THE IRISH VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT AND FREE TRADE.
The nature and effects of the Irish Volunteer Movement have often
been stated and explained. I can only touch upon this movement in a
very cursory manner, confining myself strictly to its bearings on the
commercial arrangements between Great Britain and Ireland. A very
superficial study of Irish history will show that national movements
have a tendency to grow out of controversies on trade and mercantile
questions. Thus the destruction of the woollen trade by the English
Parliament led Irish politicians to question the right of that
Parliament to legislate for Ireland at all. William Molyneux, in his
celebrated "Case of Ireland stated," published in 1698, asks, "Shall
we of this kingdom be denied the birthright of every free-born English
subject by having laws imposed on us when we are neither personally
nor representatively present?"[121] "That book," says Chief Justice
Whiteside, "met with a fate which it did not deserve. The English
Parliament ordered that it should be burned, and thereby much increased
the estimation in which it was held in Ireland."[122] Thus, too, the
agitation against Wood's half-pence, a purely commercial topic, assumed
insensibly a national complexion. In his fourth Drapier's letter, Swift
changes the controversy into an examination of Ireland's political
condition. "The remedy," he says, "is wholly in your own hands, and
therefore I have digressed a little in order to refresh and continue
that spirit so seasonably raised among you, and to let you see that by
the laws of God, of nature, and of nations, and of your country, you
are and ought to be as free a people as your brethren in England."[123]
Swift's prosecution by the Government of the day and its failure are
well known. Lord Chief Justice Whiteside thus comments on his public
conduct. "Had there been a few in the Irish Parliament possessed of the
originality, energy, honesty, and capacity of Swift, the management
of political affairs and the true interests of the country would have
been speedily improved instead of being shamefully neglected. Swift
created a public opinion; Swift inspired hope, courage, and a spirit of
justifiable resistance in the people; Swift taught Irishmen they had
a country to love, to raise, and to cherish. No man who recalls the
affectionate respect paid by his countrymen to Swift while he lived, to
his memory when dead, can impute political ingratitude to be amongst
the vices of the Irish people."[124]
Then, again, besides actively disputing England's right to destroy
the trade and manufactures of the country, there was another remedy
which lay in the people's own hands. They could, by the exercise of
self-control, use Irish manufactures alone.
"England," says Mr. Froude, "might lay a veto on every healthy
effort of parliamentary legislation; but England could not touch the
self-made laws which the conscience and spirit of the nation might
impose upon themselves." Hely Hutchinson has pointed out, that "the
not importing goods from England is one of the remedies recommended
by the Council of Trade in 1676 for alleviating some distress that
was felt at the time; and Sir William Temple, a zealous friend to the
trade and manufactures of England, recommends to Lord Essex, then
Lord Lieutenant, to introduce, as far as can be, a vein of parsimony
throughout the country in all things that are not perfectly the native
growths and manufactures. The people of England cannot reasonably
object to a conduct of which they have given a memorable example. In
1697 the English House of Lords presented an Address to King William
to discourage the use and wearing of all sorts of furniture and cloths
not of the growth and manufacture of that kingdom, and beseech him,
by his royal example, effectually to encourage the use and wearing of
all sorts of furniture and wearing cloths that are the growth of that
kingdom or manufactured there; and King William assures them that he
would give the example to his subjects, and would endeavour to make
it effectually followed. The reason assigned by the Lords for this
Address was that the trade of the nation had suffered by the late long
and expensive war. But it does not appear that there was any pressing
necessity at the time, or that their manufacturers were starving for
want of employment.
