was in her power to bring Irish civilisation to a level with her own, to unite into one people the two races of English and Irish, to develop the wealth of Ireland, and make her people loyal supporters of the Empire. Perhaps such a policy on the part of England was too much to expect at such a time of bigotry and race hatred, when all the most evil passions in men's natures had just been awakened. Certainly it was not the policy pursued by England, and again the chance was lost of drawing the two kingdoms more closely together in sympathy and interest.
The condition of Ireland after the Revolution was miserable in the extreme. All the evils of oppression and tyranny which had existed in the country after the
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Cromwellian wars sprang into life in an intensified form. The Articles of Limerick, which had held out some hope of treating the native Catholics fairly, were violated. Most of the Roman Catholic gentry who had kept their estates after the Act of Settlement, or who had been reinstated by James II., were dispossessed, while the few who were allowed to retain their lands were stripped of all political and many civil rights, and left in every way at the mercy of their Protestant enemies. Much of the best blood and the most energetic spirits of the nation went into voluntary exile. After the capitulation of Limerick, fourteen thousand Catholics emigrated to serve in the armies of France, Spain, and Austria.96 Between the Revolution and the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle there was scarcely a siege or a battle in Europe in which Irish troops did not take a part, and there was hardly a Catholic country in which Irishmen did not hold high posts. Those native Irish or Anglo-Irish Catholics who remained in their country could hardly feel much loyalty to the English Crown. To them, smarting with indignation at the loss of their lands, embittered by years of savage warfare, the English Crown could seem nothing more than a shadowy supporter of the English colonists, who had now the unhappy country at their mercy. There were, in fact, two nations in Ireland, one with all the wealth and political power, the other poor and humiliated, without rights or privileges, or freedom of conscience. For the next three-quarters of a century the history of Ireland was to be little more than a history of religious persecution, political corruption, and commercial and industrial restrictions. But the whole policy of England towards Ireland in the years following the Revolution has often been mis-stated and exaggerated. The severe restraints placed on Irish trade and industry have frequently been represented as the result of sheer spiteful malignancy, and with no real
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reasons to justify them. Now this is a mistake, and the attitude of England towards Ireland can only be understood by looking at the position of England, and the difficulties and dangers with which she was confronted. At this time England was engaged in a great military struggle with France, and it was of the utmost importance that her available sources of revenue should not be impaired. Ireland and the colonies were countries of comparatively small industrial development, and to English politicians it did not seem particularly harsh to endeavour to direct their trade and industry into those channels in which they could not interfere with the existing industries in the Mother Country. Industries were being fostered in England to get wealth; this wealth was needed to fight France and the forces of Catholicism. If English industries dwindled and decayed, how should England stand up as the champion of freedom and Protestantism? But there were peculiar reasons for interfering in Ireland. It was not so much jealousy of Ireland as jealousy and fear of the English Crown which influenced the English legislature and English statesmen in their policy. Experience seemed to show that Irish prosperity was dangerous to English liberty. Under Strafford, in the reign of Charles I., and under Ormonde, in the reign of James II., something had been done to develop the existing resources of Ireland, and each time the king had been able to raise forces and supplies in the country with which he had tried to stamp out the constitutional rights of England. The difficulty was that Ireland was a separate kingdom, and that the English Parliament had no direct authority over her. It was this absence of direct authority which made England so nervously anxious to restrict Irish resources in all those directions in which they might even indirectly interfere with the growth of English power.
But there was another complication, and this was that there were two elements in Ireland; the one, as seemed to
contemporaries, orderly and in harmony with English ideas
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and sentiments, the other turbulent and disorderly, alien in religion, and with differing ideas and sentiments. In this latter division were placed all those who had been deprived of their lands through various excuses, or who had taken part in the troubles of 1641 and 1689. They were not all native Irish, but they were practically all Papists, and so they came to be differentiated off as the Irish and Papish interest as distinguished from the Protestant interest, against which England had no general feeling of jealousy. English feeling towards these native Irish was one of hatred to their religion, and a consequent fear and dislike of their prosperity. So English statesmen set themselves to hunt down and persecute all those who professed the religion of their forefathers, because this religion seemed to them fraught with all sorts of political dangers, and to be an element of treason and disaffection. It was not so much because they were Irish as because they were Papists that England looked upon the old inhabitants of the country with hatred and distrust. And it is only necessary to think of the history of Europe during the years directly succeeding the English Revolution in order to understand this hatred and distrust of Roman Catholicism.
