By the last packets I had the favour of yours, and am surprised that you
should apply to a person so ill-qualified as I am, for a full and
impartial account of the state of our trade. I have always lived as
retired as possible; I have carefully avoided the perplexed honour of
city-offices; I have never minded anybody's business but my own; upon all
which accounts, and several others, you might easily have found among my
fellow-citizens, persons more capable to resolve the weighty questions you
put to me than I can pretend to be. But being entirely at leisure, even at
this season of the year, when I used to have scarce time sufficient to
perform the necessary offices of life, I will endeavour to comply with
your requests, cautioning you not implicitly to rely upon what I say,
excepting what belongs to that branch of trade in which I am more
immediately concerned.
The Irish trade is, at present, in the most deplorable condition that can
be imagined; to remedy it, the causes of its languishment must be inquired
into. But as those causes (you may assure yourself) will not be removed,
you may look upon it as a thing past hope of recovery.
The first and greatest shock our trade received 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 6_s._ per yard; coarse druggets, bays and shalloons,
worsted damasks, strong draught-works, slight half-works, and gaudy
stuffs, were the only products 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 100_l._, without finding the coin of all the
northern 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 rent, 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 to themselves and us.
They looked with envious eyes upon our prosperity, and complained of being
undersold by us in those commodities which 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 out 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 manufactory 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 into England.
Several of these had taken the children of the native Irish apprentices to
them, who being humbled by the forfeiture of upward 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 a constant recruit of artisans;
our island lying much more under pasture than any in Europe. The
foreigners (notwithstanding all the restrictions the English Parliament
has 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 this means the trade in those ports is, in a
great measure, destroyed, and we were obliged to try our hands at finer
works, having only our own consumption to depend upon; and I can assure
you we have, in several kinds of narrow goods, even exceeded the English,
and I believe we shall in a few years more, be able to equal them in
broadcloths; but this you may depend upon, that scarce the tenth part of
English goods are now imported, of what used to be before the famous act.
The only manufactured wares we are allowed to export, are linen cloth and
linen yarn, which are marketable only in England; the rest of our
commodities are wool, restrained to England, and raw hides, skins, tallow,
beef, and butter. Now these are things for which the northern nations
have no occasion; we are therefore obliged, instead of carrying woollen
goods to their markets, and bringing home money, to purchase their
commodities.
In France, Spain, and Portugal, our wares are more valuable, though it
must be owned, our fraudulent trade in wool is the best branch of our
commerce; from hence we get wines, brandy, and fruit, very cheap, and in
great perfection; so that though England has constrained us to be poor,
they have given us leave to be merry. From these countries we bring home
moydores, pistoles, and louisdores, without which we should scarce have a
penny to turn upon.
To England we are allowed to send nothing but linen cloth, yarn, raw
hides, skins, tallow, and wool. From thence we have coals, for which we
always pay ready money, India goods, English woollen and silks, tobacco,
hardware, earthenware, salt, and several other commodities. Our
exportations to England are very much overbalanced by our importations; so
that the course of exchange is generally too high, and people choose
rather to make their remittances to England in specie, than by a bill, and
our nation is perpetually drained of its little running cash.
Another cause of the decay of trade, scarcity of money, and swelling of
exchange, is the unnatural affectation of our gentry to reside in and
about London. Their rents are remitted to them, and spent there. The
countryman wants employment from them; the country shopkeeper wants their
custom. For this reason he can't pay his Dublin correspondent readily, nor
take off a great quantity of his wares. Therefore the Dublin merchant
can't employ the artisan, nor keep up his credit in foreign markets.
I have discoursed some of these gentlemen, persons esteemed for good
sense, and demanded a reason for this, their so unaccountable
proceeding--expensive to them for the present, ruinous to their country,
and destructive to the future value of their estates--and find all their
answers summed up under three heads, curiosity, pleasure, and loyalty to
King George. The two first excuses deserve no answer; let us try the
validity of the third. Would not loyalty be much better expressed by
gentlemen staying in their respective counties, influencing their
dependents by their examples, saving their own wealth, and letting their
neighbours profit by their necessary expenses, thereby keeping them from
misery and its unavoidable consequence, discontent? Or is it better to
flock to London, be lost in a crowd, kiss the King's hand, and take a view
of the royal family? The seeing of the royal house may animate their zeal
for it; but other advantages I know not. What employment have any of our
gentlemen got by their attendance at Court, to make up to them their
expenses? Why, about forty of them have been created peers, and a little
less than a hundred of them baronets and knights. For these excellent
advantages, thousands of our gentry have squeezed their tenants,
impoverished the trader, and impaired their own fortunes! Another great
calamity is the exorbitant raising of the rents of lands. Upon the
determination of all leases made before the year 1690, a gentleman thinks
he has but indifferently improved his estate if he has only doubled his
rent-roll. Farms are screwed up to a rack-rent--leases granted but for a
small term of years--tenants tied down to hard conditions, and discouraged
from cultivating the lands they occupy to the best advantage, by the
certainty they have of their rent being raised on the expiration of their
lease, proportionably to the improvements they shall make. Thus is honest
industry restrained; the farmer is a slave to his landlord; 'tis well if
he can cover his family with a coarse, home-spun frieze. The artisan has
little dealings with him; yet he is obliged to take his provisions from
him at an extravagant price, otherwise the farmer cannot pay his rent.