"Common sense must discover to every man that when foreign trade is
restrained, discouraged, or prevented in any country, and where that
country has the materials for manufactures, a fruitful soil, and
numerous inhabitants, the home trade is its best resource. If this
is thought by men of great knowledge to be the most valuable of all
trades, because it makes the speediest and surest returns, and because
it increases at the same time two capitals in the same country, there
is no nation on the globe whose wealth, population, strength, and
happiness would be promoted by such a trade in a greater degree than
ours."[125]
The author of the "Commercial Restraints" was a barrister of great
eminence, who had been Prime Serjeant, was a member of the Irish
Privy Council, Principal Secretary of State, and Provost of Trinity
College, and a distinguished member of the Irish Parliament. This
book, however, obtained a reception similar to that accorded to the
"Case of Ireland," and the fourth Drapier's letter. In the fly-leaf
of the copy in the Library of the Honourable Society of the King's
Inns, which I have utilised in arranging this treatise, there are the
following observations:--"Of this remarkable book see the _Times_ of
February 14, 1846. Extract of a letter of Sir Valentine Blake, M.P. for
Galway, in which he says, 'that immediately after its publication it
was suppressed, and burned by the common hangman, and that Mr. Flood,
in his place in the House of Commons, said he would give one thousand
pounds for a copy, and that the libraries of all the three branches of
the Legislature could not procure one copy of this valuable work.'"
The editor of a new edition tells us that there are two copies of the
work in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, both of which have been
recently obtained, and from one of them the reprint is taken.[126]
When Hely Hutchinson, in 1779, advocated "the necessity of using our
own manufactures," he stated with accuracy that such arguments, though
never so universal as at that time, were no new idea in Ireland. It had
been recommended half a century before by Swift, and the celebrated
Bishop Berkeley. "I heard," said Swift, writing in 1720, "the late
Archbishop of Tuam (Dr. John Vesey) make a pleasant observation that
Ireland would never be happy till a law was made for burning everything
that came from England, except their people and their coals."[127]
Again, in 1727, he says, "The directions to Ireland are very short and
simple, to encourage agriculture and home consumption, and utterly
discard all importations that are not absolutely necessary for health
or life."[128] Bishop Berkeley, in the "Querist," published in 1731,
asks these questions, which show clearly his views:--"Whether there
be upon the earth any Christian or civilised people so beggarly
wretched or destitute as the common Irish? Whether, nevertheless,
there is any other people whose wants may be more easily supplied from
home?"[129] This advice was acted on by the Irish people "after fifty
years of expectation." "A great figure," says Chief Justice Whiteside,
"now appears upon the stage of public life--Henry Grattan, who took
his seat for Charlemont in December, 1775, and began his splendid,
though chequered career. The condition of Ireland at this epoch was
deplorable. Her industry was shackled, her trade was paralysed, her
landed interest was depressed, her exchequer empty, her pension list
enormous, her shores undefended, her army withdrawn. The policy and
maxims of Swift were revived, a spirit of discontent and a spirit of
independence pervaded the nation; the colonies had revolted, republican
ideas were afloat in the world, and Ireland was menaced with invasion.
The Government, on being applied to for troops, declared they had none
to spare, and that Ireland must protect herself. The Volunteer Movement
then commenced, and, to the amazement of ministers, they soon stood
face to face with an armed nation."[130]
Mr. Froude draws this picture of the condition of Ireland in 1779.
"The grand juries represented that the fields and highways were filled
with crowds of wretched beings half naked and starving. Foreign
markets were closed to them. The home market was destroyed by internal
distress, and the poor artisans who had supported themselves by weaving
were without work and without food. They had bought English goods as
long as they had the means to buy them. Now in their time of dire
distress they had hoped the English Parliament would be their friend.