But the English colonists in Ireland were Protestants, and as much attached to the new dynasty and the new
order of things as were the English in England. And so England felt no real jealousy of them as a whole. Englishmen were, however, anxious that no section or party whatsoever in Ireland should be able to injure the existing resources of England, as this would strengthen Ireland at England's expense, and so be a constant source of danger. In so far as the trade and industry of the Protestant interest in Ireland proceeded on different lines from that of England, it was to be encouraged rather than discouraged. The task which English statesmen professedly set themselves after the Revolution was to foster the Protestant interest in Ireland in all those directions in
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which it did not interfere with the wealth and power of England.
These views of contemporary Englishmen give a simple explanation of the reasons which induced England to interfere with the Irish woollen manufacture. With her accustomed capacity for recuperation Ireland began, industrially speaking, to recover extremely rapidly from the effects of the Revolutionary War, as she had before done from those of the Cromwellian War.97 In the years 1696, 1697 and 1698, exports and imports increased greatly, and it was said that this was chiefly due to the growth of an Irish woollen manufacture.98 Certain it is, at any rate, that the woollen manufacture started forward with extreme rapidity after the Revolution. There seems to have been some emigration of weavers to Ireland during these years, for owing to the cheapness of living and labour in Ireland, and the low taxes, it seemed altogether a more profitable country in which to pursue a trade than England. At the beginning of 1697 the West of England clothiers sent up various petitions to Parliament alleging the decay of their trade and the increase of the woollen manufacture in Ireland. The ‘Merchants, Clothiers, and Fullers, and divers other Trades’ of Tiverton stated ‘that during the late Rebellion in Ireland, many of the poor of that kingdom fled into the West of England, where they were put to work in the woollen manufacture and learned that trade; and since the reduction of Ireland endeavours are used to set up those manufactures there.’99 The woollen manufacturers of Taunton asserted that they were being undersold abroad by at least 20 per cent by the Irish, ‘by reason of the great growth of the woollen manufactory in Ireland; the great demands they have for the same from Holland, New England, and other parts, which used
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to be supplied by England; the vast numbers of our workmen who go hither; the cheapness of wool and provisions there, and the decay of trade here.’100 The makers of surges at Ashburton in Devon also presented a petition to Parliament in which they set forth that their manufacture, which was the main support of the inhabitants of the place, ‘lies under great discouragements, by reason that trade is set up in Ireland.’101 All these manufacturers were extremely apprehensive lest labour should continue to be attracted away from them by the superior attractions of Ireland, and demanded such countervailing duties as would serve to neutralise the advantages of the Irish, and put the two countries on equal terms. And, indeed, there did seem some reason to fear that the West of England clothing trade was rapidly being transferred to Dublin.
For the time being the matter was referred by Parliament to the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, and early in 1698 the report of the Commission was sent up to the Lords Justices in Ireland, setting forth the impossibility of Ireland continuing to progress in her woollen manufacture without injuring that of England. They advised that the Irish manufacture should be checked by prohibiting the exportation of all sorts of woollen stuffs from Ireland to any parts whatsoever, except that of frieze to England. In order to make this prohibition more effective, they recommended the imposition of heavy duties on oil when imported into Ireland, on teasels whether grown in the country or imported, on all the utensils employed in the manufacture and those used by worsted combers, and on all woollen stuffs, except frieze, before taken off the loom. The Commissioners also recommended that Irish wool should be exported to certain English ports free of duty, that the prohibition
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of the woollen manufacture should be gradual, and that another industry should be encouraged in Ireland to take its place.102 For the time being they proposed that a duty of 43 1/2 per cent should be imposed in Ireland on the exportation of broadcloth, and other duties calculated in the same way on the exportation of all other stuffs made or mixed with wool.103 They seem to think that these duties would merely put Ireland on an equality with England in foreign markets.