The proprietors of lands keep great part of them in their own hands for
sheep-pasture; and there are thousands of poor wretches who think
themselves blessed, if they can obtain a hut worse than the squire's
dog-kennel, and an acre of ground for a potato plantation, on condition of
being as very slaves as any in America. What can be more deplorable than
to behold wretches starving in the midst of plenty?
We are apt to charge the Irish with laziness, because we seldom find them
employed; but then we don't consider they have nothing to do.
Sir William Temple, in his excellent remarks on the United Provinces,
inquires, why Holland, which has the fewest and worst ports and
commodities of any nation in Europe, should abound in trade, and Ireland,
which has the most and best of both, should have none? This great man
attributes this surprising accident to the natural aversion man has for
labour; who will not be persuaded to toil and fatigue himself for the
superfluities of life throughout the week, when he may provide himself
with all necessary subsistence by the labour of a day or two. But, with
due submission to Sir William's profound judgment, the want of trade with
us is rather owing to the cruel restraints we lie under, than to any
disqualifications whatsoever in our inhabitants. I have not, sir, for
these thirty years past, since I was concerned in trade (the greatest part
of which time distresses have been flowing in upon us), ever observed them
to swell so suddenly to such a height as they have done within these few
months. Our present calamities are not to be represented; you can have no
notion of them without beholding them. Numbers of miserable objects crowd
our doors, begging us to take their wares at any price, to prevent their
families from immediate starving. We cannot part with our money to them,
both because we know not when we shall have vent for our goods, and as
there are no debts paid, we are afraid of reducing ourselves to their
lamentable circumstances. The dismal time of trade we had during Marr's
Troubles in Scotland, are looked upon as happy days when compared with the
present. I need not tell you, sir, that this griping want, this dismal
poverty, this additional woe, must be put to the accursed stocks, which
have desolated our country more effectually than England. Stock-jobbing
was a kind of traffic we were utterly unacquainted with. We went late to
the South Sea market, and bore a great share in the losses of it, without
having tasted any of its profits.
If many in England have been ruined by stocks, some have been advanced.
The English have a free and open trade to repair their losses; but, above
all, a wise, vigilant, and uncorrupted Parliament and ministry,
strenuously endeavouring to restore public trade to its former happy
state. Whilst we, having lost the greatest part of our cash, without any
probability of its returning, must despair of retrieving our losses by
trade, and have before our eyes the dismal prospect of universal poverty
and desolation.
I believe, sir, you are by this time heartily tired with this indigested
letter, and are firmly persuaded of the truth of what I said in the
beginning of it, that you had much better have imposed this task on some
of our citizens of greater abilities. But perhaps, sir, such a letter as
this may be, for the singularity of it, entertaining to you, who
correspond with the politest and most learned men in Europe. But I am
satisfied you will excuse its want of exactness and perspicuity when you
consider my education, my being unaccustomed to writings of this nature,
and, above all, those calamitous objects which constantly surround us,
sufficient to disturb the clearest imagination, and the soundest judgment.
Whatever cause I have given you, by this letter, to think worse of my
sense and judgment, I fancy I have given you a manifest proof that I am,
sir,
Your most obedient, humble servant,
J. S.
"A PROPOSAL FOR THE UNIVERSAL USE OF IRISH MANUFACTURES." 1720.
The social condition of Ireland at the above period has been already
briefly described. When the landlord class were degraded and the tenantry
debased by the iniquitous laws of Charles II. and William III., which
suppressed the trade of the country, the oppressed people found in Swift a
mouthpiece for their wrongs. The above proposal was the voice of the
nation rendered articulate by his utterance. It proposes in effect a
reprisal on England for her restrictions, by a refusal to use anything
that comes thence. A confederation is to be formed, pledged to use nothing
that is not of Irish manufacture. Everything, he trusts, will be burned
that comes from England, except the people and the coals. Swift's proposal
was faulty in political economy. Of this the age knew little, and Swift
cared less. The printer of this pamphlet was prosecuted. The Chief Justice
(Whitshed) sent back the jury nine times, and kept them eleven hours
before they would consent to bring in a "special verdict." The
unpopularity of the prosecution became so great that it was at last
dropped.