THE IRISH PROBLEM
(1785)
We have the satisfaction of having proposed a system which will
not be discredited even by its failure, and we must wait times and
seasons for carrying it into effect.--PITT TO THE DUKE OF RUTLAND,
17th August 1785.
There is a story, uncertain as to date and origin, which picturesquely
describes Pitt’s indebtedness to the author of “The Wealth of
Nations.”[323] Adam Smith had been invited to meet the young
Prime Minister at dinner; but some mischance delayed his arrival.
Nevertheless, the guests patiently waited for him, and on his entrance
Pitt exclaimed, “Nay, we will stand until you are seated; for we are
all your scholars.” The compliment came with none the less graciousness
because the father of Political Economy had in his work incautiously
defined a statesman as “that insidious and crafty animal.” Pitt was
now to give a new connotation to the word. Almost alone among the
politicians of the eighteenth century, he had set himself to gain a
store of knowledge which would enable him to cope with the increasingly
complex problems of his craft; and thus, in an age when a university
degree, the grand tour, and London club-life were held to be a
sufficient preparation for a political career, he came forth like a
Minerva fully armed at all points.
Among the practical questions to which the Scottish thinker turned
the attention of his age, none was more important than those dealing
with the relations between England and her American colonies, the
desirability of an unfettered trade with France, and the need of a
close union with Ireland. The first of these questions had been
disposed of by war, and the second will engage our attention in a later
chapter. On the Irish question Adam Smith strongly advocated union
with Great Britain as conferring on the smaller island the boons which
had breathed new life into Scotland, namely, freedom of trade and
deliverance from an oppressive dominant caste.
These contentions must have secured the approval of Pitt; for the
outlines of his policy both towards Ireland and France bear a striking
resemblance to those sketched in “The Wealth of Nations,” with
this important difference, that after the gain of independence by
the Irish Legislature in 1782 the union of the two Parliaments was
clearly impossible for the present. We therefore find Pitt turning his
attention to the two topics which then chiefly agitated public opinion
in Ireland, viz., the reform of Parliament and the fiscal relations to
Great Britain. In order to understand Pitt’s handling of these problems
it is necessary briefly to review the course of Anglo-Irish affairs.
The story of the dealings of England with the sister isle in the years
1688–1778 is one that it is painful to contemplate. The efforts to
dragoon the Catholic Irish out of their creed, or to grind them into
the lowest stratum of society, produced a race hatred of which we
are still reaping the dire harvest. The Celt broods over the past;
and his memory clings round the days when Papists were excluded
from Parliament, from the possession of freehold estates, from the
professions and from juries; when they might not act as guardians
or possess a horse worth more than £5; and when their Protestant
neighbours on tendering £5 could take any horse that pleased them.
All this and far more may be read in the pages of Lecky. As for the
ruffianly enactments of the Irish penal code, many of them were so
monstrous as to bring their own cure. In the latter half of the
eighteenth century even the arrogant Protestant squirearchy of Ireland
found it impossible or undesirable to enforce them.
The growth of principles of toleration and enlightenment which marked
the years 1760–80 had some effect even on the nominees of Protestant
landlords and borough-mongers who formed the bulk of the Irish
Parliament. It is a curious fact that even the narrowest and most
bigoted of governing castes cannot wholly resist the tendencies of
the times; and the Dublin Parliament, representing only a part even
of the Protestant minority of Irishmen, was no more able to keep
out new ideas than the members of the pocket boroughs of Britain
could withstand the Reform movement of 1830–32. The infiltration
of novel principles into the Irish Legislature was slower and more
partial, inasmuch as that body misrepresented even more ludicrously
the opinions of the mass of Irishmen.[324] It had long been swayed by
a clique of politicians who were termed “Undertakers,” because they
undertook its manipulation, ostensibly in the interests of the British
Government, but really in their own. The traditions of the past and
the determination of the members of the Protestant Established Church
to keep the Government in their own hands, formed a massive barrier
against change. Yet the dissolving touch of the Time-Spirit and the
shocks of war were at work upon that barrier; and when the war with
the American colonies and France strained the resources of Great
Britain and Ireland past endurance, it showed signs of giving way on
two questions, the one religious, the other fiscal. In the year 1778,
Catholics who took the oath of allegiance were allowed to become in
effect owners of land, that is, they might hold land on lease for
999 years. Further, the odious temptations formerly held out to sons
of Catholics to abjure their creed were also abrogated. That year
therefore seemed to be the beginning of an epoch of toleration, which
it was the ardent desire of Pitt to crown with an act of justice too
long delayed.
At present, however, we are concerned mainly with his attempt to reform
the fiscal relations between the two islands. Until the year 1778
Irishmen were still in the state of economic vassalage to England which
the Parliaments of William III had forcibly imposed. In some respects,
especially in regard to the woollen industry, they were now worse
off than in that time of humiliation. The enactment of 1699, which
absolutely forbade the export of her woollen goods, hopelessly crippled
an otherwise promising industry. Nor was this all. Her staple product,
wool, might not be sent to foreign lands lest their manufacturers
might benefit, and become rivals to ours. That fear was not wholly
groundless in the case of France; for French weavers found that Irish
wool supplied the qualities lacking in their own wool. The result was
the rise of an extensive smuggling trade in that article from Ireland
to France, which the Government utterly failed to stop.
The outbreak of war with the American colonies, as I have said,
brought all these questions to an acute phase; and in 1776 the British
Government so far relaxed the prohibitions on export as to allow Irish
woollens to be exported for the clothing of the Irish troops serving
away from their own country. At the same time Irish fishermen were
admitted to a share in the Newfoundland and other fisheries from which
they had been excluded.