The result of this representation of the Commissioners of Trade to the Lords Justices was not long in appearing. Shortly before, on January 3rd, 1698, a Bill in writing had been sent to the Irish House of Commons ‘for laying an additional duty on all woollen manufactures exported out of this kingdom, the passing of which in this Session his Majesty recommends to you, as what may be of great advantage for the preservation of the trade of this kingdom.’104 This Bill had been received and read, but the Irish Commons were not particularly anxious to proceed in the matter, and nothing further had been done. But the agitation in England against the Irish woollen manufacture was now increasing, and the report of the Commissioners had made the English Parliament anxious to proceed in the matter. In the following June, both Lords and Commons presented an address to the king regarding the suppression of the woollen manufacture in Ireland and the encouragement of the linen in its place.105 William replied that he would do all in his power to discourage the woollen trade in Ireland and encourage the linen manufacture; and here we have the essence of English policy towards Ireland, to promote the trade of Ireland on lines different from those along which the trade of England was developing. The linen
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industry had attained some small degree of importance in Ireland, and the country seemed peculiarly suited for the growth of flax and the bleaching of linens. On the other hand, England had only a very small linen manufacture, and in 1698 the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations reported that it was making no progress. But the woollen manufacture was England's staple industry, and it seemed perfectly just and right to contemporaries that she should be left to reap the full benefits of it without rivalry from Ireland, while Ireland should be encouraged to devote herself to a manufacture which as yet did not seem necessary to the wealth of England.
On these lines the negotiations with the Irish legislature proceeded. At the commencement of the session of Parliament in September, 1698, the Lords Justices, in their speech before the Irish Houses, mentioned a Bill which had been transmitted from England for the encouragement of the linen and hempen manufacture. They stated that the ‘settlement of this manufacture will contribute much to people the country, and will be found much more advantageous to this kingdom than the woollen manufacture, which, being the settled staple trade of England, from whence all foreign markets are supplied, can never be encouraged here for that purpose; whereas the linen and hempen manufacture will not only be encouraged as consistent with the trade of England, but will render the trade of this kingdom both useful and necessary to England.’106 The matter, indeed, was more or less of the nature of a compact. If Ireland would give up her woollen manufacture, England would allow her the linen manufacture and would even encourage her in it every way; at any rate the Irish linen trade would be subject to no interference. How far this virtual agreement was kept will be seen later, but at the time England was probably sincere enough, and the Irish
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Parliament was bribed in this way to pass a measure which began the ruin of the staple industry of the country. For there is no doubt that at this time the Irish woollen manufacture was on a much larger scale than the linen, and that it was an industry for which the whole of Ireland was particularly well suited, whereas the linen manufacture was only suited to a small part of the country.
On October 24th the Irish Committee of Ways and Means resolved: ‘That it is the opinion of this Committee that an additional duty be imposed on old and new drapery of the manufacture of this kingdom that should be exported from the same, friezes only excepted.’107 The House agreed, but it was one thing to agree to a resolution for imposing duties and another to impose them. At any rate the Irish Commons delayed and delayed until the Lords Justices, who despaired of ever passing the measure themselves, sent up to the House a second Bill for laying additional duties on all woollen manufactures exported.108 The Bill went through its three readings with little opposition, for the Irish Parliament was powerless to make an effectual resistance now that its methods of obstructive delay had been baffled. Eventually the Bill passed by a majority of sixty-four.109 This Act of 1698110 imposed an additional duty of 4s for every 20s. in value on broadcloth exported out of Ireland, and 2s. for every 20s. in value on all manufactures of new drapery, friezes only excepted, to be imposed from the 25th of March, 1699, to the 25th of June, 1702.
