ENGLISH INTERFERENCE
WITH
IRISH INDUSTRIES.
ENGLISH INTERFERENCE
WITH
IRISH INDUSTRIES.
BY
J. G. SWIFT MACNEILL, M.A.,
CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD; BARRISTER-AT-LAW, PROFESSOR OF
CONSTITUTIONAL AND CRIMINAL LAW IN THE HONOURABLE SOCIETY OF THE
KING'S INNS, DUBLIN; AND AUTHOR OF "THE IRISH PARLIAMENT: WHAT IT
WAS, AND WHAT IT DID."
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
1886.
[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.]
PREFACE.
Agriculture is at the present time almost the only industry in Ireland.
This fact has frequently been noticed and deplored. Public men of
widely different views on other matters agree in their estimate of
Ireland's economic condition, of which they give but one explanation.
Thus Mr. Gladstone, on the introduction of the Irish Land Bill in
April, 1881, spoke of "that old and standing evil of Ireland, that
land-hunger, which must not be described as if it were merely an
infirmity of the people for it, and really means land scarcity."[1]
"In Ireland," says Mr. Bright, "land, from certain causes that are
not difficult to discover, is the only thing for the employment of
the people, with the exception of some portion of the country in the
North; the income for the maintenance of their homes, and whatever
comfort they have, or prospect of saving money for themselves or their
families, comes from the cultivation of the soil, and scarcely at
all from those various resources to which the people of England have
recourse in the course of their industrial lives."[2]
"It is generally admitted, I think, on both sides of the House,"
Mr. Bright observes in another debate, "that in discussing the Irish
question one fact must always be kept in mind--that is, that apart
from the land of Ireland there are few, if any, means of subsistence
for the population, and, consequently, there has always been for its
possession an exceptional and unnatural demand. This, again, has led
to most serious abuses, including nearly all those constant causes of
trouble and complaint we are for ever hearing of in Ireland."[3]
"The truth is," says Mr. Chaplin, from his place in the House of
Commons, "that the English Parliament and the English people are mainly
responsible for those conditions of the country which have driven
the people to the land, and the land alone, for their support. It
was not always so; there were other industries in Ireland in former
days, which flourished, and flourished to a considerable extent, until
they first aroused, and were afterwards suppressed by, the selfish
fears and commercial jealousy of England--England, who was alarmed
at a rivalry and competition that she dreaded at the hands and from
the resources and energy of the Irish people."[4] "I am convinced
that it is in the history of these cruel laws that lies the secret of
that fatal competition for the land, in which--and it may well be a
just retribution upon us--the source of all the troubles and all the
difficulties that you have to deal with will be found."[5]
"To understand the Irish land question of to-day," writes Sir C.
Russell, the present Attorney-General for England, "it is necessary
to look back. I have no desire needlessly to rake up bygone wrongs. I
wish to Heaven the Irish people could forget the past. For them it is
in the main a melancholy retrospect. But England ought not to forget
the past--until, at least, a great act of reparation has been done.
Even among men of some education in England, remarkable ignorance of
the evil wrought in past times by England towards Ireland prevails.
There is, indeed, a vague general impression that in very remote
times England, when engaged in the endeavour to conquer Ireland, was
guilty of cruelties, as most conquering nations are, but that those
things have done very little harm; that their effects have ceased to
tell, and that the only purpose served by keeping alive their memory
is to irritate the temper of the Irish people and prompt them to look
back rather than look forward. Emphatically I say this is not so. The
effects have not ceased. It is not too much to say that Ireland and
Irishmen of to-day are such as English government has made them." Sir
Charles Russell then proceeds to place foremost among "the agencies
employed by England which have left enduring evil marks upon Ireland,"
"the direct legislation avowedly contrived to hinder the development of
Irish commerce and manufactures."[6]
"If people felt impatient with the Irish," said Mr. Fawcett, addressing
a political meeting at Shoreditch on November 2nd, 1881, "they should
remember that the Irish were, to a great extent, what England had made
them. If there were some Irishmen now displaying bitter hostility to
England, it should be remembered that for a long time Ireland had been
treated as if she had been a hostile or a foreign country. A mass of
vexatious restrictions were imposed on her industry, and it was thought
that if any branch of Irish trade interfered with English profits,
that branch of Irish trade was immediately to be discouraged. For a
long time, for instance, to please the agricultural interests of this
country, the importation of live cattle from Ireland was absolutely
prohibited."
These statements of leading public men are strong evidence of the
far-reaching effects upon Ireland of a system which Mr. John Morley,
writing on a literary topic, has not hesitated to designate as "the
atrocious fiscal policy of Great Britain,"[7] and for which Earl
Cowper, speaking at Belfast as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, could find
no gentler adjectives than "unjust and iniquitous."[8]
In the following pages I propose to exhibit summarily the material
injuries inflicted upon Ireland by the commercial or anti-commercial
arrangements of Great Britain. With this view, I will endeavour to
sketch in outline the political relations of Ireland to Great Britain
which rendered such arrangements possible (Chap. I.); the principal
laws made by the English Parliament in restraint of Irish trade stating
them in a plain and popular manner (Chap. II.); the opposition of the
English Government to the efforts of the Irish Parliament to promote
Irish trade (Chap. III.); the immediate effects of English legislation
on Irish trade (Chap. IV.); the Irish Volunteer Movement and free trade
(Chap. V.); the commercial arrangements between Great Britain and
Ireland, 1782-1800 (Chap. VI.); the commercial arrangements effected
between Great Britain and Ireland by the Act of Legislative Union
(Chap. VII.).