Nothing, however, was done for the most important of Irish
manufactures. The linen industry had not been severely hampered by the
British Government. While prohibiting the export of fine linens, and
of sail-cloth, in the supposed interests of British manufacturers,
the British Government granted bounties on the coarse linens exported
from Ireland; and up to the year 1771 that industry had greatly
prospered. Thereafter it underwent a serious decline. So alarming
was the shrinkage of trade and the rise of Ireland’s debt, that in
1778 Lord North’s Ministry was fain to propose the abolition of many
of the fiscal disabilities which sapped her strength. She was to be
allowed to send her products to the British colonies and to receive
theirs directly in return; but, in order to allay the fears of British
manufacturers, the old restrictions on the Irish woollen trade remained
in force. Nothing, however, could allay those fears. At once loud
complaints were raised from Aberdeen to Plymouth, so that North gave
up nearly all his proposals; and Ireland gained little or nothing from
his well meant efforts, except that ships built in Ireland thenceforth
counted as British-built, and could receive bounties granted for the
fisheries.[325]
Where reason and statesmanship had failed, force was to succeed. The
utter inability of the British Government to defend Ireland against
threatened French invasions furnished the pretext for the formation
of powerful Volunteer corps, consisting solely of Protestants, and
therefore especially strong in Ulster. The Presbyterians of that
province, smarting under the civic disabilities imposed by the old
Test Act, and under an equally archaic system of commerce, demanded
redress of these grievances, in the latter of which the more lethargic
Romanists gave them increasing support. Religious antipathies were
forgotten in the face of Ireland’s urgent needs. The governing coterie
at Dublin Castle failed either to check the movement or to revive the
old schisms. It seemed that the intolerable burdens of the British
fiscal system were about to mould the jarring elements of Irish society
into the unity that marks a nation.
Though they failed to reach that far-off goal, they for the present
won a noteworthy success. By combining to refrain from the purchase of
British goods they dealt a severe blow at the system thrust upon them.
Nor did they abstain from threats of force. The Volunteers paraded the
streets of Dublin with cannon bearing the motto, “Free Trade--or this.”
In face of an overwhelming opposition, the Lord-Lieutenant, the Earl of
Carlisle, advised the British Government to give way; and at the close
of the year 1779, and early in 1780, a series of enactments was passed
at Westminster withdrawing the prohibitions on the export of woollen
goods and glass from Ireland. Commerce with the British colonies was
now also provisionally thrown open to Irish merchants, and they were
admitted to a share in the Levant trade.
At the same time the cause of religious toleration gained an equally
signal triumph. The strength of the Ulster Volunteers and the abatement
of religious bigotry brought the Irish Parliament to pass a measure for
relieving the Protestant Dissenters of that land from the sacramental
test which had been looked on as one of the bulwarks of the Established
Church; and in the spring of 1780 the British Parliament gave its
grudging assent to that boon for Ireland which for nearly half a
century longer it persisted in withholding from Nonconformists in
England and Wales. As was stated in Chapter V of this work, the Irish
Volunteers in the year 1782 gained another most important concession,
namely, the recognition of the legislative independence of the Irish
Parliament. Fortunately the British Government on this occasion acted
with grace and dignity. The Rockingham Ministry advocated the change,
which passed both Houses with but a single adverse vote, that of Lord
Loughborough. The disagreeable fact, that this last boon, like the
others, was extorted by force, was thus tactfully glozed over; and
when the suspicions of the good faith of England aroused in Ireland by
that restless demagogue, Flood, were laid to rest by the Renunciation
Act of the year 1783, the relations of the two islands became almost
cordial.
Causes of friction, however, remained. The royal veto might, and
probably would, still tell against the Irish Legislature, even though
the veto of the British Parliament and of the Privy Council had lapsed.
The influence of the Lord Lieutenant and of his Chief Secretary on
the Irish Ministers was also great; and his influence was distinctly
British. Dublin Castle could also generally determine the votes of a
majority in both Houses of Parliament. Further, it was quite possible
that on commercial questions the Irish Parliament would differ sharply
from that of Westminster. This seemed so in the early months of Pitt’s
Ministry. The beginning of the year 1784 found Ireland depressed by
a very inclement winter; and the cry was raised that her Parliament
should “protect” her industries, especially that of wool, from English
competition. The exertions of the new Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of
Rutland, aided perhaps by the reluctance of the more moderate members
to enter on a commercial war with England, sufficed to defeat these
proposals; but the Irish House of Commons, in May 1784, unanimously
passed an address to the King, emphasizing the need of “a wise
and well-digested plan for a liberal arrangement of a commercial
intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland.” This was the friendly
challenge which Pitt determined to take up. From the outset he made the
Irish commercial question peculiarly his own. More than once in his
correspondence with the Duke of Rutland he describes it as the nearest
to his heart.[326]
No problem could have been more tangled. Ireland was still in a very
restless state. Despite the warnings of that uncrowned King of Ireland,
Grattan, the Volunteers began to enroll Catholics and to threaten
the coercion of the Dublin Parliament. But, as the Duke of Rutland
wrote to Pitt, Parliament “does not bear the smallest resemblance to
representation”; and a petition from a great meeting held at Belfast in
July 1784 declared that “the [Irish] House of Commons has degenerated
into a fixed body so little connected with the people that it ceases
to be a guardian of their property, and hath become the representative
of an overbearing aristocracy.” The petitioners asserted that the
delegates of the Volunteers were a representative body, and urged
the King to dissolve the Irish House of Commons.[327] This demand
was widely echoed. The Volunteers, having already through their
delegates exerted on Parliament a pressure which was semi-national,
refused either to let politics alone, or to disband. Ultimately their
recklessness and the efforts of Grattan undermined their influence,
and they gradually dwindled away; but, for the present, they seemed
able to extort all their demands, prominent among which was that for
the “protection” of Irish industries and products. In his first long
communication to Pitt, the Duke of Rutland dwelt on the urgent need of
investigating Irish claims, though he frankly declared that he could
not understand the commercial question. Open-handed to ostentation, and
devoted to the pleasures of the table, this affable young aristocrat
occasionally showed signs of political foresight, as when he ventured
to predict “that without _an union_ Ireland will not be connected with
Great Britain in twenty years longer.”[328]
Far abler and more painstaking was his chief secretary, Orde, on whom
was to fall the burden of work connected with the proposed Reform. The
letters which passed between him and Pitt in the summer of 1784 show
the care taken by both of them to master the facts of the situation.