It is possible that when these duties were imposed they were not meant to be prohibitory, but rather countervailing, their object being to place Ireland in the same position as England as regards advantages for carrying on the manufacture. If this is the case there must have been most extraordinary ignorance concerning the industrial
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condition of Ireland, and a most extraordinary misconception as to the peculiar manufacturing advantages possessed by Ireland. It has been mentioned how the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations actually recommended 43 1/2 per cent as a duty proper to be placed on the export of old drapery from Ireland, and this seemingly after going into the matter and even after examining the Irish woollen manufacturers. This duty of 43 1/2 per cent was regarded by them as a mere countervailing duty, and not as a heavier tax which ‘would in effect amount to an absolute prohibition of the exportation of that sort of cloth from Ireland, which we humbly conceive can never be intended by that Bill.’111 Such a statement shows the ignorance of the ruling class of Englishmen in all things that concerned Ireland, and it was very often this ignorance more than any real jealousy which did such harm to the country. It is hardly necessary to speculate on what would have been the effect of an export duty of 43 1/2 per cent when we know that the duties actually imposed of 20 per cent on the old drapery and 10 per cent on the new, though probably meant to be merely countervailing, really proved to be prohibitory. After all, the Irish woollen manufacture, in spite of the rapid progress it was making, was but an infant industry, and very different from the robust manufacture of England. What England was aiming at was that Ireland should not be in a position to rival her own staple manufacture. There was the old dread of the lands of Ireland rising in value and those of England falling, and in consequence the old fear lest the hereditary revenue of Ireland should rise at the expense of the revenue of England, and give to the English Crown supplies independent of the English Parliament.112 It was also feared that if Ireland were allowed to establish a large woollen manufacture, she would use up all her wool and cease exporting any to
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England.113 But the direct and immediate reason of the Act of 1698 was to prevent an Irish industry from interfering with an established trade in England. The great fear was that if nothing were done the Irish would in time so increase their woollen manufacture as to carry on a large and successful trade with foreign countries; and one pamphleteer went so far as to say that it would be ‘more advantageous to England by the one half to buy these goods and throw them into the sea than to suffer Ireland to sell cheaper than we can in foreign markets.’114
But the Irish Act of 1698 proved to be merely a preliminary step in the process of crushing out Irish competition in the woollen trade. The notion of countervailing duties suddenly seems to vanish, and we see that what England really wanted was to shut Ireland off completely and finally from foreign markets, and that she believed nothing short of an actual prohibition would do this. The consequence was that in 1699 the English Parliament passed its first great Act restricting Ireland's trade with foreign countries, an Act passed not by means of the Irish Parliament, but directly by the English legislature. The legality of the measure was extremely doubtful, but Ireland was scarcely in a position to fight for constitutional theories. This Act115 prohibited perpetually from the 20th of June, 1699, the exportation from Ireland of all goods made or mixed with wool, except to England with the license of the Commissioners of the Revenue. The duties, equal to a prohibition, which had been imposed by an English Act of 1660116 on the importation of Irish woollens into England, were retained. The whole policy of England was therefore directed at deliberately destroying the Irish woollen manufacture. It will be seen in another chapter how far this policy succeeded; here it will be sufficient to notice
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the direct effects of the measure on the trade and industry of the two countries.
Even from the avowed standpoint of England the destruction of the Irish foreign trade in woollen goods proved to be a mistake. The Irish, deprived of their export trade in manufactured woollens, and only able to export their wool to England, and that on payment of a heavy fee, began a large clandestine export of wool to foreign countries. This clandestine export had been going on for some years on a small scale, and two severe laws of William III. had tried to put a stop to it.117 But now that Irish wool could not be used up profitably as before in making articles for foreign markets, there was a large amount of surplus wool which had to be sent somewhere. It soon became increasingly unprofitable to send such great quantities of wool to England, and so it was smuggled abroad. From 1712 to 1719 an enormous quantity of combed Irish wool was exported to France, the export being winked at by the customs officers.118 It was packed very closely in barrels, and a little butter or beef placed at the top. During these years the price of English wool continued to fall, and this seems to have been partly the result of a certain decay in the English foreign trade in woollen stuffs, owing to the fact that the French were enabled by means of Irish wool to manufacture their own cloths. In 1719 English wool was only £7 or £7 10s. a pack, about £5 per pack less than the average price at the close of the preceding century. In the same year the plague stopped all intercourse with France; Irish wools ceased to be smuggled, and in consequence the price of wool in England rose to £11 or £12 a pack, owing to a great increase in the exportation of woollen goods. After the plague, when intercourse with France was renewed, English wool again sunk to £7 or £7 10s. a pack, until in