They learnt with pain and surprise that the only boon which could give
them relief was still withheld. They besought the king to interpose
in their favour, and procure them leave to export and sell at least
the coarse frieze blankets and flannels, which the peasants' wives and
children produced in their cabins. Eloquence and entreaty were alike
in vain. The English Parliament, though compelled at least to listen
to the truth, could not yet bend itself to act upon it. The House of
Commons still refused to open the woollen trade in whole or in part,
and Ireland, now desperate and determined, and treading ominously
in the steps of America, adopted the measures which long before had
been recommended by Swift, and resolved to exclude from the Irish
market every article of British manufacture which could be produced at
home."[131]
The Earl of Shelburne, speaking in the British House of Lords on the
1st of December, 1779, thus described the attitude of Ireland:--
"Ireland disclaimed any connection with Great Britain, she instantly
put herself in a condition of defence against her foreign enemies;
oppressed at one time by England, and at length reduced to a state
of calamity and distress experienced by no other country that ever
existed, unless visited by war or famine, and perceiving that all
prospect of justice or relief was in a manner finally closed, and that
she must perish or work out her own salvation, she united as one man to
rescue herself from that approaching destruction which seemed to await
her. The people instantly armed themselves and the numbers armed soon
increased to upwards of 40,000 men, and were daily augmenting. This
most formidable body was not composed of mercenaries, who had little
or no interest in the issue, but of the nobility, gentry, merchants,
citizens, and respectable yeomanry, men able and willing to devote
their time and part of their property to the defence of the whole and
the protection and security of their country. The Government had been
abdicated and the people resumed the powers vested in it, and in doing
so were fully authorised by every principle of the Constitution, and
every motive of self-preservation, and whenever they should again
delegate their inherent power they firmly and wisely determined to
have it so regulated and placed upon so large and liberal a basis
that they should not be liable to suffer from the same oppression
in time to come, nor feel the fatal effects and complicated evils
of maladministration, of calamity without hope of redress, or of
iron-handed power without protection.
"To prove that these were the declared and real sentiments of the
whole Irish nation, he should not dwell upon this or that particular
circumstance, upon the resolutions of country or town meetings, upon
the language of the associations, upon the general prevalent spirit of
all descriptions of men of all religions; matters of this kind, however
true or manifest, were subject to and might admit of controversy. He
would solely confine himself to a passage contained in a State paper,
he meant the Address of both Houses of the Irish Parliament, declaring
that nothing but the granting the kingdom a 'free trade' could save it
from certain ruin. Here was the united voice of the country conveyed
through its proper constitutional organs, both Houses of Parliament,
to his Majesty, against which there was but one dissentient voice in
the Houses, not a second, he believed, in the whole kingdom. Church
of England men and Roman Catholics, Dissenters, and sections of all
denominations, Whigs and Tories, if any such were to be found in
Ireland, placemen, pensioners, and county gentlemen, Englishmen by
birth, in short, every man in and out of the House, except the single
instance mentioned, had all united in a single opinion that nothing
would relieve the country short of a free trade."[132]
His lordship proceeds to explain the meaning of the expression "free
trade," which was used in a sense different from the modern acceptation
of that term:--
"A free trade, he was well persuaded, by no means imported an equal
trade. He had many public and private reasons to think so. A free
trade imported, in his opinion, an unrestrained trade to every part
of the world, independent of the control, regulation, or interference
of the British Legislature. It was not a speculative proposition,
confined to theory or mere matter of argument; the people of Ireland
had explained the context, if any ambiguity called for such an
explanation; he received accounts from Ireland that a trade was opened
between the northern part of Ireland and North America with the privity
of Congress, and indemnification from capture by our enemies; that
provision ships had sailed to the same place--nay, more, that Doctor
Franklyn, the American Minister at Paris, had been furnished with full
power to treat with Ireland upon regulations of commerce and mutual
interest and support, and that whether or not any such treaty should
take place, the mutual interests of both countries, their very near
affinity in blood, and their established intercourse, cemented farther
by the general advantages arising from an open and unrestrained trade