Orde (the future Lord Bolton) warned Pitt that a resolute effort would
soon be made to effect the entire separation of the two Kingdoms, and
urged him to “act towards Ireland with the utmost liberality consistent
with your own safety: it must in the long run be the wisest policy.”
Above all he insisted, as the duke had also done, on the need of a firm
decision, which even the malcontents must regard as final.[329]
Pitt on his side sought to procure the fullest information on all
points. In regard to the Reform of the Irish Parliament he deprecated
any extreme measure such as the admission of the Roman Catholics then
appeared to be; but he advocated the extension of political rights
to Protestant Dissenters; for, as he forcibly put it, “we may keep
the Parliament, but lose the people.” As for the fiscal question he
required first of all a satisfactory knowledge of the facts, so that
some general principles of action could be agreed on; and he urged that
the financial relations of the Kingdoms should be regulated according
as the prosperity of Ireland increased with her enlarged commercial
opportunities. Justice required that Ireland should then take her
share of the imperial burdens, which at present rested almost entirely
with Great Britain. Finally they must seek some means calculated to
bestow on Ireland that permanent tranquillity which the late commercial
concessions had failed to secure.[330]
In this letter, dated 19th September 1784, we see not only an outline
of the scheme which took definite form in the Irish Propositions,
or Resolutions, of the session of 1785, but also an instructive
example of Pitt’s methods of procedure. He began by collecting all
the ascertainable facts, including the causes of previous failures,
and, by sifting these data, he sought to arrive at general principles
which would illuminate the whole question. In a word, his method was
inductive. It begun with facts and ended with principles. Unlike the
French legislators of 1789–93, who first enunciated principles and then
sought to square the facts of life to them, he started with a solid
basis and reared on it a structure from whose summit the toiler might
take a wide survey. The Revolutionists built symmetrically and grandly,
but without foundations.
In order thoroughly to master details, Pitt summoned from Ireland not
only Orde but also Foster, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Beresford,
Chief Commissioner of the Revenue. Both were able and masterful men,
the former the doughtiest opponent, the latter the staunchest champion,
of Pitt’s Act of Union. Beresford did much to beautify Dublin, and his
name lives on in Beresford Place. With these experienced officials Pitt
had many conferences at Downing Street, or at the house on the north
side of Putney Heath, which he rented for the latter part of 1784.
They confirmed Orde’s advice as to the wisdom of granting to Ireland
complete liberty and equality in matters of trade, but warned him as to
the difficulty of drawing from Ireland any contribution to the imperial
funds. Here it should be remembered that Ireland supported 15,000
regular troops, 3,000 of whom were at the disposal of the British
Executive in Ireland, while the others could be moved from Ireland with
the consent of her Parliament.
Converse with Foster must also have strengthened Pitt’s resolve to
press on the Reform of the Irish Parliament; for he now warned the
Duke of Rutland, who stoutly opposed Reform, not to confuse peaceable
efforts in that direction with subversive or treasonable schemes; and
in a notable phrase of his letter of 4th December, he declared that
Parliamentary Reform must sooner or later be carried in both countries.
As regards procedure, he thought it best to postpone a change in the
Irish franchise until a similar measure came forward at Westminster;
for this, if successful, would impart to the movement in Ireland an
irresistible force. In the meantime it would be well to take up the
commercial problem.
Pitt’s sanguine temperament here led him into a tactical mistake. The
Irish Resolutions were destined to arouse in Great Britain a storm of
opposition which swept away the hopes of the Reform Associations; and
the collapse of their efforts told unfavourably on the Irish political
movement. Probably also he erred in bringing forward his proposals
first in Dublin--a matter on which Fox readily aroused resentment at
Westminster. Yet, where the issues were so tangled, it is difficult to
say whether success could have crowned Pitt’s efforts had they been put
forth in a different order.[331] From his letter of 7th October 1784 to
the Lord Lieutenant we see that he looked on the Reform of the Irish
Parliament as simpler, but yet “perhaps more difficult and hazardous,”
than the commercial questions then at stake.
Here again he calculated wrongly. Ireland’s demand for equality of
trading advantages with Great Britain was certain to meet with vehement
opposition from our manufacturers, as the events of the year 1778
convincingly showed. His mistake is the more remarkable as he proposed
“to give Ireland an almost unlimited communication of commercial
advantage, if we can receive in return some security that her strength
and riches will be our benefit, and that she will contribute from time
to time in their increasing proportions to the common exigencies of the
Empire.”[332] How buoyant was Pitt’s nature to cherish the hope that
British merchants would concede commercial equality to Ireland, or that
the factions at Dublin would take up the burdens of Empire!
No letter of Pitt’s rings with more enthusiasm, though an undertone
of anxiety can be detected, than the very long one of 6th-7th
January 1785. Writing until far past midnight he explained to the
Lord-Lieutenant in great detail the aim which he had in view, namely,
the sweeping aside of all local prejudices, so that England and Ireland
might become “one country in effect, though for local concerns under
distinct Legislatures.” The pupil of Adam Smith had caught a clear
glimpse of the truth that States which throw down their customs’
barriers become effectually parts of the same body. But he now saw that
British manufacturers would probably resist so sweeping a change; and
he pointed out to Rutland that the admission of Ireland to commercial
equality, even in the case of the export trade from British Colonies,
to which, he said, she had no claim of right, involved a solemn duty
to respond to imperial duties. He then pointed out that Ireland would
have more than mere equality; for Great Britain was burdened by taxes
which were the outcome of those duties; and Irish shippers, with their
lighter burdens, might find it possible to export the produce of those
colonies to Great Britain to the detriment of British shippers. In
many ways he sought to disprove the claims or excuses put forward by
Irish patriots why they should receive much and give little in return.