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1739 it was only £4 10s. to £5 a pack. This great fall in price was owing to the fact that the French woollen manufacture had revived by means of a renewed clandestine exportation of Irish wool.119 It was thought that at this time France obtained yearly three hundred thousand packs of wool from Ireland.120 At the same time Irish wool was smuggled to Leyden and its neighbourhood by whole shiploadings.121
But another important result was produced by the interference with the Irish woollen trade. This was the emigration of Irish weavers to France, Holland, Spain, and Portugal. The Protestant weavers settled in France, where they were welcomed and protected by Louis XIV. in spite of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and also in Holland, while the Catholic weavers started flourishing industries in Spain and Portugal. In all these countries Irish weavers did something towards establishing woollen manufactures, while their presence abroad naturally encouraged the smuggling of Irish wool to Europe. Certainly, from the beginning of the eighteenth century, for at least forty years, we hear of continual complaints that the English had lost the monopoly of the woollen trade, and that other European countries, especially France, were underselling them in foreign markets.122 This was all put down to the exportation of Irish wool and the emigration of Irish artisans, and there must have been considerable truth in this statement. Irish wool was very like English, and a mixture of either Irish or English was necessary for making ordinary broadcloth. The French could make coarse cloths with their own wool, and very fine ones with Spanish wool, but for medium cloth, which was in greatest demand, they needed a mixture of Irish or
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English.123 Soon after the Peace of Ryswick the French woollen manufacture began to progress, and the demand in France for English woollen goods was proportionally lessened until the outbreak of the succeeding war, which led to a temporary decline in French industry.124 But about 1739 we hear of many complaints concerning the decay of the English woollen manufacture. It was said that before the Peace of Ryswick, Spanish and Dutch merchants used to come to the English manufacturers to buy with ready money all the goods that could be spared, and that the English could even afford to refuse their offers, keeping their goods for sale at home. Forty years later, on the contrary, the English manufacturers were often forced to let their goods lie for a year or two in Blakewell Hall, getting moth-eaten and at a great expense of house rent, factorage, and discount charges, for want of a market.125 In 1729 we hear that the French have in great part engrossed the woollen trade in Turkey and the Mediterranean, formerly monopolised by the English; that the Germans can partly supply themselves with their own manufactures, while the Spaniards can clothe their army and court in their own stuffs.126 In 1740 it was said that France, not England, now supplied Spain with those woollen stuffs which she did not make for herself.127
This foreign competition in her staple trade naturally reacted on the policy of England, and made her more anxious than ever to destroy the Irish woollen manufacture, in order to secure for herself a sufficient and cheap supply of the raw material. But the French, Dutch, and Spanish could all afford to give much more for Irish wool than the English merchants. This was because the price
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of labour and living was dearer in England than on the Continent, and also because the fall in the price of English woollen goods due to the growing foreign competition forced the English manufacturers to give less than ever for the wool they imported. This fall in the price of Irish wool was therefore very far from securing to England a plentiful supply of the raw material necessary for her staple manufacture. What it did was to give to foreign nations Irish wool cheaper than ever, and at the same time to drag down the price of English wool to the level of Irish, to the great disadvantage of the English wool growers. The truth was that all these phenomena were reacting on one another. The restrictions on the Irish woollen manufacture resulted in a clandestine exportation of Irish wool to foreign countries, and in the emigration of Irish weavers; these were some of the causes which led to the successful establishment abroad of woollen industries which began to rival that of England; this foreign competition led directly to a decay in the English woollen manufacture; this produced a fall in the price of wool in England, whether English or Irish; this fall in the price of wool resulted not only in an increase in the clandestine exportation of Irish wool, but also to a large smuggling trade in English wool, for the English wool growers could now get a better price abroad than at home for their wool; this increase in the amount of English and Irish wool obtained by foreigners enabled them to make still further progress in their woollen manufactures; and this growth of foreign competition led to a further decay in the English manufacture. Each of these causes, in fact, reacted on every other cause.
In the existing state of the woollen manufacture, even all the wool that was produced in England could not be worked up profitably at home. It is therefore not surprising that large quantities of English wool were smuggled abroad, where wool of the particular kind grown in England and Ireland was in great demand.
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The question of freight had also something to say to the clandestine exportation of Irish wool. Unless a far better price could be got in England than in foreign countries, it did not pay Irish merchants to export their wool to such staple towns as Norwich or Colchester, for the freight from Ireland to these towns was far more than the freight from Ireland to the Dutch ports.128 If there had been a great demand for Irish wool in the western coast towns of England the matter would have been different, but after the first few years of the eighteenth century there was a great falling off in the amount of Irish wool demanded by the West of England clothiers. Indeed, one of the remedies that we hear constantly suggested for stopping the smuggling of Irish wool was an increase in the woollen manufacture of the West of England and Wales, in order to avoid the expenses of land carriage for the Irish merchants.