between them, would necessarily perfect what had already actually
begun."[133]
Mr. Lecky thus accurately and distinctly describes the nature of the
commercial arrangements under which Ireland obtained the limited free
trade which she enjoyed, with some modifications, till the Union:--
"The fear of bankruptcy in Ireland; the non-importation agreements,
which were beginning to tell upon English industries; the threatening
aspect of an armed body, which already counted more than 40,000 men;
the determined and unanimous attitude of the Irish Parliament; the
prediction of the Lord-Lieutenant that all future military grants
in Ireland depended upon his (Lord North's) course; the danger that
England, in the midst of a great and disastrous war, should be left
absolutely without a friend, all weighed upon his mind; and at the
close of 1779, and in the beginning of 1780, a series of measures
was carried in England which exceeded the utmost that a few years
before the most sanguine Irishman could have either expected or
demanded. The Acts which prohibited the Irish from exporting their
woollen manufactures and their glass were wholly repealed, and the
great trade of the colonies was freely thrown open to them. It was
enacted that all goods that might be legally imported from the British
settlements in America and Africa to Great Britain, may be in like
manner imported directly from those settlements into Ireland, and that
all goods which may be legally exported from Great Britain into those
settlements may in like manner be exported from Ireland, on the sole
condition that duties equal to those in British ports be imposed by the
Irish Parliament on the goods and exports of Ireland. The Acts which
prohibited carrying gold and silver into Ireland were repealed. The
Irish were allowed to import foreign hops. They were allowed to become
members of the Turkey Company, and to carry on a direct trade between
Ireland and the Levant Sea.[134]
"Thus fell to the ground that great system of commercial restriction
which began under Charles II., which under William III. acquired a
crushing severity, and which had received several additional clauses
in the succeeding reigns. The measures of Lord North, though obviously
due in a great measure to intimidation and extreme necessity, were at
least largely, wisely, and generously conceived, and they were the main
sources of whatever material prosperity Ireland enjoyed during the next
twenty years. The English Parliament had been accustomed to grant a
small bounty--rising in the best years to £13,000--on the importation
into England of the plainer kinds of Irish linen. After the immense
concessions made to Irish trade, no one could have complained if this
bounty had been withdrawn, but North determined to continue it. He
showed that it had been of real use to the Irish linen manufacture, and
he strongly maintained that the prosperity of Ireland must ultimately
prove a blessing to England."[135]
Speaking at the Guildhall in Bristol in 1780, Edmund Burke thus
described the concessions to Ireland and the series of circumstances to
which these measures owed their origin:--
"The whole kingdom of Ireland was instantly in a flame. Threatened by
foreigners, and, as they thought, insulted by England, they resolved at
once to resist the power of France and to cast off yours. As for us,
we were able neither to protect nor to restrain them. Forty thousand
men were raised and disciplined without commission from the Crown;
two illegal armies were seen with banners displayed at the same time
and in the same country. No executive magistrate, no judicature in
Ireland, would acknowledge the legality of the army which bore the
King's commission, and no law or appearance of law authorised the army
commissioned by itself. In this unexampled state of things, which the
least error, the least trespass on our part would have hurried down the
precipice into an abyss of blood and confusion, the people of Ireland
demanded a freedom of trade with arms in their hands. They interdict
all commerce between the two nations; they deny all new Supply in
the House of Commons, although in time of war; they stint the trust
of the old revenue given for two years to all the King's predecessors
to six months. The British Parliament, in a former session frightened
into a limited concession by the menaces of Ireland, frightened out
of it by the menaces of England, were now frightened back again, and
made an universal surrender of all that had been thought the peculiar,
reserved, uncommunicable rights of England--the exclusive commerce of
America, of Africa, of the West Indies, all the enumerations of the
Acts of Navigation, all the manufactures--iron, glass, even the sacred
fleece itself--all went together. No reserve, no exception, no debate,
no discussion. A sudden light broke in upon us all. It broke in, not
through well-contrived and well-disposed windows, but through flaws
and breaches, through the yawning chasms of our ruin. We were taught
wisdom by humiliation. No town in England presumed to have a prejudice
or dared to mutter a petition. What was worse, the whole Parliament