He showed the impossibility of conceding so much unless Ireland would
irrevocably pledge herself to contribute, according to her ability, to
the expenses of the Empire.[333]
The despatches sent by the Home Secretary, Lord Sydney, to the Lord
Lieutenant, and the letters of Pitt to Orde, contained precise
instructions on this last point. Pitt first desired that Ireland’s
contribution should go towards the navy.[334] Then for a time he
harboured the notion that it should go towards his proposed Sinking
Fund, because that money would not pass beyond England, and would
return in the form of a trade the balance of which was known to be in
favour of Ireland.[335] But the Cabinet adopted the earlier proposal,
with the proviso that the contribution towards the naval expenses of
the Empire should be made in such a way as the Irish Parliament might
direct. The letter of George III to Pitt, of 28th January 1785, shows
that the King insisted on a contribution from Ireland as essential.
The ten Propositions, or Resolutions, embodying the aims of Pitt, were
brought before the Irish Parliament on 7th February 1785. They embodied
the information gleaned from Beresford, Foster, and Orde; and a report
recently drawn up by a special committee of the British Privy Council
also furnished useful information. Modified in some particulars, and,
with the addition of a Proposition soon to be noticed, they passed the
Dublin Parliament with little difficulty. In their modified form they
may be summarized as follows. Foreign and colonial products were to
pass between Great Britain and Ireland, in either direction, without
any increase of duty. The goods and products of the sister islands were
also to be imported either free or at identical rates; or again, where
the duties were not equal, they were to be reduced to the lower of the
two tariffs hitherto in operation. All prohibitions on inter-insular
trade were to lapse without renewal, unless it should seem expedient
in the case of corn, meal, malt, flour, and biscuits. The British
Government required that, when the “hereditary revenue” exceeded a
certain sum, Ireland should pay over the surplus as a contribution
to the naval expenses of the Empire. As the “hereditary revenue”
consisted mainly of custom and excise duties, its increase (which was
generally steady) afforded the best index of the prosperity of Ireland.
Moreover that branch of the revenue had hitherto been under the general
direction of the Crown; and Pitt’s proposal to transfer its surplus
to the control of the Irish Parliament was both statesmanlike and
conciliatory.[336]
Nevertheless, the letters of the Duke of Rutland to Pitt revealed the
conviction even of the best friends of Government that the Propositions
would fail if they were coupled with any demand for a money payment.
The time, said the Duke, was very critical. They were seeking to
organize a legal militia force in place of the self-constituted
Volunteers; Grattan and Daly had spoken splendidly for the change;
but the demand for a subsidy would jeopardize everything, even the
connection with Great Britain.[337] A secret report which he sent to
Pitt showed that of the members of the large towns of Ireland, only
Londonderry was well disposed to the Resolutions. In the case of
Waterford (“well governed, under Lord Tyrone’s influence”) the freemen
opposed them while the two members supported them. Belfast, a close
borough, opposed them. In all, he reckoned forty-five members hostile,
twelve friendly, and the others absent or not accounted for. A list
followed of the “expectations” of members as regards judgeships,
pensions and sinecures.[338]
As Rutland and Orde had foreseen, the assailants of the measure
fastened on the question of the contribution. How could a country,
whose annual expenditure at present exceeded income by £150,000, and
whose absentee landlords drained her of a million a year, pay a large
sum to the richer island? Did not Ireland contribute largely in men
and money to the army? And was not a great part of her administration
controlled by a Monarch and a Ministry in whose succession and
appointment she had no voice? Such were the invectives of that most
acrid and restless of demagogues, Flood. Far more statesmanlike was the
conduct of Grattan. Equalling, nay excelling, Flood in his oratorical
powers, he held them under the control of a masculine reason. As
his energy and tact had gained for his land the boon of legislative
independence, so now he sought to cement friendly relations with
Great Britain, and therefore gave a general assent to the commercial
proposals. The Irish Ministers also pointed out that Great Britain
opened a far larger market than Ireland did; that the industries of the
larger island, being handicapped by war taxes and high wages, could be
exploited by Irishmen, whose national burdens were comparatively light,
and that the colonial trade was now to be opened up in its entirety and
for ever, not on terms that were revocable at the option of the British
Government, as was the case in 1780.
All these arguments were of no avail to carry the proposal respecting
Ireland’s contribution to the navy. Though Pitt had carefully framed
it so that Ireland would pay nothing until she was in a prosperous
state, he failed to meet the rooted objections of the Dublin Parliament
to money going out of the country. Grattan focused the opposition by
demanding that Ireland should pay nothing until her Government had put
an end to the long series of deficits. In private conversations with
him Orde failed to weaken this decision, in which nearly all Irishmen
concurred. A Resolution to that effect was therefore added. It was
further arranged that when the annual hereditary revenue, which then
stood at £652,000, should exceed £656,000 in time of peace, the surplus
should go towards the support of the imperial navy in such a way as the
Irish Parliament should direct. Additional taxes were then voted which
were estimated to yield £140,000 a year.
No beginning could have been less auspicious. The arrangement was far
less satisfactory than the worst of the alternative plans to which Pitt
expressed the hope that Orde would never resort. The contribution,
on the present terms, could be evaded by any juggling Chancellor of
the Exchequer who should contrive a series of small and profitable
deficits. Consequently Orde, who came to London to persuade Pitt of
the need of the change, found him inexorable. Pitt was resolved “not
to proceed until the condition should be taken away from the last
Resolution.”[339] This also appears in a part of his letter to the
Marquis of Buckingham:
[_Secret._]
Sunday, February 20, 1785.[340]
... I am able to tell you confidentially that we shall certainly
_suspend_ the final approbation of the commercial system, and
declare the impossibility of completing it till more satisfaction
and explicit provision is made in Ireland respecting the object of
contribution.