There were also special reasons why the French and Dutch could give a good price for English or Irish wool. Only one pack of English or Irish wool was needed to work up three or four packs of foreign wool;129 and as this foreign wool was said to be two-thirds cheaper than English or Irish wool130, it can easily be seen that the wool growers in England or Ireland could get a better price from foreign manufacturers than they could from English. The Dutch and French obtained large quantities of long and middling wool from England or Ireland, and mixing it with very cheap French, Polonia, or other foreign wool, made great quantities of coarse cloths, druggets, and stuffs which they exported to Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Turkey. These goods they were naturally able to sell a good deal cheaper than the English manufacturers, who made the same stuffs entirely with the much more expensive English or Irish wool. At the same time the French
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and Dutch manufacturers were able to sell the fine broad cloth, on the manufacture of which the English had hitherto so justly prided themselves, just as cheaply as the English, by mixing the finest English or Irish wool with Spanish. All other goods they were able to sell at a much lower price. It was therefore little wonder that England should find herself confronted with rivals in her staple trade. This alleged decay of the English woollen manufacture was no doubt a little exaggerated by contemporaries. The fact that the woollen trade had been the principal trade of the country so long made any falling off in the amount exported appear an enormous misfortune. Still, there was certainly some decay, or at any rate comparative decay, in the industry during the first half of the eighteenth century, and this decay was greatly felt because those manufactures which were in later years to become so important, had not yet established themselves on a large scale. During the seventeenth century England had virtually monopolised the woollen trade in foreign countries; now she found that competitors were springing up everywhere. That she often found this competition acting to her own disadvantage is proved by the great and continued fall in the price of English wool during the first forty years of the eighteenth century, and by the growing quantities of English and Irish wool smuggled abroad. If the prosperity of the English woollen industry had continued, a great part of the Irish wool which was smuggled to foreign countries would have gone to England, while there would have been very little exportation of English wool. The clothing trade of the West of England seems to have suffered most. In 1742 there was scarcely anything left of the once flourishing woollen industry of this part of the kingdom.131 In the southern and eastern counties, from whence large quantities of wool were smuggled abroad, there was a great decrease in the output of woollen goods. Only in the north, where the cheapest
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goods were made, did the quantity of manufactured woollens maintain itself.132 The most gloomy pictures are drawn at this time by various pamphleteers concerning the state of England.133 The rents of all houses in cities were said to be falling; also the rents of estates. Specie was scarce, the numbers of poor were increasing, once flourishing towns had now decayed, and those left were being beggared by parish rates. The cause of this universal poverty was put down by all contemporary Englishmen to the decay of the woollen manufacture in England and its growth in France and other countries. And the idea that this was chiefly due to the interference with the Irish woollen trade seems to have been in the main sound, although it must be remembered that there were other causes at work which helped the growth of the woollen manufacture on the Continent.
The prohibition placed on the exportation of woollen manufactures from Ireland had still another effect injurious to England. This was an immediate decrease in the amount of woollen goods exported to Ireland. This may be accounted for partly by the use in Ireland of such articles of home manufacture as had previously been exported, and partly by the shock given to business and credit through the fresh restrictions placed on Irish trade. In 1700, before the effects of the prohibition had had time to work themselves out, a large quantity of English woollens had been exported to Ireland, but in 1706 this exportation had fallen off by about one-half.
134| Year | Old Drapery Yards | Old Drapery Value £ | New Drapery Yards | New Drapery Value £ |
|---|
| 1700 | 12,119 | 9,014 | 24,522 | 2,043 |
| 1706 | 5,114 | 4,135 | 15,308 | 1,913 |
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Some years after 1706 this exportation gradually increased, owing to the rapid growth of the population of Ireland, until in 1714 Ireland imported as large a quantity of woollen manufactures as she had done before the prohibition. But the effects of the prohibition probably continued to act. We have the testimony of Archbishop King, then Bishop of Derry, that the first effects of the Woollen Acts were to induce Ireland to manufacture for her own use more of her wool than she had hitherto done. ‘Even our women,’ he writes, ‘have fallen into it, and if this humour continue we shall not be much at a loss what to do with our wool, nor will England sell much more cloth by it.’135 But, unfortunately, this humour did not continue, for in Swift's time it was the universal complaint among patriotic Irishmen that the gentry and ladies of Ireland preferred foreign manufactures to those of their own country. It was only the poverty of Ireland which prevented her from importing large quantities of woollen cloth from England all through the eighteenth century. But by perpetuating through her policy the poverty of Ireland, England indirectly impaired her own trade with that country.
