the same useful to England, as well as advantageous to this kingdom, and that we hope to find such a temperament in respect to the woollen trade here, that the same may not be injurious to England. Accordingly, by an enactment of that session,' they levied an additional duty of 48. on every 208. value of broadcloth exported out of Ireland, and of 28. on every 20s. value of serges, baize, kerseys, perpetuanas, stuffs, or any other sort of new drapery made of wool, or mixed with wool (friezes only excepted), which of course amounted to a prohibitive duty. At the same time an Act was passed by the English Parliament altogether prohibiting the export from Ireland of woollen goods (friezes excepted) to any parts save England and Wales. At this period, we are told, 'the Irish had a flourishing woollen manufacture; they made many slight fabrics not made in England; but all were crippled and put down by the prohibition of exportation.' 2 That England did not immediately derive the benefit anticipated from this suppression of the Irish woollen trade will be seen from the following evidence of accurate observers in Ireland one hundred to one hundred and fifty years ago : The first and greatest shock our trade received (writes Dean Swift in 1726) 3 was from an Act passed in the reign of King William, in the Parliament of England, prohibiting the exportation of wool manufactured in Ireland: an Act (as the event plainly shows) fuller of greediness than good policy; an Act as beneficial to France and Spain as it has been destructive to England and Ireland. At the passing of this fatal Act the condition of our trade was glorious and flourishing, though no way interfering with the English; we made no broadcloths above 6s. per yard; coarse druggets, bays, and shalloons, worsted damasks, strong draught works, slight half-works, and gaudy stuffs, were the only product of our looms: these were partly consumed by the meanest of our people, and partly sent to the northern nations, from which we had in exchange timber, iron, hemp, flax, pitch, tar, and hard dollars. At the time, the current money of Ireland was foreign silver; a man could hardly receive 1007. without finding the coin of all the northern 'Irish Statutes, vol. iii. p. 472, 10 Wm. III. c. 5. A.D. 1698. 2 A. Young, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 149. 3 Dean Swift. See Appendix X. BAD RESULTS OF LOSS OF WOOLLEN TRADE. 29 powers, and every prince of the empire among it. This money was returned into England for fine cloths, silks, &c., for our own wear, for rents, for coals, for hardware, and all other English manufactures, and in a great measure supplied the London merchants with foreign silver for exportation. The repeated clamours of the English weavers produced this Act, so destructive of themselves and us. They looked with envious eyes upon our prosperity, and complained of being undersold by us in those commodities which they themselves did not deal in. At their instances the Act was passed, and we lost our profitable northern trade. Have they got it? No, surely; you have found that they have ever since declined in the trade they so happily possessed; you shall find (if I am rightly informed) towns without one loom in them, which subsisted entirely upon the woollen manufacture before the passing of this unhappy Bill; and I will try if I can give the true reasons for the decay of their trade and our calamities. Three parts in four of the inhabitants of that district of the town where I dwell' were English manufacturers, whom either misfortunes in trade, little petty debts contracted through idleness, or the pressures of a numerous family, had driven into our cheap country. These were employed in working up our coarse wool, while the finest was sent to England. Several of these had taken the children of the native Irish apprentices to them, who, being humbled by the forfeiture of upwards of three millions by the Revolution, were obliged to stoop to a mechanic industry. Upon the passing of this Bill, we were obliged to dismiss thousands of these people from our service. Those who had settled their affairs returned home and overstocked England with workmen ; those whose debts were unsatisfied went to France, Spain, and the Netherlands, where they met with good encouragement, whereby the natives, having got a firm footing in the trade, being acute fellows, soon became as good workmen as any we have, and supply the foreign manufactories with constant recruit of artizans; our island lying much more under pasture than any in Europe. The foreigners (notwithstanding all the restrictions the English have bound us up with) are furnished with the greatest quantity of our choicest wool. I need not tell you, Sir, that a Custom-house oath is held as little sacred here as in England, or that it is common for masters of vessels to swear themselves bound for one of the English wool ports, and unload in France or Spain. By