Yours ever,
W. PITT.
In opening his case at Westminster on 22nd February, Pitt had to
contend with the discouragement caused by this rebuff, and with a fit
of hoarseness, which he informed Grenville he had been trying to sleep
off without much success. Nevertheless his speech was allowed to be
a fine effort. He besought members fairly to consider his proposals,
which aimed at settling the relations of the two islands on a liberal
and permanent basis. Glancing scornfully at the tactics of the
Opposition and the campaign of malice and misrepresentation started
by the “Gazetteer” and taken up by various trading bodies, he claimed
that there should be fair play, at least until he had stated his case
fully. It was complex, and his proposals might need modification in
details. The old system of cruel and abominable restraint imposed on
Irish trade had vanished. They now had to complete a new system,
and community of benefits was the only principle on which they could
proceed. They proposed entirely and for ever to open to Ireland the
trade of our colonies except that of India, which was a monopoly of the
East India Company. There was no solid ground for the fear that so poor
a country as Ireland would become the emporium of colonial goods, and
would re-export them to our shores. Equally unlikely was the suggestion
that Ireland would undersell us in manufactures; for British energy had
secured for our goods a fairly large market in Ireland even against her
import duties. He then referred guardedly to the subject of Ireland’s
contribution to the imperial navy. Finally, while deprecating any
immediate decision, he declared that what England lost by the bargain
she would more than recoup from the growing friendliness and prosperity
of the sister island. He therefore proposed a general motion for the
permanent and irrevocable admission of Ireland to all the advantages
of British commerce when she irrevocably pledged herself to pay a sum
towards the defence of commerce.[341]
The Opposition, exasperated by Pitt’s ungenerous treatment of Fox
concerning the Westminster election, at once opened a furious fire of
criticisms. Fox, who held the old Whig views in favour of a “national
commerce,” that is, protection, urged that Ireland would probably
smuggle into Great Britain the produce of foreign colonies, and would
become the “grand arbitress of all the commercial interests of the
Empire.” The Resolutions ought, he claimed, first to have been moved
at Westminster, in which he was probably right. If they were passed,
he said, Great Britain would never have anything more to concede to
Ireland. The Navigation Acts, the source of England’s prosperity, would
be a dead letter. As for Ireland’s contribution to the navy, he would
“trust everything to her generosity, but not much to her prudence.”
Eden, formerly Irish Secretary, then dwelt on the danger of allowing a
lightly taxed country to compete with a heavily burdened country. The
debt of Great Britain was a hundredfold that of Ireland; and, while a
Briton paid on an average fifty shillings a year in taxes, an Irishman
paid only eight shillings. The plan now proposed would be a revolution
in British trade. These words are remarkable in view of Eden’s
desertion of North and his assistance to Pitt in carrying through a
still greater “revolution,” the commercial treaty with France of 1786.
The speeches of Fox and Eden did some good; their attack on Pitt’s
measure convinced Irishmen that it must have many excellences. The Earl
of Mornington (afterwards the Marquis Wellesley) declared that Ireland
would warmly support Pitt. Beresford also stated that the Irish members
now only wanted an excuse for siding with him; but England must beware
of pressing Ireland too hard in this bargain. A rebuff would seriously
jeopardize the cause of order.[342]
No sense of prudence or responsibility restrained the action of the
British Opposition and their mercantile allies. A campaign had already
begun. It bore signs of careful organization. The signal was given by
the “Gazetteer” of 16th February, which pointed out that the Navigation
Acts, the source of Britain’s prosperity, would be virtually annulled
by Pitt’s proposals. On the next day it showed that Irish competition,
based on low wages, must ruin our industries. On 18th February a
meeting of silk manufacturers protested against the Resolutions. On
the 24th the planters and merchants of the West Indies followed suit.
On that day the “Gazetteer” stated that, if Pitt’s measure became law,
the Exchange would be transferred from Cornhill to Cork; later on it
declared that Arkwright and Dempster would set up their factories in
Ireland. On 3rd March the “Morning Chronicle,” the organ of the middle
classes, joined in the hue and cry, declaring that even as it was the
balance of trade between Great Britain and Ireland was in favour of
the latter, and that the larger island must be drained of money by the
smaller if the old restrictions were not maintained.
Meetings of protest were now in full swing. Delegates of the West
India merchants had an interview with Pitt and declared his answer to
be unsatisfactory. The merchants themselves refused, by fifty-nine to
forty, to petition against his proposals, but the minority published
and circulated their opinions. The manufacturing towns, except those
of the woollen districts, petitioned strongly against the Resolutions.
Manchester, Lancaster, and Dudley each sent two petitions to that
effect; while three apiece emanated from Glasgow, Paisley, and Bristol.
So the game of misrepresentation went on. A petition from Lancashire
contained 80,000 signatures; and a document purporting to come from
13,243 weavers of Glasgow and Rutherglen, shows that artisans were as
much alarmed as the merchants. The weavers stated their conviction
that if the Resolutions became law, they would be undersold by the
Irish in the home market and reduced to beggary.[343] This solidarity
of interest is noteworthy. In those days the “manufacturer” was
actually, as well as in name, the weaver; and tens of thousands of
households, where the hand-loom kept the wolf from the door through
the winter, saw pale Ruin stalking behind the figure of thrifty,
resourceful, energetic Paddy. The agitation therefore spread through
all classes with a unanimity that would scarcely be possible now,
when the term “manufacturer” has come to mean a capitalist who owns a
factory where nothing is done by hand. Then the solidarity of interest
between merchants and weavers was obvious. In imagination both classes
saw their industries wafted by a cruel east wind to a land whose
inhabitants they disliked and despised.
Some of the petitions were based on false information. That of the
Glasgow cotton workers complained that the fourth Resolution, as
it left the Irish Parliament, would place a heavy duty on British
cottons.[344] But Pitt had throughout insisted that there must be
an equalizing of duties on both sides of the Irish Sea, the lower
level being always taken. In truth, all reasoning was in vain. The
protectionist spirit was proof against all arguments. Thus, the
committee of the merchants and manufacturers of Sheffield declared
that their industry could not be carried on without grave injury if
the present duty on bar iron imported into Great Britain, namely, 56
shillings per ton, were reduced to the level then obtaining in Ireland,
that is, 10 shillings a ton.