And so the first direct interference of England with the foreign trade of her sister country proved injurious to herself for a considerable period. The effects which gradually proceeded from this interference proved that it was impossible for England to engross the woollen trade, and that if she arbitrarily excluded Ireland from it, she would only find it wrested from her by foreigners. What she succeeded in doing was to injure her own trade and weaken the Protestant interest in Ireland.
There were many men who had partly foreseen these results when the Woollen Acts were passed and who had been loud in their complaints of the folly and injustice of the measure, and they were followed in their views by
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writers of the next century. Archbishop King gives us in some of his letters a good idea of the dangers which, according to his opinion and that of many of his contemporaries, might be expected to arise to England from this interference with Irish trade. He had done his best to stir up opposition in Ireland against the measure, because he thought that it would be ruinous to both kingdoms, ‘particularly’ he writes ‘to the Protestant English interest of Ireland; that it tends to alienate the affections of the King's subjects from his Majesty, and to discourage them from his Majesty, and to discourage them from a vigorous prosecution of popery, whereby Ireland might be effectually secured to England without danger of rebellion.’136 King also objected on principle to any direct interference with Ireland by the English legislature. In another letter he laments that he makes no progress in organising opposition to the new Woollen Bill, for in his opinion it seemed ‘not only destructive to us
[...]
by our present suffering, but likewise by the example, for if the Parliament of England make laws for us at this rate they may likewise tax us and so beggar us when they please.’137 But there was a curious apathy felt in Ireland on the matter. King tells us that the city of Dublin was afraid to interfere, that the Commons were headed by the Speaker, ‘who seems to be in the interest that endeavours to depress Ireland,’ while the Irish peasants were even overjoyed at the idea of the Bill, ‘for they reckon that the lands will generally be tenanted by them, they being most numerous, if the gentlemen be obliged to throw up their flocks.’ The principal losers, King points out, would be the English gentlemen and tradesmen, but these could not be induced to oppose the Woollen Bill, because ‘they are yet so devoted to England and have such hopes of returning to it that they seem rather desirous to enlarge than lessen the power of the Parliament of
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England.’138 As for the reasons which England alleged made it necessary to interfere with the Irish woollen industry, they were, according to King's opinion, absurd.139 He emphasised the irony of forbidding Ireland to manufacture her wool simply because of the cheapness of living and labour in the country and the low price of the materials for manufacture, while he rightly thought that it was rather to the advantage of England than otherwise that English Protestant families should settle in Ireland and work up the resources of the country.
But even in England there was no lack of sane opinion on the subject. As the years went on many English pamphleteers blamed the policy of the English Parliament and condemned it as unwise and injurious to the interests of their country.140 One of these pamphleteers agrees with the views of Archbishop King when he points out the dangers which will arise to England if she insists on hampering Irish trade.141 The affections of the Irish must be alienated, and in consequence Ireland will have to be governed by force. He also points out, with a foresight which subsequent events justified, that ‘no kind of manufacture or branch of trade will flourish where any is prohibited; for men are never satisfied but that the power which has abolished one may deprive them of any other.’ In consequence he and many others advised that the Irish should be once more allowed to export their woollen manufactures. This, it was said, would really be to the advantage of England, for the Irish, through the abundance of their wool and the cheapness of their labour,
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would be able to undersell foreigners in foreign markets. Once the Irish gained by their manufacture they would cease supplying foreigners with wool, and so England would gain by seeing her foreign rivals ousted from the trade. If England could not rival foreigners herself surely it would be wise to allow Ireland to do so.
But if England's interference with the Irish woollen trade proved injurious to herself, it proved much more injurious to Ireland. The disadvantages to English trade were after all but temporary, although they spread over a considerable period of time. Later on other industries arose just as beneficial and important as the woollen industry had been, and as competition adjusted itself it was found that certain kinds of British cloth would always be in demand in foreign markets. But the commercial injuries inflicted on Ireland proved permanent. The Irish woollen manufacture, indeed, was by no means destroyed, and after a few years a considerable quantity of Irish cloth and stuffs made or mixed with wool were used at home. There was also a small clandestine exportation of Irish woollen stuffs abroad. This was, however, very insignificant, and England was perfectly successful in her efforts to abolish all chance of Irish rivalry in foreign markets.