In this inquiry I will, as far as possible, confine myself to an
examination of the statutes, which will speak for themselves; to
the journals of the Parliaments of England and Ireland; and to the
statements of contemporary speakers and writers whose accuracy has not,
so far as I am aware, been impeached.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Hansard, 260, Third Series, p. 893.
[2] Hansard, 261, Third Series, p. 96.
[3] Hansard, 261, Third Series, pp. 831, 832.
[4] Hansard, 261, Third Series, P. 851.
[5] Hansard, 261, Third Series, p. 853.
[6] "New Views on Ireland," by C. Russell, Q.C., M.P., pp. 83, 84.
[7] "English Men of Letters"--"Edmund Burke," by John Morley, p. 76.
[8] _Freeman's Journal_, Nov. 24th, 1881.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
THE POLITICAL RELATIONS OF IRELAND TO GREAT BRITAIN 13
CHAPTER II.
ENGLISH LEGISLATION IN RESTRAINT OF IRISH TRADE 16
CHAPTER III.
ENGLISH OPPOSITION TO EFFORTS OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT
IN FAVOUR OF IRISH TRADE 42
CHAPTER IV.
THE IMMEDIATE EFFECTS OF ENGLISH LEGISLATION ON IRISH
TRADE 56
CHAPTER V.
THE IRISH VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT AND FREE TRADE 74
CHAPTER VI.
THE COMMERCIAL ARRANGEMENTS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND
IRELAND, 1782-1800 91
CHAPTER VII.
THE COMMERCIAL ARRANGEMENTS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND
IRELAND EFFECTED BY THE ACT OF LEGISLATIVE UNION 104
ENGLISH INTERFERENCE
WITH
IRISH INDUSTRIES.
CHAPTER I.
THE POLITICAL RELATIONS OF IRELAND TO GREAT BRITAIN.
The interference of the English Government with Irish trade before
1782 was twofold, direct and indirect. The direct interference arose
from statutes passed in the English Parliament in restraint of Irish
commerce. The indirect interference arose from the influence of the
English Government over the legislation of the Irish Parliament, under
the provisions of the statute known as Poynings' Act.
"From the admitted dependence," says Mr. Butt, "of the Crown of Ireland
upon that of England, arose the claim of the English Parliament to
legislate for Ireland. Over all the colonies and dependencies of the
British Crown, the British Parliament had exercised the right of
legislation. Over Ireland they asserted the same right. I need not tell
you how fiercely it was contested, and that it was finally abandoned
in 1782. But, up to 1782, the right was asserted, and occasionally
exercised."[9]
These English statutes were chiefly aimed against the Irish
manufactures, and were, of course, clear violations of Ireland's
Parliamentary independence. The 6th Geo. I. passed by the English
Parliament[10] claimed the power of British legislation over Ireland, a
power which had been exercised long previously. "If that power," said
Mr. O'Connell, "so claimed, had really existed, where was the necessity
for passing that statute? and while this Act proclaims the slavery of
Ireland, it admits the pre-existence of freedom."[11]
The nature and effects of Poynings' Act, and the control given to
the English Government by its provisions over Irish legislation, are
thus concisely stated by Mr. Butt: "To complete our view of the Irish
Parliament, we must remember that by an Act of that Parliament itself a
most important restriction was placed upon its legislative powers. By
an Irish Act of Parliament, passed in the reign of Henry VII., in the
year 1495, it was enacted that no bill should be presented to the Irish
Parliament until the heads of it had been submitted to the English
Privy Council, and certified as approved of under the Great Seal of
England. This law is known as Poynings' Law, from the name of the
person who was Lord Deputy when it was passed. This law was a matter
entirely distinct from any claim of the English Parliament to legislate
for Ireland; it was a law of the Irish Parliament itself, passed by
the King, Lords, and Commons of Ireland, deriving its authority from
a source entirely independent of the English claim, and continuing in
force when that claim was abandoned. The original law required the
assent of the English Privy Council to be given to the intended bill
before Parliament met. In the reign of Queen Mary it was modified so as
to admit of that assent being given while Parliament was sitting; but
that assent was still necessary to authorise the introduction of the
bill. With this modification the law of Poynings continued in force up
to 1782."[12]
We see, accordingly, that England claimed or exercised direct
legislative control in her own Parliament over Ireland; while no
Irish bills could become law or, indeed, in strictness, be introduced
into the Irish Parliament without the sanction of the English Privy
Council.[13]
"Ireland," says Mr. Froude, "was regarded as a colony to be
administered, not for her own benefit, but for the convenience of the
mother country."[14]
FOOTNOTES:
[9] "Proceedings of the Home Rule Conference," 1873, p. 8.
[10] 6 Geo. I., c. 5 (Eng.).
[11] "Report of the Discussion in the Dublin Corporation on Repeal of
the Union," 1843, p. 23.
[12] "Proceedings of the Home Rule Conference," 1873, pp. 8, 9.
[13] For further account of the constitution and powers of the Irish
Parliament, see "The Irish Parliament: What it Was, and What it Did,"
by J. G. Swift MacNeill, published by Cassell & Company, Limited.
[14] "English in Ireland," vol. i., p. 178.