Still keener was the opposition in Bristol. The protectionist feeling
had lost none of the bitterness which mainly caused the unseating of
Burke in the election of 1774. The sugar refiners of that town now
declared that they had spent more than £150,000 in buildings and plant,
all of which would go for naught, if the Irish Parliament, “under the
privilege of importing raw and refined sugars through that country to
this [should] lay a heavy duty on loaf and lump sugar and a small duty
on bastard and ground sugars and molasses”; for the Irish merchants
would then “effectually prevent our exporting the former to that
kingdom and also to foreign markets, and enable them to send the latter
into Great Britain at a less price than it can be manufactured here
under the burthen of the high duties, the high price of labour, and
heavy taxes, which would inevitably tend to the ruin of that valuable
branch of trade in this kingdom.”[345] The Bristol sugar-refiners can
scarcely have read Pitt’s proposals, which implied equal duties on
all articles at British and Irish ports; and the Irish Parliament had
agreed to this. The notion that Irish sugar-refiners, by complex duties
of their own devising, would soon beat their British rivals out of
foreign markets and ruin them in the home market, is a sign of the mad
folly of the time. Against stupidity such as this even the gods fight
in vain.
By no arguments could the hubbub be appeased. Pamphlets, especially
one by Lord Sheffield, denounced the doom awaiting England should
Pitt’s Resolutions pass. In a short time sixty-four petitions poured
in against them;[346] and the manufacturers of Great Britain, under
the chairmanship of Wedgwood, formed a “Great Chamber” in order to
stave off the catastrophe. Yet Pitt’s energies and spirits seemed to
rise with the rising opposition. In order to emphasize the importance
of commerce, he had recently appointed a Committee of Council for
Commerce, which promised to answer the purposes which that ornamental
body, the Board of Trade (abolished in 1782), had signally failed to
fulfil. The new Council was charged to examine manufacturers and others
as to the relations of Anglo-Irish commerce and the probable effect
of the Resolutions. Similar investigations were made at the bar of
the House of Commons. Pitt cherished high hopes from these inquiries.
“The more the subject is discussed,” he wrote to Orde on 4th April,
“the more our cause will be benefited in the end.... I do not myself
entertain a doubt of complete success.” To the Duke of Rutland he
wrote on the 16th: “Though we may lose a little in popularity for the
time, we shall ultimately gain--at least the country will, which is
enough.”[347]
The report of the committee is very curious, as showing the difficulty
of obtaining trustworthy statistics even on the weightiest topics. The
Irish accounts showed a far larger export of goods to Great Britain
than of imports from Great Britain; while, on the contrary, the British
Custom House returns gave the balance of trade as largely against
Ireland. The committee could discover no means of accounting for this
extraordinary discrepancy.[348] Thus, while protectionists on both
sides of the Irish Sea were croaking over the decline of their trade
and the growth of that of their rival, the official returns showed that
(as they would have phrased it) the balance of trade was so largely in
their favour as to warrant the hope of the speedy exhaustion of that
rival.
In matters which were within the ken of the financiers of that age, the
report was reassuring. The woollen manufacturers of Norwich declared
that, though the wages of Irish spinners were less by one-half than
those of English spinners, Irish competition was not to be feared under
the conditions now proposed. Everett, a London merchant, maintained
that the British manufacturers, owing to their skill, taste, and
ingenuity, would always have a superiority over those of Ireland,
provided that British sheep and wool were not exported thither. Nine
woollen manufacturers of Yorkshire were decidedly of this opinion. The
chief clothier of Devizes expected harm from Irish competition only
in the cheaper stuffs.[349] For the cotton industry the evidence was
less encouraging, the witnesses from Manchester claiming that Irish
thread could be spun 20 per cent. cheaper than British thread, and
that an import duty of 10½ per cent. was needed to protect the home
market.[350] Representative silk merchants of London and Scotland had
little apprehension for the future, until the Irish workers developed
skill and taste.[351] As for the iron trade, the evidence of eight
iron-masters who were examined refuted the reasoning of the Sheffield
petition. Provided that Ireland did not pay a smaller duty than Great
Britain on imports of bar iron, they asserted that they could hold
their own against her small and struggling iron industry.[352]
In face of the alarmist statements of Wedgwood in public, his evidence
before the committee is of some interest. When asked whether he feared
Irish competition in pottery if the duties in both kingdoms were
equalized, he replied that “there might be danger of a competition in
time, in their own and every foreign market.[353] I should think we
were safer if earthenware was allowed to be imported free of all duties
into both countries.” This was the man who headed the protectionist
“Great Chamber of Manufacturers.” Wedgwood’s chief manager admitted
that he had only the day before heard that any pottery at all was made
in Ireland. Is it surprising that Pitt sharply criticized Wedgwood’s
tactics?
Other strange features of this report are, first, that the outcry in
England against any relaxation of duties was greatest in the case of
the very articles, calicoes and sugar, in which the Irish Parliament
had recently imposed higher duties; secondly, that whereas much of the
evidence told in favour of inter-insular Free Trade, the committee
decided in favour of a system of moderate duties to be agreed on by the
two Governments.[354] Some such conclusion was perhaps inevitable in
view of the popular clamour; but the committee made no suggestion how
the two Parliaments, now drifting into fiscal hostility, were to come
to terms.
If the evidence contained in the report had been duly weighed, the
scare among British traders must have passed away; but official reports
are of little avail to thwart the efforts of panic-mongers. In vain did
George Rose, in an unsigned pamphlet, point the moral of the case, and
appeal to the common sense of his countrymen.[355] The Opposition had
the ear of the public, and the fate of the Resolutions in their present
form was evidently sealed. Probably Pulteney was right in stating that
the report came out too late to influence public opinion, and that Pitt
had unaccountably underrated the force of the prejudices contending
against him. Now, when the vote on the Westminster Scrutiny alarmed
him, he became perhaps unduly cautious.[356] This may be the true
explanation of his disposition to compromise. In his letter of 21st
May, to the Duke of Rutland, he dwelt on the difficulties arising from
the unscrupulous tactics of the enemy and the very marked independence
of a large number of his supporters, so that “we are hardly sure from
day to day what impression they may receive.”