For fifty years after the Irish and English Woollen Acts of 1698 and 1699 the poverty of Ireland was extreme. We may see this from the writings of such men as Archbishop King, Swift, Bishops Boulter and Berkeley, and Skelton, no less than from the brief and convincing entries in the Irish Commons Journals. Everywhere we come across the opinion that the direct cause of this terrible poverty was English interference with Irish trade, more especially with the woollen trade. In 1703 the condition of the country seems to have been pitiable. On November 23rd the Irish Commons sent up a petition to the Queen setting forth in pathetic terms the great poverty and distress into which the country had fallen, ‘by the
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almost total loss of trade and decay of our manufactures.’ They represented that the linen trade could not be increased enough in a short time in order to employ all the hands out of work through the recent prohibition, unless it was encouraged in some way by England. They therefore petitioned that they should be allowed to trade freely in their linen cloth with foreign countries, and to export all kinds of linens direct to the plantations, for in spite of all that had been promised, nothing had as yet been done to encourage the Irish linen industry.142 From this time to the death of Queen Anne the poverty of the country increased rather than diminished. This may be seen from the speeches during the various parliamentary sessions and from the inability of Parliament to grant any but very small supplies to the Crown. The condition of the mass of the people could hardly have been worse. In 1706 Archbishop King wrote: ‘The poverty and discouragement of this country are so many that people think themselves happy if they can live, but for anything of curiosity or learning their hearts are dead to it.’143 After the death of the Queen matters were for a long time little better. In 1720 King tells us that all classes and sections of the people were in distress: ‘Those that are here cannot get their rents from their tenants, the merchants have no trade, shopkeepers need charity, and the cry of the whole people is loud for bread. God knows what will be the consequence; many are starved, and I am afraid many more will.’144 Even as late as 1731 the Speaker's speech at the bar of the Irish House of Lords mentions ‘the difficulties under which this exhausted kingdom unfortunately lies by the decay of trade, the scarcity of money and the unusual poverty of the country.’145 There were many causes bringing about this state of things,
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but one of the most important was the restriction on the Irish woollen trade. It gave a tremendous shock to the general industry of the country, and when other industrial and trade restraints were added by England one after another, Ireland had little chance of maintaining any industrial life at all. It was only in the latter half of the eighteenth century that the growth of a linen manufacture led to a comparative increase in the wealth of Ireland and enabled the Irish Parliament to make its efforts to support England in her wars.
It seems improbable that the prohibition of the exportation of woollen goods from Ireland led to any considerable decrease in the amount of wool grown in the country. The clandestine exportation of wool to foreign parts was much too profitable a trade to be given up, and until the period subsequent to 1740 there was no diminution in the quantity of wool smuggled abroad. The decrease in the exportation of Irish wool after 1740 was chiefly due to a British Act of 1739,146 which took off the duties on woollen and bay yarn exported from certain ports in Ireland to certain ports in Great Britain, excepting worsted yarn of two or more threads. The object of this Act was to benefit the English woollen manufacturers, but it gave the first real check to the running of Irish wool.147 From this time until nearly the end of the century there was a large exportation of woollen and bay yarn from Ireland to Great Britain.148 With the growth, too, of population, more wool was now used in the Irish home manufacture than had been the case in the preceding century, and until the last quarter of the eighteenth century the area of land under tillage increased only very slightly.
But in 1779, when the Irish were once more allowed to export their woollen manufactures, it was found that
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although the quantity of wool in the country had probably not decreased very greatly, the quality of it had certainly deteriorated. It will be seen in a later chapter how this deterioration was but the inevitable result of limiting the manufacture to home uses, and how, because of the prohibition of eighty years before, the possibility of the Irish establishing a flourishing woollen manufacture in 1779 was far smaller than it had been in 1698. The country was not so well suited to the industry; foreign markets did not offer the old advantages; there was little established skill among Irish weavers. Ireland had to begin the commercial and industrial race too late; she had been handicapped too heavily in the past to meet with success in the present.
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