of England, which retained authority for nothing but surrenders, was
despoiled of every shadow of its superintendence. It was, without
any qualification, denied in theory as it had been trampled upon in
practice."[136]
"The chain," says Mr. Froude, "was allowed to remain till it was broken
by the revolt of the American colonies, and Ireland was to learn the
deadly lesson that her real wrongs would receive attention only when
England was compelled to remember them through fear."[137]
The commercial privileges thus obtained would have been practically
valueless unless accompanied with legislative independence. I have
explained the system by which measures proposed by the Irish Parliament
were robbed of their efficiency by the action of the English and Irish
Privy Councils. "To prevent," says Mr. Froude, "the Irish Parliament
from being troublesome, it was chained by Poynings' Act; and when the
Parliament was recalcitrant, laws were passed by England over its
head." At this time the English Privy Council actively exercised its
influence on the commercial legislation of the Irish Parliament. "The
business of sugar-refining had recently taken great head in Ireland,
and the Irish Parliament sought to defend it against the English
monopoly by an import duty on refined sugar; while they sought to give
it a fair stimulus by admitting raw sugar at a low rate. This the Privy
Council reversed, reducing the duty on refined sugar 20 per cent. under
the drawback allowed in England to the English refiner on export, and
thereby giving the latter a virtual premium to that amount, and also
increasing the duty on the raw sugar. The time was ill-chosen for
further invasions on Irish rights."[138] "Several minor circumstances
concurred to exasperate the Irish people still further, and to render
irrevocable and, soon after, irresistible, their determination to have
a free Parliament, without which they said they never could obtain
the extension of their trade amongst other benefits sought, nor even
be sure of preserving what had been conceded to them."[139] Chief
Justice Whiteside has given, in a few words, this spirited and accurate
description of the attainment of Irish legislative independence--"Down
went Poynings' Law, useful in its day; down went the Act of Philip
and Mary; down went the obnoxious statute of George I.; the Mutiny
Bill was limited; restrictions on Irish trade vanished; the ports were
opened; the Judges were made irremovable and independent. I cannot join
in the usual exultation at the proceedings of the volunteers; on the
contrary, I regret their occurrence. Not that I think the resolutions
carried at Dungannon were in themselves unjust; not that I would
hesitate to claim for Ireland all the rights possessed by our English
fellow-subjects; but because all these inestimable advantages were not
granted by the wisdom of the Government, through the recognised channel
of Parliament, and were carried at the point of the bayonet. The
precedent was dangerous. Had Walpole been alive he would have repented
his blunder in listening to Primate Boulter, and refusing to be advised
by the counsels of Swift. But the deed was done."[140] On the 16th of
April, 1782, in the Irish House of Commons, Grattan thus expressed his
high-wrought enthusiasm:--
"I found Ireland on her knees. I watched over her with an eternal
solicitude. I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from
arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your genius has
prevailed. Ireland is now a nation. In that new character I hail her,
and bowing in her august presence, I say, Esto Perpetua."[141]
FOOTNOTES:
[121] Reg. _v._ O'Connell, p. 533. This observation was made by Mr.
(afterwards Chief Justice) Whiteside in his speech in defence of Mr.
(now Sir C. Gavan) Duffy, in the State Trials, 1844.
[122] "Case of Ireland," p. 105.
[123] Swift's Works (Scott's Edition), vol. vi., p. 448.
[124] "Life and Death of the Irish Parliament," p. 89.
[125] "Commercial Restraints," pp. 211-213.
[126] "Commercial Restraints," re-edited, with sketch of the author's
life, introduction, notes, and index, by Rev. W. G. Carroll, M.A.
Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son.
[127] Swift's Works (Scott's Edition), vol. vi., p. 275.
[128] _Ibid._, vol. vii., p. 182.
[129] "Tracts and Treatises" (Ireland), 2, p. 161.
[130] "Life and Death of the Irish Parliament," p. 125.
[131] "English in Ireland," ii. 239, 240.
[132] The dissentient voice was that of Sir R. Heron, Secretary to the
Lord-Lieutenant.
[133] "Parliamentary Debates," 14, pp. 83-85.
[134] 20 Geo, III. (Eng.), cc. 6, 10, 18.
[135] "Eighteenth Century," iv. 500, 501. Some commercial concessions
which were, however, manifestly insufficient, had been previously
granted. See "Eighteenth Century," iv., pp. 429, 430, 451.
[136] Edmund Burke on "Irish Affairs," edited by M. Arnold, pp. 129,
130.
[137] "English in Ireland," vol. ii., p. 104.
[138] "An Argument for Ireland," by J. O'Connell, M.P., p. 171.
[139] "An Argument for Ireland," p. 172.
[140] "Life and Death of the Irish Parliament," p. 126.
[141] Grattan's "Speeches," i. 183.