This avowal is of some interest. It shows how critical was Pitt’s
position in the spring of 1785. As has been seen in a former chapter,
he had strained the allegiance of his motley following by taking up
too many thorny questions at once. The composite elements--Foxite,
Northite, and Chathamite--had not yet been fused into unity by the
power of his genius and the threatening pressure of France. Only by
the most careful leading could he keep his supporters together, and
save the country from the turmoil which a Fox-North Ministry must have
caused. There was the danger; and we may be sure that Pitt clung to
office, not merely from love of power (though he did love power), but
because, in the proud words of Chatham, he knew that he could guide his
country aright, and that no one else could.
Viewing the question of the independence of members of Parliament in
a more general way, we may hazard the conjecture that in the days of
pocket boroughs and small electorates members probably acted more
independently than in the present time, when their action is apt to
be the resultant of two external forces, pressure from constituents
and pressure from the party “whip.” However we may explain the fact,
it is certain that Pitt, despite his huge majority, failed to carry
three important proposals in 1785–6; and in the case of the Irish
Propositions he hesitated and lost the day.
* * * * *
In the second week of May, 1785, the Prime Minister bent before the
storm, and on the 12th presented his modified measure in the form of
twenty Propositions. The chief changes were those tending to safeguard
our West India planters and merchants against the secret importation
of the products of the French or Spanish colonies into this country on
Irish ships. He maintained the monopoly of the East India Company in
all the seas and lands between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of
Magellan, but allowed the Company’s ships to export goods from Ireland
to the East Indies. Further, he proposed that the Navigation Laws,
whether present or future, and the enactments respecting colonial
commerce, should be equally binding on both kingdoms. Respecting the
reduction of duties in either country, it was suggested that they
should not fall below 10½ per cent.; also that no new duties should be
imposed except such as would “balance duties on internal consumption.”
He also added a Proposition concerning the copyright of books.
Respecting Ireland’s contribution to the navy, Pitt annulled the Irish
proposal asserting the prior need of balancing income and expenditure,
and required that the proposed financial arrangement should be
perpetual.
In his speeches of 12th May and succeeding days he showed that most of
the petitions against his plan were founded on error, and he refuted
the hackneyed assertion that, because Ireland was lightly taxed and
wages were low, she would therefore undersell Britons in their own
markets. Considering her extreme poverty, he said, her burdens were in
effect as great as those of England; her backwardness in industry would
long cripple her; moreover, for skilled labour she had to pay as dearly
as British employers. He claimed that a liberal scheme of commercial
union would benefit both islands, just as the Union with Scotland
had immensely furthered the prosperity of Great Britain despite the
prophecies of ruin with which it was at the time received.
His opponents now changed their tactics. Seeing that the Propositions
had been altered largely in deference to their fears, they could
scarcely meet them with a direct attack. They therefore sought to
procure their rejection, if not at Westminster, then at Dublin.
Congratulating themselves on having caused the abandonment of the first
proposals, as fraught with ruin to Great Britain, they sought to set
Ireland in a flame against the amended measure. It is true that Fox
deprecated the concession of the proposed advantages to Ireland, on
the ground that they would subject our workers to the caprices of the
Dublin Parliament. But he reserved his denunciations for the proposals
which treated Ireland as a subsidiary State, in the matter of the
Navigation Acts. Above all, he declared, he would trust Ireland where
the Prime Minister distrusted her, namely, in the contribution to the
navy. Put that to her as a debt of honour, said he, and she would
discharge it. Compel her, and she would either refuse from injured
pride or concede it grudgingly, while perhaps equally withdrawing her
support from the army. “I will not,” he exclaimed, “barter English
commerce for Irish slavery: that is not the price I would pay, nor is
this the thing I would purchase.” Finally he declared that the House
could not understand these matters so well as the traders and workers
of Great Britain, who had overwhelmingly declared against the measure.
Fox did well to disclaim any positive opinions on these subjects; for
he took no interest in them, and is known never to have read Adam
Smith’s work, which he scoffed at as a collection of entertaining
theories.[357] We can now understand his conduct in declaiming against
the new safeguards for British industry, which he himself had demanded;
and if we may judge from Wraxall, the most telling parts of his
speech were the personal touches in which he reprobated Pitt’s lofty
dictatorial manner, and his novel connection with the “King’s friend,”
Jenkinson. Formerly War Secretary under Lord North,[358] he had
recently been appointed by Pitt head of the new “Committee of Council
for the Superintendence of Commerce.” Burke, who must have approved
Pitt’s proposals (except the contribution from Ireland, against which
he hotly inveighed), made capital out of the new “Coalition,” calling
Jenkinson Pitt’s pedestal, and wittily declaring that he envied not the
statue its pedestal or the pedestal its statue.[359] Other members,
including Fox and Pitt, skilfully played with the simile, and thus
beguiled the hours of these otherwise exhausting debates, which, we may
note, caused Wilberforce to faint in the midst of his efforts to defend
his chief.
The most brilliant, though not the least mischievous, speech of these
debates was that of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It is needless to dilate
on the Celtic charm and vivacity of this great _littérateur_. Descended
from an old Irish family, which gave to Swift one of his dearest
friends, and to Dublin one of its leading actors and authors, he was
born in 1751, doomed to sparkle. Educated at Harrow, and called to the
Bar, he soon attracted attention by his speeches and still more by his
plays. His “Rivals” and “School for Scandal” attested the versatility
of his wit and the cynical geniality of his nature. In 1780 he made
what was perhaps the chief mistake of his life in entering Parliament
as member for Stafford; for his character was too volatile his satire
too caustic, to ensure success except as a _frondeur_. Friendship
with Fox condemned him almost entirely to this _rôle_ and exaggerated
the recklessness of his utterances. He was the Charles O’Malley of
politics. When, therefore, that engaging political satire, “The
Rolliad,” appeared, in castigation of Rolle, the somewhat roisterous
member for Devonshire, everyone attributed the poems to Sheridan; and
his strenuous denial found little credence.[360]
One of the “Probationary Odes” amusingly hit off the alliance of
Jenkinson with Pitt and the increase in the number of the Irish
Propositions:
Lo! hand in hand advance th’ enamour’d pair
This Chatham’s son and that the drudge of Bute.