these means the trade in these parts is in a great measure destroyed, 1 Dublin. and we were obliged to try our hands at finer works, having only our home consumption to depend upon.1 Before Lord Strafford's administration (writes the Reverend Doctor Campbell, from Cork, in 1775) the Irish indraped their own wool, not only for home consumption, but for the foreign market. At that time it became the policy of England to make the woollen manufacture her staple; for even so late as the reign of Elizabeth, she was supplied from the Hans Towns. It was a dispute with them about certain duties which provoked the queen to prohibit the importation of their cloths, and thus, of course, set the English looms at work. In the infancy of the manufacture, it was perhaps justifiable, upon the principles of expediency, to suppress all competition as much as possible. But if, by tying up the hands of the Irish, we have only employed those of the French; if, instead of monopolising the market, we have furnished them with materials to supplant us at it, ought not the same motives of self-interest, which prompted a prohibition of the manufacture of wool in Ireland, now prevail to encourage it? The fact is, we have totally lost the Turkey woollen trade, and the French have got it. The French are dispossessing us of the Portugal trade also; their provisions being cheaper, they can afford double the price for Irish wool that we can, and yet undersell us. Nay, such is their demand for these raw wools that their price is enhanced beyond the reach of the Irish manufacturer. Till of late they used to export from hence, in spite of all prohibitions, considerable quantities of coarse camblets and other stuffs to Lisbon; but now that business is entirely over-the French having got their wool, have also got possession of the market. It is observed by the best writers on this subject that the woollen manufacture in France rose upon the ruins of that of Ireland: her workmen, whose trade and religion were reprobated at home, betaking themselves where both found protection and encouragement.2 The propagation of the French manufacture was doubly indebted to the decline of the Irish: first for the hands and then for the material, it being admitted that the French cannot work up their own wools for foreign markets without an admixture of one-third, at least, of a different staple. France, then, must have Irish wool almost at any price, which is 1 Letter on the miserable state of Ireland, 1726. Swift's Works, vol. vii. p. 194. Edin. 1824. 2 The number of skilled workmen who left Ireland at this period is stated at 20,000. LORD CLARE ON LOSS OF WOOLLEN TRADE. 31 such a temptation to smuggling that not all the navy of England can prevent it, especially when the wool of this country is first conveyed publicly to England, and thence clandestinely to France. But what force can never achieve, a relaxation in the navigation laws would soon effect. The Irish would then work up that wool they now export, and, by thus withdrawing the material, would speedily stop the exportation of French woollens. Such were the considerations which suggested those excellent lines, in a late letter to the queen, by Lord Clare; the truth of whose painting, and the force of whose reasoning none can sufficiently admire who have seen Ireland and weighed this subject. And oh might poor IERNE hope, To ply the loom, to plough the main, Nor see Heaven's bounties poured in vain ; Sad tenants of a dreary waste. Our flocks for happier regions feed, More rich than the Peruvian mine; Thence POVERTY, with haggard eye, Beholds the merchant doomed to brave Thus starves a friend, and gluts a foe.1 CHAPTER IX. PARTICULARS OF WOOLLEN AND WORSTED FACTORIES IN ENGLAND, SCOT- As time wore on, with the spread of civilisation and the increased facilities of intercourse and traffic, the foreign market became of much greater importance to every branch of manufacture. Consequently, while the woollen trade of England grew and flourished that of Ireland declined. Thus the legislative measures for the discouragement of the woollen trade of Ireland and the promotion of that of England' were ultimately quite successful in accomplishing the object for which they were devised. If the woollen manufacturers of England suffered from Irish competition in foreign markets two centuries ago they do not so suffer now, as may be seen by the following declared values of woollen goods, exported by both countries to foreign parts in 1866 A striking contrast is also presented by the subjoined particulars of the woollen and worsted manufactures in England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively in 1868:-3 1 'Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland,' pp. 193-197. 2 Statistical Abstract of the United Kingdom, No. 15, p. 67, and Return of Exports from Irish ports, 1863 to 1867 inclusive. 3 Parliamentary Return, Factories, July 22, 1868, p. 28. |