Proud of their mutual love
Like Nisus and Euryalus they move
To Glory’s steepest heights together tend,
Each careless for himself, each anxious for his friend.
CHORUS
Hail! most prudent Politicians!
Hail! correct Arithmeticians!
Hail! vast exhaustless source of Irish Propositions!
Elsewhere in dolorous strains the Muse
Sees fair Ierne rise from England’s flame,
And build on British ruin Irish fame.[361]
In these witticisms we have the high-water mark of the achievements
of the Opposition. Sheridan inveighed against the exaction of a
contribution from Ireland towards the navy, and the re-imposition of
the Navigation Laws (certainly the weakest part of Pitt’s case) as
implying a legislative inferiority from which she had escaped in 1782.
He scoffed at the commercial boons as a mean and worthless bribe,
and the whole scheme as “a fraud, cheat and robbery,” fatal to the
confidence of the Irish in the good faith of Britain. The playwright
further exclaimed that it would be a misfortune if the Irish Parliament
dared to pass the Resolutions, and that, as it was not by Parliament
that the independence of Ireland had been obtained, so it was not
by Parliament that it should be given up. This was tantamount to an
invitation to the Irish Volunteers to renew their coercion of the
Dublin Parliament; and it was now clear that Fox and his friends, in
despair of defeating the proposals at Westminster, were seeking to
wreck them at Dublin, if need be, at the cost of civil broils.
In this they succeeded. By substantial majorities Ministers carried
the Irish Propositions at the end of May; and the Lords passed them
on 18th July. But long before this the storm-centre had moved across
St. George’s Channel. Throughout the length and breadth of Ireland an
outcry was raised against the state of ignominious dependence in which
Ireland would be placed by the contribution now imposed on her for ever
in return for greatly diminished advantages. Fox’s telling phrase about
the bartering of Irish liberty against British commerce was on every
lip. The results were at once obvious. Though Pitt, with his usually
sanguine forecast, had expressed the belief that the Dublin Parliament
would be more manageable than that of Westminster, it set at naught
all the Viceregal blandishments. Some of its members even taunted
Pitt with acting treacherously towards Ireland throughout. Grattan,
while refraining from this taunt, opposed the new scheme, especially
clause iv and the perpetual contribution, in a speech which the Lord
Lieutenant described to Pitt as “seditious and inflammatory to a degree
scarcely credible.” Flood excelled himself in recklessness; and in that
body of usually subservient placemen, leave to bring in the Bill was
granted only by a majority of nineteen (12th August).
* * * * *
In face of this storm-signal the Irish Government decided to furl
their sails and come to anchor. The measure was deferred to another
session; and of course was never heard of again. Considering the “very
great clamour”[362] in the country, this was inevitable; and Dublin
manifested its joy by a spontaneous and general illumination. Woodfall,
an opponent of Pitt’s policy, admitted to Eden that neither the
populace nor the members could explain the cause of their recent fury
or their present joy.[363] The excitement soon abated; and it must be
allowed that the popular party in Ireland did not adopt the hostile
measures against British trade which might have been expected after the
breakdown of these enlightened proposals. Lord Westmorland, during his
viceroyalty five years later, admitted that complete harmony existed in
the commercial relations of the two kingdoms.
This may have salved the wound which the events of 1785 dealt to
Pitt. Up to the very end he had hoped for success in what had been
the dearest object of his life. After hearing of the ominous vote of
12th August in Dublin, he wrote to the Marquis of Buckingham in the
following manly terms:
Putney Heath, Aug. 17, 1785.[364]
MY DEAR LORD,
I have many thanks to return you for your letter. Grenville will
probably send you the account we received to-day from Ireland,
after a long period of suspense. The motion for bringing in a
Bill has been carried only by 127 against 108; and such a victory
undoubtedly partakes, for the present at least, of the nature of
a defeat. A motion was announced for Monday last, declaratory
against the 4th Resolution. The event of this motion seemed to be
thought uncertain. The probable issue of all this seems to be that
the settlement is put at some distance, but I still believe the
principles of it too sound, not to find their way at last.
To the Duke of Rutland he also wrote in the same lofty spirit, using
the words quoted at the head of this chapter, and adding that, when
experience had brought more wisdom, “we shall see all our views
realised in both countries and for the advantage of both.”
Faith and courage such as this are never lost upon colleagues and
subordinates, especially when they can rely on loyal support from their
chief. Both to the Duke and to Orde Pitt now tendered his thanks for
their tact and resolution in face of overwhelming difficulties, and
thus manifested that kindliness and magnanimity which wins heartfelt
devotion. For, as usually happens after defeat, envious surmises
were rife. Some spiteful influence (probably that of the Marquis of
Buckingham),[365] had sought to poison Pitt’s mind against Orde
as the chief cause of the failure in Dublin. As for Beresford, he
believed that some of Pitt’s colleagues had turned traitors. Lesser men
might pry into corners to find petty causes for that heart-breaking
collapse; but no such suspicions mar the dignity of Pitt’s voluminous
correspondence, a perusal of which enables the reader to understand
why Orde once exclaimed: “I am so sensible of the manly and noble part
which Mr. Pitt has acted, that I will die by inches in the cause of his
support.”[366]
The real reason of failure, as Pitt clearly saw, was the determination
of powerful factions in both kingdoms to wreck his proposals by
representing each concession made to the sister-island as an injury or
an insult, or both. At all times it is easier to fan to a flame the
fears and jealousies of nations than to allay them; and in that age the
susceptibilities both of Britons and Irishmen were highly inflammable.
Twelve decades, marked by reforming efforts and closer intercourse,
have softened the feelings then so easily aroused; and as we look back
over efforts of conciliation, not yet crowned with complete success, we
see no figure nobler and more pathetic than that of the statesman who
struggled hard to bring together those hitherto alien peoples by the
ties of interest and friendship; we see also few figures more sinister
than those of his political opponents at Westminster who set themselves
doggedly to the task of thwarting his efforts by means of slander and
misrepresentation.